I recall reading years ago that when stripped away of its neurological decorum, every interaction we have with everyone we have ever met or will meet is an exchange of power, and less menacingly, energy. Recently that has made me ponder the different ways in which men and women are taught to seek power. The playing field has leveled significantly in the past few decades yet our biology persists. We seek to control others perceptions of us, men through strength and the things money can buy. Men are expected to pay and therefore are led to believe that women are to reciprocate someway in equal measure, though it is also often an act of good will. Money being the great power of this world, amass enough of it and anything you desire can be acquired. Through it we can shape our very destinies. Men are expected to be strong. When we think of a man’s man, a certain Norse God comes to mind. Rugged, emotionally disconnected, muscular, are all traits that we are taught since birth make up a man and through those traits and the power they demand, a level of control is achieved, in the workplace and leisurely. Soft bodied emotional types have no chance of commanding the same level of control over their environment and thus are doomed to be overlooked by it. To turn the lens inward, that’s why I’m training to lift this 178 pound boulder, and that’s why I’m going to work so hard to drop 10 pounds before summer. I feel powerless. I was strapped into a simple machine, one that required me to work and make it work, struggling for the bare minimum my family needed. I’ve sacrificed both body and mind in order to hold on to the mere inkling of control over my life, lest I became windswept into a dark sea. I’ve lost what I’ve been shown my whole life makes a man.