Stupid Advice: How to Be a Renaissance Man

Welcome to “Stupid Advice,” a column in which we point out stupid advice for men and explain why it’s stupid. After all, there’s enough stupidity out there already.

This week’s “Stupid Advice” award goes to Jason Lankow for his Art of Manliness article, “How to Be a Renaissance Man.”

Another day, another idiot telling you how to be a man. It makes you wonder about the dudes who write these articles. It’s like they wish they had been born with a manual. “How do I work?” they wonder, twiddling their thumbs and yanking their nubs.

“Every man should strive to reach his full potential” is Lankow’s opening gambit. But what’s wrong with the man who strives to reach his least potential? The man for whom working out consists of raising a beer to his lips? For whom reading is limited to the bathroom? For whom having sex involves lying flat on his back while the woman does all the work?

Still, some guys like to propagate the idea that All Men Should Be Renaissance Men. For them, it’s not enough to be a man. You have to be a Super Man. So how’s the 21st century fellow supposed to go about doing that? Let’s find out.

1. Knowledge

If you’re going to be a well-rounded guy, Lankow says, “the attainment of knowledge is central to a man’s development.” To do this, he says, a man must read books daily, watch intellectually challenging TV programs, buy a globe and stare at it, and listen to NPR. Stupid Advice threw up a little in her mouth just writing that.

Poppycock. The art of becoming a real man requires neither books, nor schooling, nor public radio. In fact, the best way to score points in the game of manhood is any lesson that can be learned in the School of Hard Knocks.

Want to get in touch with your manliness? Take cage fighting lessons and reacquaint yourself with getting punched in the head, and you’ll become a better observer of your surroundings. Have random sex with a insane woman, and you’ll get in touch with your passionate side. Put the pedal to the metal on the freeway, and remember what freedom feels
like.

Nobody ever learned anything important from a book. Let the world be your teacher. That’s what real men do.

2. Physical Development

“Develop a proper diet and moderate your intake of unhealthy food and drink,” Lankow advises. Borrring. Save that for your forties. Or your fifties. Or, better yet, when you’re dead.

Going to the gym on a schedule created by your girl? Sitting on your butt reading Tim Ferriss write about how he weighed his feces? Instead of concocting some complex athletic regime only the most anal man could keep up, do what you love that involves exercising.

In other words, have sex, and lots of it. Find a sport that obsesses you to the point that you start dreaming about it, and don’t let anything come between you and it. Quit your job that requires you to sit at a computer all day, and find a job that forces you to move your ass all day.

That’s how you know you’re alive. Not through moderation. By pushing yourself to extremes.

3. Social Accomplishments

According to Lankow, a proper man is a great listener, an excellent communicator and a stand up citizen. Here’s what you may want to do instead of learning all that. Consider what men became part of the vanguard, which men broke new ground, what kind of men explored uncharted territories.

Well, they weren’t the guys wearing fezes and hanging out at the lodge. They weren’t polite. They weren’t always nice. Take Steve Jobs, for example. Think he got where he is by being “socially accomplished”? He got where he is by being socially incompetent.

Men prove their manhood by being rogues, not one of the masses. Leave the socializing to the sheep.

4. Arts

Amusingly, when Stupid Advice first read this one, she thought it said, “Farts,” which is a sure fire way to show off your manly talents. But no. Lankow suggests men pen sonnets, paint murals, and scribble songs. Sigh.

That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but how your ability to fuss with watercolors relates to your masculinity remains a mystery to this woman.

Your life is performance art. Make it a masterpiece.

5. Jack of All Trades, Master of None OR True Renaissance Man?

From the female perspective, it’s hard to say whether women prefer a Jack of All Trades or a Master of One. Frankly, women don’t really care what the hell you do, as long as it doesn’t interfere with whatever they’re trying to do.

In reality, a True Renaissance Man is a state of mind, not merely a way of being in the world.

Of course, there is one thing that Lankow left out. A Renaissance man must be an expert in bed. Otherwise, we’ll kick you back to the Renaissance period.

Susannah Breslin is a freelance journalist and blogger. Go here to read more.