What if the best way to figure out who you are is to stop trying to figure out who you are? And what if becoming a better man starts not with attaching a label to yourself, but with simply doing stuff?
Ken Posner came to Mindful Masculinity with a provocative proposition:
“There is no being in life. There is only action.”
For a former Army Ranger, Wall Street veteran, ultramarathoner and man currently pursuing a goal of climbing 1,000 mountains barefoot, perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising.
But when Ken and I got underneath his original idea, our conversation quickly became more complicated.
Ken (whose Substack is entitled The Long Brown Path) argues that modern life bombards us with voices — politicians, marketers, media celebrities — telling us who we’re supposed to be. But adopting an identity prepared for us by third parties can easily become a defensive refuge from the noise, and not a journey of lasting self discovery.
Ken’s alternative is deceptively simple: direct our limited time and energy toward action. Do something. Learn from it. Then do the next thing.
The deeper we went, the more we discovered that action and self-awareness are not opposites, but deeply intertwined kin wishing to be invited into our lives.
In this episode, Ken also describes his leaving work for a year to complete 420 ascents of the Catskills, where long periods of physical exertion and solitude allowed him to recognize when his ego was speaking. He even encountered what he calls an “inner demon” who helped him learn something liberating.
We also talk about fatherhood and caregiving, the masculine scripts boys inherit, my own discovery of nurturing during my teen years, and how doing something can actually expand our sense of who we are.
You won’t want to miss this episode.
In this conversation, Ken and I discuss:
Being vs. Doing — Does identity shape action, or does action create identity?
Ego, Stillness & Nature — What climbing 420 Catskill mountains taught Ken about the noise inside his own head.
Discipline & Masculinity — Lessons about about directing energy he learned from the Army Rangers, Wall Street and endurance sports.
Boys, Men & Caregiving — Are men naturally less nurturing, or do boys simply get fewer opportunities to learn how to be a caregiver?
The Inner Scout — What happens when achievement, disappointment and the voice telling us to keep moving begin controlling us?
Values, Identity & Action — If we call ourselves fathers, partners or good men, what are we actually doing to make those identities true?
