Liam Strain is a graphic designer and photographer living and working in Chicago. He grew up in Indianapolis, the son of a lawyer and a school teacher, and grew up singing in church choirs and going to modern dance recitals and museums. At the age of twenty-five, he moved away from his family to pursue his dreams of becoming a man.
00:00:00.000Hello, Brett here. Before we get to today's show, got a quick favor to ask of you. If you've been
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00:00:26.200your support and now on to the show. Brett McKay here and welcome back to another edition of the
00:00:46.160Art of Manliness podcast. And today we're returning to our series called Man Stories, where every other
00:00:51.600week we interview a different gentleman and ask him what it means to be a man. And this week,
00:00:56.180our guest is Liam Strain. Liam, welcome to the show. Thanks, Brett. Good to be here. Well, Liam,
00:01:02.420before we get started with the questions, can you take a few moments to introduce yourself?
00:01:06.880Sure. I am a graphic designer and photographer. I've been living and working in Chicago for the
00:01:13.620past 10 years or so at the ripe old age of 34. I grew up in Indianapolis, the son of a lawyer and
00:01:22.900a school teacher. I don't know, I grew up singing in church choirs and going to modern dance recitals
00:01:27.980and museums and driving up to the museums in Chicago on a regular basis. And just having
00:01:34.820sort of a very standard middle class, well, I think middle class upbringing, but maybe other people have
00:01:42.400a different notion. And that's about that. Well, are you ready to start with the questions?
00:01:47.040Of course. All right, Liam. So when do you feel like you first became a man?
00:01:53.460I think the first time I sort of felt that I actually had was when I moved away from Indianapolis
00:01:59.700and moved to Chicago. Those would have been when I was probably 23 or 24 and I was finally under,
00:02:05.780you know, out from underneath the shadow that my father cast, which was significant. And when I first
00:02:12.220sort of realized that it was not only possible for me to really support myself, but to do it on my
00:02:17.420own terms, to do it, practicing things that I love, photography and design, instead of just getting
00:02:23.180a retail job or following in my dad's footsteps. So yeah, I guess moving away then, separating from
00:02:30.280the family is what did it? Separating from the family and proving that I could do it. I could survive
00:02:36.100and survive the way I wanted to. And Liam, what does manliness mean to you?
00:02:42.220It's a lot of things. Part of it is independence, which, you know, I first felt when I really did
00:02:49.240move away. Comfort in my own skin, sort of not worrying about what other people thought about
00:02:54.740me so much and just doing what I wanted to do for my own reasons. The ability to provide for myself
00:03:01.140and for my family or growing family. I've recently married. So congratulations. Thank you. The courage
00:03:07.780to make hard decisions, which has been a hard one to come by. I was happy to waffle for a long time.
00:03:14.680And then to stand by my own convictions of what's right and what I think is true and to be able to
00:03:20.020back that up in the face of challenge.
00:03:22.800And Liam, what men in your life, they can be living, dead, or even fictional characters,
00:03:28.240have influenced your views of manliness?
00:03:32.960Certainly my father. It's impossible not to have him factor largely. I read it an awful lot. I liked
00:03:40.480the character, Howard Rourke, that Ayn Rand created. He was sort of an autodidactic architect who
00:03:47.380really just didn't give a good goddamn about the rest of the world, which was refreshing.
00:03:52.040Pablo Picasso and Neruda, both artists who showed me that you could combine passion and art and
00:03:59.940really be these amazing, amazing characters. Thomas Jefferson, of course, just for being so
00:04:07.260brilliant and so well-rounded and so principled in everything that he did, or most everything that
00:04:13.440he did. A couple things notwithstanding. And Thomas Edison for his cleverness and hard work.
00:04:20.960And his sort of ability to get done what he wanted to get done.
00:04:25.380I mean, Liam, you mentioned a little bit earlier about the long shadow of your father.
00:04:30.000How did your father exactly influence your conception of manliness?
00:04:35.900Well, in a lot of ways, he's a very intelligent man. And so from the start, I mean, everything,
00:04:42.740you really had to be able to speak your mind intelligently to be able to back up your points
00:04:50.840with evidence. Otherwise, he was an attorney and he would find every nook and cranny to take it apart.
00:04:56.340But he also showed me really the importance of family. He really cared very much for us. And while he was strict in his discipline, he also rewarded hard work and requested of us only integrity. And he supported us really phenomenally well.
00:05:17.220And what was it like deciding not to go the path of the attorneys? I know, and I understand the whole dynamic where there's generations of lawyers in a family. And when one decides, I'm not going to do that, there can arise some hard feelings between each other. Did that happen between you and your dad? Or was he pretty understanding of what you wanted to do with your life?
00:05:36.980I think actually, he was more understanding than I was. And he and my mom both were happy to support anything any of the kids really decided was what they wanted to do. But they wanted to make sure that we also understood the ramifications of those decisions. So I think if there was any disappointment, he hated it. He hated it extremely well. Maybe my sister might be taking up that mantle anyway. So maybe he feels okay about that.
00:06:02.160There you go. And one thing we talked about on the side a little bit, Liam, is that, you know, there's a lot of men our age in their 20s, 30s, don't have some of the same skills that our dads or grandfathers have. Is there something your dad can do that you can't do, but you wish he could?
00:06:19.520I was thinking about this, and I'm not sure that there actually is. He certainly does many things better than I can do. You know, he did woodworking in the basement when I was growing up.
00:06:31.360And while I could put together a chair or a table, he was making a harpsichord. It's a whole different level of detail and manability. But in general, if a man can rock a bow tie, that's about the only thing I can't do.
00:06:54.000So, but I, you know, I was, yeah, that was a tough one because I was like, well, we would go camping and I would light the fire. It wasn't him.
00:07:05.220So, Liam, last question. What's the hardest thing you've ever done as a man, either emotionally, physically, intellectually, or whatever?
00:07:12.120This one was probably emotionally hard, was when I was in Chicago first, I'd been dating a girl for probably six or seven years.
00:07:24.720And she was somewhat manic depressive.
00:07:28.120And then the hardest thing I had to do was actually calling an ambulance when she had threatened that she had, she had told me that she was had swollen pills and was committing suicide.
00:07:37.640And then actually having to break off that relationship when it was clearly just self-destructive for both of us.
00:07:45.940But that's also years in the past and I've since met a wonderful woman and we're married and, you know, having the, it was, it would have been very easy for me to have, I think, just sort of knowing now that she hadn't actually tried to commit, that she hadn't actually swallowed the pills to have sort of given into her emotional need to feel wanted then instead of getting her the help that she needed.