Knowing limits of self, life final rite of passage for men

Finitude means limits. No boy can become a man unless he comprehends this paradox: He is not nothing; he is not everything.

Real men are not nothing.

It is a sin to despise yourself. To indulge the idea that you don't matter, that you don't belong, that you can't be forgiven, can't be loved. Self-hatred is the devil's best thing. Real men don't indulge this temptation. They have the courage to value themselves. To practice self-respect.

Real men are not everything.

You are No Big Deal. No one should ever have to rearrange life to accommodate your moodiness or your laziness or your selfishness or your bullying. You are not the center of any universe, let alone this one. You are not God.

When the elders teach finitude, they teach the paradox of humility and self-respect; which is perfect, because a real man possesses sufficient self-respect to never respect hubris, vanity or aggrandizement. Conversely, he possesses sufficient humility to scoff at the idea of both his fame and his infamy. He's not that good. He's not that bad. He's just a man.

A real man knows there are limits to intellect and logic, that neither can fully apprehend the great joys or great sufferings of a truly human life. He supremely values critical thinking, yet he's smart enough to know just and only how far "smarts" can take you.

A real man knows that emotions, likewise, can never fully apprehend life -- that emotions sometimes lie, and even when they tell the truth can swallow us up into indulgence and meaninglessness.

A real man knows his body has limits. Tobacco really is addictive. Then it kills you. People really do lose their bodies and their souls to drugs, alcohol, indulgent nutrition and other such hedonism.

I'm all for heroic stories of great athletes pushing their physical limits, sometimes playing through pain, but daredeviling is for punks. Real men don't risk life and limb -- theirs or anyone's -- to prove they are men. Real men have nothing to prove. Ever. Only a boy masquerading as a man needs to prove he is a man.

Real men know there are actual, concrete consequences to actual, concrete choices. Moral consequences, too. While, on a given day, we might be able to "get away with" our behavior in terms of time and space -- not die, not kill or injure anyone, not get caught -- a real man knows certain choices will cost him bits and pieces of soul.

And you can't know what you're setting in motion with your choices ... good or bad. It's all bigger than you. That's one of your limits. Good is bigger than you. Evil is bigger than you. So pay attention. Watch what you're doing. This is what the elders teach the boy, so that he can become a man.

And speaking of paying attention, here's another one of your limits: No one can always pay attention. So pay attention, and be especially vigilant to pay attention to those times when you've stop paying attention. If you're lucky enough to be married to a competent woman, she'll help with this. She won't hesitate to let you know that -- again! -- you have begun to live as if you were the only person here in this house.

And then, the ultimate finitude -- death. Perhaps no message in a competent rite of passage is more important than this one: "You're gonna die, bud."

Real men don't find this message to be a downer. They don't get drunk or become bitter. They neither chase money nor women 20 to 30 years their junior in lieu of marital promises.

A conscious embrace of mortality does not depress a real man; rather, mortality nurtures humility, which in turn gives birth to urgency. Acuity. Not an anxious "hurry up" or a Chicken Little panic, but a holy paying attention.

My birth father, absent from my childhood and adolescence, was a terrific grandfather. When he died, the family gathered quite illegally at the gravesite of my older sister to scatter his cremains. Then 10, my son Aaron stood stoically as I poured a handful of ashes into his hands. Suddenly he looked up, eyes widening. He got it. Here in his young hands was every man's destiny. His heart broke. He scattered the ashes and then wept openly in my arms.

He left the cemetery a vital step closer to manhood.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.