Perhaps that’s why we hold on to it so tight—that hardness. That Herculean stoicism in the face of any great and terrible pain. Any perceived weakness. Perhaps that is why so many men feel threatened when their masculinity is tested, choosing to turn it into something ugly. Violent. Because when that hard exterior finally cracks—when the pressure of all the generations before us, with all their “Buck up, sons,” and “Boys don’t cry,” and “Be a man,” finally becomes too much—there’s nothing to shield us from the rapidly approaching avalanche that is our own crumbling egos.
