Ep. 28 - What A Man Should Do For His Family
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
162.48062
Summary
In this episode, I talk about what it means to be a man in the modern era, and why I think we are losing something of what a man is supposed to be, especially in the context of marriage and family life.
Transcript
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So I saw someone shared on Facebook an article, I don't remember where it was from, another article
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about millennial men. And it was talking about the ways that millennial men have reinvented or
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reshaped masculinity. And one of those ways is that we are apparently more emotionally vulnerable
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and more open about our feelings. And you hear this a lot nowadays, that this is an improvement,
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an improvement on the, on the male gender is that now, as we are more enlightened and more
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progressive, younger men tend to be more open, eager to share our feelings and to talk about our
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feelings. And I think that's generally true, that a lot of men these days do seem very open about
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talking about their feelings, men and women, but it's always been the case for women, women probably
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even more so now we're all kind of trending in this direction of sharing and oversharing and
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constantly. And we love, you know, the thing we love to talk about men and women is we love talking
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about our stress, how stressed we are, our anxiety. Oh my gosh, I have so much anxiety. I'm so stressed.
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So much anxiety. I'm stressed. I'm busy. Look, listen to me. I'm so busy, everyone. You want to
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hear about how busy I am? That's the thing I've noticed. People love talking about how busy they
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are, how little sleep they got the night before, how stressed they are and about their anxiety.
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That's just, we love talking about, and I think it's kind of a status symbol because if, well, I got,
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you know, I didn't get a lot of sleep and I'm busy means I'm obviously an important person.
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So I get the admiration of being an important person, but I also get a little bit of pity too.
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So it's a nice little, it's admiration with this nice thick coating, this icing of pity on top of it.
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And it just makes for one sweet cupcake, I guess, as far as, as far as we're concerned,
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I'm going to differ a little bit with, um, with some people though, because although I recognize
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that men are more emotional these days and more willing and anxious and eager to talk about
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their feelings, I don't see it necessarily as an improvement. I think we're losing something of
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what a man is supposed to be, especially in the home and in the context of a marriage or,
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you know, as, as, as both a husband and a father. As I've been thinking about, as I've been thinking
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about this, my mind went back to a story that I read in, um, a book called the Gulag Archipelago,
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which is actually a three volume work written by Solzhen Easton. And it's a great classic,
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um, series of books, not exactly pick me uppers. It's about, it's a history of the Soviet labor
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camp system. So if I'm looking for lessons about marriage, obviously the first place I look,
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if I'm looking for insights into marriage, I'm going to look at a book about the Soviet labor
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camp system. That's because, you know, that's where, um, no, I just, I, I, I think it was in the
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second volume. There's this quick anecdote that Solzhen Easton relays. He, he's, he's talking
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about a, he gives a general history of the labor camp system. He also talks about his own experiences.
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He spent several years in the Gulag himself and he kind of intersperses his own experiences within
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the larger tale of the history of, uh, Soviet Russia, which not to spoil it for you, but if I had
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to summarize the two volumes that I've read, if I had to summarize 2000 pages, I would say it all
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boils down to this Soviet Russia, not a fun place. It turns out actually not, not a great place. If
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you ever get in a time machine or trying to decide where to go, don't go to Soviet Russia because you
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will end up at a Gulag and you're not going to enjoy it. I know it's kind of a shocker. So he, um,
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he recounts one scene in the book that I thought was the most powerful illustration of married love
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of, uh, of at least the most powerful illustration of a husband's love that I've read anywhere outside
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of, um, the Bible. And it stands in direct contrast to this idea of the overly emotional,
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open, constantly sharing and oversharing man. So this is the story, um, takes place in a prison camp
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sometime in the 1920s, I believe a man named Osorgin who's been arrested on some trumped up
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charge as was common in Soviet Russia. And he was scheduled to be executed by firing squad.
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And on the day that he was scheduled to be executed, he was told he's going to be executed. It just so
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happened that his wife had already boarded a boat and was on his, on her way to come visit him.
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Of course, not knowing about any of this, he wanted to see his wife one more time. And he certainly
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didn't want her to come all that way and then discover that he'd just been killed. And I'm sure
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he was also worried that if she showed up and he'd just been executed or he was being executed,
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that they may arrest her for knowing about it, because that's the way things worked in Soviet Russia
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is that if your family member was arrested, whatever happened to them, whatever their fate was,
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wherever they ended up, whether it was in a camp in Siberia or, um, six feet underground,
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you weren't allowed to know. And so if she did find out that may put her in jeopardy.
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Um, so he pleaded with the, with the guards and asked them to allow him to see his wife
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one last time when she comes and, uh, just to spend some time with her. And he assured the guards
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that once she leaves, he will offer himself up to be executed. And the guards agreed. But of course,
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the condition is you can't tell your wife. You can't even hint at it. She cannot come to find out
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or suspect that there's something bad about to be happening about to happen to you.
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So not, he couldn't even let a facial expression cross his face that may tip her off. We spent two
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or three days with her. They were together the whole time and he never hinted. He never let on
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except for one brief moment when they were taking a walk by a lake and his wife looked over and caught
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him for a moment, clutching, clutching his head in torment and agony, thinking about what he was about
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to face. And she asked him what was wrong. And he quickly said nothing. And then finally, when her
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visit was over, um, she got on the boat, the boat was pulling away. And as the boat was pulling away,
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he was already undressing and preparing to be shot. Now I find this so powerful because it's an
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example, the most extreme example I've encountered of a man shouldering a burden, caring a cross for his
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family, being in emotional anguish and not sharing it, not talking about it, keeping it to himself,
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carrying the load by himself. And this is what men, not quite to this extent, but hopefully most of us,
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but this is basically what we are meant to do for our families. We are meant to shoulder burdens,
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to carry a cross. We're told to love our wives like Christ loved the church. And we know that Christ died for the
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church. He suffered and sacrificed. And he also didn't complain either. He did it with patience and grace and
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love. There was only, there was just the one, the one moment, the one very human moment in the garden
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at Gethsemane, where Jesus wanted some of the apostles there, um, in this really vulnerable, painful
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moment for Christ. But famously, they fell asleep on the job. And so they couldn't even give him that
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little bit of comfort the one time that he asks for it. So that's what we're called to do, to strive to
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carry the largest portion of the burden that we can. And to do it without complaining, without holding
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it against our wives or our children, without resentment, without demanding acknowledgement,
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without martyring ourselves, without feeling the need to constantly talk about it. We're called,
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in other words, to be stressed and to have anxiety and to not constantly say, oh, I'm so stressed. I'm so
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stressed out. Everyone listen to me about my stress. I have so much anxiety. Listen. No, we're called to
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sometimes just shut up and deal with it and not force everyone around us, including our wives, to accompany
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us in our self-pity and misery all the time. I think as modern men, we tend to make one of two mistakes
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when it comes to this. Um, or perhaps we make both mistakes. We could, number one, flat out refuse
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to carry the burden or to carry any burden at all. We may allow ourselves, and some husbands, uh, um,
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allow, are happy to allow their wives to just carry the entire burden by themselves. A lot of, some
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husbands are, are, are fine letting their wives do all the work, feel all the stress while they go out
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and they go downstairs and play video games or watch porn. Um, I think especially of the families where
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you see them at church and the, and the, the mother is there with her kids and she's trying to keep them
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all in line in the pew. The husband's nowhere to be seen because he's at home in his pajamas watching
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TV. The spiritual formation of, of a, of a child is a very difficult thing. And keeping kids quiet in
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church is just the, the, the, the easiest aspect of it. It's a very, it can be a very painful,
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challenging thing to shoulder that burden, the burden of, of spiritually, of, of putting your
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children on the right path spiritually and guarding them against all the dangers, the spiritual dangers
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that are out there. And some men are perfectly fine, allowing their wives to take all of that on
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completely alone. And it is to call it shameful is a, is a massive understatement. The second mistake
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we may make is, well, okay, we may do our part to some extent, shoulder some of the burden at least,
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but we've listened too much to modern notions of manhood. We have listened too much to modern
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ideas about how the genders are supposed to interact. We've become too anxious to take our,
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the culture up on its invitation for us to spill our guts constantly and to complain about our stress
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and to share every last anxiety that we have with the world and with our wives. I think there are men
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who, you know, they'll tell their wives everything, every worry, every fear. If they're in pain, emotional,
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physical, whatever, they'll make sure their wives know it. They'll make sure everyone around them knows
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it. Now, here's the thing. Of course, we should share quite a bit with our wives. And there was a time
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when men were obviously too closed up, too silent. They were just a closed book, like robots in the home.
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They had no emotion whatsoever. And that meant that they had really no bond. There's, there's, it's hard to have
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intimacy. It's hard to have bond with your wife when you're not letting her in at all. But I think we've overcorrected
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now. We've overcompensated some of us. And if we had to choose between the two extremes, I think
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we're better off on the silent, you know, the strong, silent type end of the spectrum than on
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this end of the spectrum, where we're so in touch with our emotions that we're just constantly eager
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to share them with everyone. Not just our wives, but the other day I saw on my newsfeed, and this is
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not an uncommon sight. You see this all the time. I saw a guy, an adult male, probably about my age,
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unleash a whole torrent of personal complaints and anxieties right there on the internet for
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everybody to see for public consumption. I don't know if this guy's married, but if he is, I can
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only imagine how often his wife must be forced to listen to him complain and moan about every worry
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and misfortune and heartache that he has. I think a balance is needed here. But the fact remains that
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sometimes I believe a man has to carry a fear, a worry, a concern, a pain, and to keep it to himself.
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Carry it himself. I think a man has to sometimes be willing to be stressed out and not show it.
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Exhausted, stressed out, anxious, whatever, and not show it. To carry it with dignity.
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Not to feel the need to vent. I guess that's what we call it these days is venting.
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And I don't want to get off on a tangent here, but venting is
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Usually, when we say we're venting to somebody, whether it's our spouse or anybody,
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when we say we're venting, what that means is we're just piling toxic fumes and negativity
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right on top of some unsuspecting, innocent person because it makes us feel better.
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It's like just vomiting negativity right on top of someone's head and saying,
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oh, I just had to vent. I hope you don't mind. And then the person, they have now,
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they're covered in your negativity and they're like, okay, what am I supposed to do with this?
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Thank you for unleashing all of that on me. That's men and women. I think all of us,
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all men and women, these days, we're all a little bit too eager to vent and to
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constantly complain all the time. But a man especially, I think has to be willing sometimes
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to come home from work where he deals with not only the stress of earning a living, but also the
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underlying stress, the constant stress of being responsible for sustaining and feeding his family
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and the worries that come with that, the what ifs, the what thens, all the different things.
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But he has to come home and be immediately thrust back into family life and the duties of family life
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with all of those concerns and stresses and responsibilities that come with that.
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And he has to make that transition suddenly, like flipping a switch, just like that.
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And without always letting on how exhausted, how burdened he feels.
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Because not everything should be shared. Sometimes a man should be willing to be a man and carry it himself.
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That's not to say that he can never speak with his wife about anything. Hopefully his wife will
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understand what her husband does for the family and what he goes through, and she'll try to give him a
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break even if he doesn't ask for one, and hopefully he'll try to give her breaks. Hopefully they have a
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marriage like that. But there should still be that quiet dignity, that quiet strength which shoulders
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and carries and endures and does it in a way that isn't always noticed and isn't always begging for
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appreciation and for acknowledgement. But he just fulfills his duty in love and sacrifice.
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I think that's what's missing. Of course, not in every case, but that's what's missing generally from
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American manhood is quiet strength and dignity. That is, you know, that's part of a man's role,
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I think. Just a thought. Just a thought from a Soviet labor camp. Thanks for watching, everybody.
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Thanks for listening. Hope you have a great day. Godspeed.