Manhood (Part Two)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewey-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe."   -Sam Harris  

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

Sorry, I've got to continue my letter to Anomy.

Dear Anomy,

In part one I discussed the fact that I came up in a much more structured environment than you. What I was getting at was, well, I'm trying to answer a question.

"He's been walking along the edge of the cliff for a while now, which is normal and to be expected. Was he consciously waiting to turn 18 so he could jump off with minimal familial restraints and legal complications?"


Before I go on let me acknowledge that your situation undoubtedly seems much worse to us than it does to you. In spite of a normal amount of insecurities -- acknowledged or otherwise -- paradoxically, it's also normal for you to feel like you're bulletproof, ten feet tall, and you have all the time in the world.

We (you know who we are) felt that way too; we learned many lessons the hard way. Knowing that, since we love you and worry about you, we fear you might make even bigger mistakes than we did, perhaps one that you can't come back from. A second cousin of yours who has been locked away for a very long time comes immediately to mind.

I know, I know... we can't help it, we're grups, we worry. But no one would've predicted that what happened to him, would happen to him.


Monkeys & Cliffs
A while back, when you were enduring/surviving middle school I repeatedly pointed out to you that H. sapiens are (hopefully) high functioning primates. This was to teach you why -- since you were part of a troop of young, male H. sapiens, whose brains wouldn't mature (maybe...) for another decade or so and factoring in the power of DNA and testosterone -- you were witnessing insanity on a daily basis. Ooh-ooh, ah-ah! as the evil step-twins used to say.

For the record, I never said that that's as good as it gets.

I pointed out that in high school there would be glimmers of hope. That after that the glimmer would get brighter and that by the time you, and most of your contemporaries, reached the age of 25 or so you would find yourself living in a different word.

That the secret, at that point, was to keep piling up wisdom points as you aged, and to never stop. To keep evolving and never become a frozen caricature of a younger version of yourself, a disturbingly common fate for many.

"Wait a sec' I don't remember you saying most of that I..."

That's because I devilishly came at you mostly indirectly, and tried to teach by example as much as possible, the best way to try and teach almost anyone almost anything about this sort of thing.

The bad news is my devious plan seems to have failed.


Your position is that the world is being run by dumb monkeys and that at least you have the wisdom to acknowledge this and have decided to leap off the cliff and be done with it. What's worth striving for in a world of dumb, often evil, monkeys? The smart money's on "Eat, drink (smoke weed), and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

Everyone suffers a series of kicks in the crotch in the course of their gradual transformation from innocent child to a grup that has to live in the real world. You started early, when your Nana died -- and you're smarter and more sensitive than you realize and/or let on.

Cases in point: the average child doesn't get seriously pissed off because his loved ones have been lying to him when he finds out there's no Santa.

Particularly the kid, not long before that, who looked at me like I was a moron when I asked if he enjoyed shaking the Easter Bunny's hand and said, "That wasn't the Easter Bunny, that was just some guy in a suit, I could feel his fingers through the costume." Just sayin'.


Yes, there's no shortage of dumb and evil monkeys in the world but you're overreacting to discovering that fact. You're using it as an excuse to embrace cynicism, worse yet, nihilism, a potentially fatal cultural virus that's currently considered cool and has gained control of the DNA of our -- everything's entertainment and the circus is always on -- society.

Wikipedia: "Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value."

Trust me on this, self-medicating won't kill this bug. My next letter will tell you what does. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 

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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there almost daily.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the [I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 1 author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Manhood (Part One)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all." -Camille Paglia


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

This letter is addressed to a specific individual (who shall remain nameless) who knows who they are and why I'm writing this. For the duration of this letter, they will be called Anonmy (short for anonymous) 'cause it's vaguely humorous (humy?) and I'm all about finding the humy in a given situation.


Dear Anomy,

Believe it or not, I get it. All male H. sapiens between (roughly speaking) the ages of 16 and 25 have to deal with what you're dealing with. Always have, always will. The age of the onset and the end of this particular stage varies. For some, it starts earlier, as in your case. For some, it ends later but not, I predict, in your case.

I refer to the transition from boy to man. The age range I've chosen isn't based on a particular study I'm going to link to...

Big But
Studies do report that males, roughly betwixt the ages of 16 and 25 commit the most homicides. The whys and wherefores depend on who you ask.

Settled science (and Simon) says that the average H. sapiens brain isn't fully developed till about the age of 25, particularly the area of the brain responsible for inhibiting impulses and making smart decisions.

Interestingly, car insurance companies seem to have figured this out before science officially did.

As hard as it probably is for you to fathom, I was once 16 to 25. Been there, done that. For some, it never really seems to end. Fortunately, for most of those sorts, the problem slowly fades to grey if they manage to stay alive and out of jail, and they mellow out considerably with age.

Finally, these are the peak years of your callowyute stage. While that's perfectly normal, until you advance to early gruphood you're as incapable of fully grasping your situation as a 6-year-old is as incapable of grasping what it will be like to be 16.

For the record, there are some wildly misinformed, narrow-minded souls loose in the world that maintain to this day that my callowyute period lasted into my early thirties. In my defense... nevermind, it's extremely complicated.


As I said, I went through it, but under much different circumstances than the ones you are experiencing. Although the American culture had begun fragmenting it was still early days. I was raised by parents that had survived WW2 and the Great Depression, an experience that left them humbled and grateful. They managed to impart a little of this to me when I was a callowyute; I've (ever so slowly) learned, and verified, the lessons life taught them since.

They could only dream about the lifestyle that you and I take for granted. They would be absolutely delighted, were they still around, that their sacrifices helped to make the life you and I live possible.

When I was coming up, America was still very much a Judeo-Christian nation that (mostly/more or less) believed in (some version of) God and a set of personal Rules&Regs that are more or less summarized by the Ten Commandments.

This way of being, seeing and living was pounded into me (occasionally literally) by Sister Mary McGillicuddy, Father Bing Crosby, and their crew, in the course of my eight years of Catholic Grade schooling at Our Lady of Sorrows elementary school. Although I was incapable of appreciating the firm foundation I stood on as a kid, I do now.


You, on the other hand, are a product of postmodern America and America's postmodern, politically correct public education system.

Teachers unions. Gummit Rules&Regs that just keep on coming. A hooge horde of professional bureaucrats to enforce said Rules&Regs. Platoons of pussified parents (and their lawyers) perpetually protecting Paul, Polly, and Per (short for Person) from potential triggering by everdamnthing. More lawyers. And saints preserve us, anti-vaxxers.

You, on the other hand, are the product of glowing screens that don't play the Star Spangled Banner when it's time for all good people to go to bed, tell you good night, and sign off till morning. Of course, it's too early to accurately predict the long-term effects, if any, of 24x7 electronic media access. We were told we were doomed 'cause of all the TV we watched. I had several moms besides the real one. Donna Reed, Ozzie's wife (not the one you're thinking of), Mrs. Cleaver, and Josie Carey (among others, look 'em up if you're interested).

I used to think that your generation's version of rock-n'-roll (call it what you want, "...it's still rock-n'-roll to me") was probably going to cause brain damage. But Rock was to Swing as Rap is to Rock. That is to say, the current version of the same concept. If your parent's music doesn't suck, at least till you're old enough to appreciate its few redeeming qualities, you may, not necessarily but you may, have "issues" (GRIN).

On the other hand... Oh, crap, wait a sec'. One, two, three, four... Yup, I'm already over the word limit. I'll have to continue this next week. Poppa loves you.

(To be continued...)

Have an OK day. 

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

For details, click here.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there almost daily.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.]