Why men are in trouble!

After reading the article on CNN.com about Why men are in trouble I want to share with you Bronkeys....
This comes from personal experience and allot of self searching and observing myself.

The act in itself, the fire, the urge to seek out adventure, to wander to explore, to challenge another man, to do something over and over without being afraid that you fail, without the fear of dieing, (literatly) being in control of absolute chaos! That is what is making us men, real men.


Video games offer allot of this elements. In the last 20 years or so it have become a "safe" thing to do. Parents of boys have bought them this type of entertainment, and they would use statements like "it keep the boys out of trouble" "it keep them from wrong friends" . I can remember the time me and my brothers were introduced to our first Nintendo (it was called something else back then) with Mario brothers, F1 racing, Balloon fight, Battle city just to mention a few and of course me and my brothers favored, CONTRA as it were a 2 player game . We even had a game based on the TV cartoon Ducktails! It was really the beginning of the information age for us, we loved the 2 player games and would blast the hell out of each other!

Look I am not bitching and moaning about video games, I just think we sould rather have gone out and played more in the real world, like we did to a more extent in the real world. That would have been more healthy.
But you see things were all a combination of allot of factors, Firstly my parents for instance (both had grown up on farms) didnt had the sickness of society braught into their living rooms every night, that dulled and blunded their emotions, by means of TV. BTW TV came to South africa only in 1976. So by the time me and my brothers grew up I am sure our parents were already to some extent to "brainwashed" by the hate, violence, crime riots and badness of the world that have been exposed to them. I can remember vividly that me Driaan and Maruis use to play video games, and we just want to "get to the next stage so badly" and by times we would get very upset if my parents want to watch the News at 7 at night.
The fact of the whole thing were, although our parents figured it would keep us out of trouble, and saw us sitting still and playing games, just sometimes to their frustration, we were just NOT THERE, Our minds were in the game, It is the perfect escape, but very unhealthy.
You see, as long as we create imaginary paralleled worlds for ourselves, the nature our minds are, we are ignoring our consequences of our actions, politicking, following others that will become corrupt as they gain more power and surrender more power that in actual fact are our own. This is in real terms what is happening to the crisis in masculinity, this have been a element for thousands of years, and it it dangerously reaching a critical point now in a world filled with all kinds of information to confuse everyone around! Humans are very very susceptible to this brainwashing/ programming, subtle as it is. All one have too do is to direct a thought and everything will follow in accosiation from previous day dreaming..... Like a video game spawning the same stuff in different locations with different actions. You become dead, depressed and unconnected. The only way I see for boys to become connected it through interaction physically with other men, gaming in the real world with real people you can touch, feel, smell, see and hear simultaneously. In this regard we are actually very hypocritical as we write and read men to masculinity, those that follow us, but this is a futile attempt, fortunately we encourage guys to make male friends and break the cycle for themselves, as some of us have already done. but the best way would be to be a example that are palpable in all the receivers senses.

Later more violent games, more challenging games came out, Like Tomb Raider featuring Laura Croft, that gave Angelina Jolie her acting career when it were decided to do a movie based on the game. They have incorporated female sexual desire, violence and adventure into the game. It was by far a landmark in gaming history, from here on games got more challenging, more violent more grusume, and people started careers writing games. The computer became a entertainment machine and dedicated consoles based on the old Nintendo like Playstation and Xbox followed. Graphics became better and better and more and more realistic.
I can imagine that women are upset, even outraged if their boyfriends or husbands play video games, after all they always want all of the attention and doesn't want to share it, They want to be in total control of their mans life, when to eat when to sleep, god even when to shit! Because one cannot get to the world inside another mans head unless he invites you in!
But video games defy it, Men want to so badly escape this smothering they would go to their secret place, not be present even if their bodies are still there, play as other men like in the GTA games, have a whole city for oneself, even if your own city is just outside the door. But now for a moment imagine yourself (no pun intended) you walking down the street with a Mother fucker machine gun, hijacking cars, beating up other people, steel their money and escaping the police, even with other team mates, You would definitely lose your girl or wife, I think even your own mother the moment you step out of the house. But in games one can do this things, and for fun!

Yes the dark side of it, is that it teaches young men to become not present, basically unconscious of the real world, it teaches one to have fun in the wrong ways.

One of our Bronkeys shared: "Just to ponder a bit on the gaming genre and how disconnected we actually get: When I was still in my early twenties, I became friends with one of my work colleagues, he and his two brothers and another friend stayed in a bachelor pad somewhere in the city. Each day, after work, we would stop at the nearest liquor store, buy a case of Black Label (beer) and head to their place, where we would make ourselves comfortable, plug in the then PS1 and play Tekken, the whole evening, get totally pissed and they would get stoned on dagga/weed. Well I was raised in a very secure environment and wasn't used to this, but through beer, Tekken, weed and Reggae we bonded. Now on one side, as I was never a fighter, Tekken helped me clear some of the frustration, as I never knew how to befriend males, beer helped bridge that fear. To cut a long story short, after a year or so, I realised if not for all those crutches, there would never be a bond between me and those fellas anyways, I was disconnected and numbed into believing I have brothers, that I belong ... I broke it off and funny enough, I don't think they even noticed my departure."

GUYS GUYS come on please!!!! We need to create all male spaces, places where guys can be and can grow in the real world, Stop being unconscious and make them acutely conscious of each other and their environment. The problem isn't video games in themselves but unconsciousness in general. Most men when finishing school doesn't have a clue what to do, or how to conform to industrial structures in our society.
So if women ask, what happened to the real men, sorry you just wouldn't find one like your dad, you just wouldn't, don't get me wrong they are also real men like or even better than your father but they are it on a unconscious level, not consciously like your dad or uncles. WE have to encourage and even support any decision of our men to become a man, sooner or later he will wake up, and start doing things in the conscious world to better himself, grow his masculinity and hang out with other men in a constructive way. For as long as he is unconscious there will be no growth in the real world, he have to do boy stuff to become a real man, and even so when he is a real guy. Stop the criticism, it will drive him as fast as a thought into his own mind into unconsciousness like a tortoise pulling his head into his shell. Only other men that are conscious can help him by engaging him.
The lack of all male spaces true masculine communion without the interference of non males as we know it are almost non existent in our Imperial world. Men just cannot have the good kind of competition, true masculine challenges, having good fun and real attention. This makes one in most cases too "RAW" inside, if i can describe the feeling, and as men it is very important to have fun, real good fun and leisure. You just have to have that feeling of "I am not just OK, I am awesome." Like a energy, a fire that have to be tended to inside yourself. Women just wouldn't understand it, they just don't have the same kind of energy inside them or the drive to seek new and exiting thrills.

 The world is devoid (mostly) of all-male spaces and spaces where males are allowed to just be males without it being commented upon in negative ways. We've surrendered things that were important. Equality mattters, but so does quality of life for men.
Not only I want to identify the problem, I want to understand it, share it and come to conclusion and solve it, without blaming others, change the real change over begin within one self. We are not shallow like the non males, we dig deeper, we use examples, and it is our duty to carry this wisdom of reality to our fellow brothers. We cannot change the past, we cannot change the future, we cannot change thoughts but what we can do is to change the reality, men's attitude and that will change behavior, like a positive loving person with allot of hope changing the dynamics of a huge group of people. After all learning is suppose to be fun! that is how guys learn, otherwise we will be stuck in the past only relying on the now ancient thought process of critical theory. Basically bitching and moaning wouldn't help a thing one are not the first to change ones attitude. And fact is, it is easy, as men we all are created as wonderful good creatures. We dont have fangs, scales, fangs,,, we dont even have a thick fur, the only thing that are dangerous in us is a unchecked mind. So after all goodness should come naturally in all cases, but we have to work on our own attitudes.


By: Phlip, Albert, Stephen and David in Monkey Brothers Playing Revolution