The Mammoth in the Room

Gentlemen, please check out your excess baggage.

Here is something nobody tells you about being a man: at some point in your life, usually around the time you’re old enough to know better, you will find yourself in a perfectly pleasant situation - a family gathering, a reunion, a casual dinner - and you will suddenly feel the inexplicable need to establish that you are, in fact, a man of consequence.

You won’t announce this, of course. You’re not a barbarian. Instead, you will be subtle. You will mention, with a deliberate casualness, that your company’s Q4 numbers were “quite something.” Or you will steer the conversation toward that one topic where you hold an unassailable advantage - your fantasy cricket league, your car’s torque specs, your encyclopedic knowledge of anti-inflammatory foods. You will deploy this knowledge like a chess piece, and you will, for a minute, feel like you won something.

You have not won anything. What you did there is what men have been doing since we first gathered around fires and argued about whose mammoth was bigger.

Welcome to the Male Insecurity Industrial Complex - a thriving, largely unexamined enterprise that runs entirely on the fuel of comparison, the currency of one-upmanship, and the renewable energy of taking things personally that were never about us in the first place. It has no headquarters, no org chart, and no annual report. It runs itself, beautifully, on pure, unprocessed ego.

The remarkable thing about this complex is its sheer democratic reach. It does not discriminate. The man who has made his first million lives in it. The man who has made his hundredth million lives in it too, and is furious about the man making his two hundredth. The fit men are convinced that toned muscles and 10 mile hikes represent the pinnacle of human achievement. Those who’ve never seen the inside of the gym are convinced the fit men are secretly judging them. We are, as a gender, magnificently, exhaustingly, comprehensively insecure.

I should know. I am a charter member.

I spend more time getting ready for a dinner party than my wife. I have a vast array of hair oils, designer shampoos and conditioners, perfumes and colognes, face creams, and at least four different types of hair dryers that would make a teenage girl weep with envy. I also am, if we’re being fully honest, in possession of a pair of mustache-trimming scissors made out of the finest Japanese steel. I carry ALL of these wherever I go in the world. I’ve never been known to miss a casual glance at any mirror in a 2 mile radius. I have strong opinions about the angle of light most flattering for a photograph.

I have taken vanity to an art form. It’s a disease. It doesn’t have a name yet, but I’m sure the experts will get there soon. The primary symptom is a powerful, irrational need to be seen, noticed, and occasionally to receive a second glance from a passing stranger that confirms that yes, at this particular age, on this particular day, I still have it. You know what “it” is. We all do. The mojo. We all want it. Nobody admits it. I’m admitting it. You’re welcome.

And the weight of it all. Good lord, the weight of it.

We carry it everywhere. To work where we talk over people not because we have more to say but because silence makes us invisible. To family dinners where a harmless comment about someone else’s achievement lands in our chest like a small, personal accusation. To WhatsApp groups where we type and retype responses to things that were never directed at us, because some part of our brain has appointed itself the Official Keeper of Slights and it takes this role very, very seriously.

And then there’s my craving for a certain self-image. Somewhere along the way, I decided that to be “mature” was to be emotionally guarded, stoic, and deliberate. The man who reveals nothing, needs nothing, and reacts to nothing. Strong. Silent. Weathered. Unreadable. He is the man we all admire, right?

I have, in my time, laughed too loudly, cried at movies that did not strictly warrant it, and expressed excitement about topics that serious men do not pay any attention to. Too expressive, too enthusiastic, too willing to be delighted by ordinary things. I carefully hid these “flaws.” Immaturity was a sin. And I had no desire to confess to it.

And just like that, one day, I changed my mind.

Joy - by which I mean a genuine, undefended, slightly embarrassing joy — is actually the most mature thing a human being can muster. It takes more courage to be happy than to be unaffected. Stoicism is just insecurity in a nicer suit. A man who has made peace with himself… who can laugh at himself before anyone else gets the chance… who doesn’t need the mammoth comparison to feel adequate — that man isn’t just mature. He’s free. What higher form of maturity can there be than the one that sets you free?

We carry rejections like packed luggage - the teacher who ridiculed us, the boss who overlooked us, the institution that didn’t want us. We carry comparisons like carry-on bags — the sibling who seems to have it sorted, the college friend whose LinkedIn profile reads like a highlight reel, the cousin who moved to Canada twenty years ago and has since become suspiciously wealthy in ways that are never fully explained at family meet-ups. We shove misguided notions about love, life and happiness in our backpacks.

None of this fits in the overhead bin. It takes up the entire aisle. It delays the boarding. The flight crew is exhausted.

But here is the thing that stopped me cold - the people who love us? They have been watching this entire performance. They’ve been on this flight for years. They chose their seat next to ours. Deliberately, with full information. Eyes open. They know about the luggage. They’ve seen it all. They love us anyway - not despite the extra pounds or thinning hair line, and not even regardless of it, but in that complete, slightly bewildering way that good people love other people: wholly, inconveniently, and without explanations.

These people - our people - the ones who stayed — they didn’t sign up for the curated version of us. They want the unabridged edition. They don’t need us to win anything or out-credential anyone or arrive anywhere with freshly polished proof of our worth. They genuinely do not care about the hair situation. Well, my wife would definitely prefer I shaved regularly and not look like a hobo. That’s about it. She didn’t fall in love with my LinkedIn profile.

What our people really want is to see us fly.

And here is the non-intuitive thing about all of this: I used to believe that I owed myself to be self confident. Truth be told, it’s something you owe to the people who love you. When we compress ourselves - make ourselves smaller, defensive, guarded - we think we’re being humble. No, we’re not. We’re quietly making the world smaller for everyone around us. The man who sets the baggage down makes every room larger just by walking into it. The man running the comparison spreadsheet makes every room slightly, indefinably tighter.

Your people - the ones who bought one way tickets to fly with you. They deserve the largest room you can give them.

They want the most glorious version of you - not the thinnest or richest or most impressively credentialed version. The freest one. The one that exists when you finally set it down, stop managing perceptions, and just show up. Fully. Without the rehearsed casualness. Without the chess pieces. And yes, without checking if the mirror agrees. (I’m going to struggle with this one, man).

So here is my unsolicited advice to every man still hauling baggage: Set it down.

Set it down not because it’s some form of maturity. Enlightenment is just a more expensive and time consuming version of confusion. Do it because you owe it to your people to set them free.

Remember, the ones who love you are waiting on the other side of this. They’ve been waiting a long while. And they’re starting to wonder what’s taking you so long.

The mammoth can leave the room now. The spreadsheet can close. Switch your life to Flight Mode. We’re about to take off.

Safe travels.

---

PS: I am aware of the exquisite irony of a man writing an essay about male insecurity and vanity, and then immediately refreshing his phone to see how many people liked it. I contain multitudes. So do you. Hit the like button anyway - my hair and I would deeply appreciate it.

Have a great weekend!