THE TRUTH ABOUT OLD MEN - Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The truth about old men is that no one would have them who knew the truth about them. That's why none of them ever write it down. That's why most of them deny it or say it's an over-simplification, and those who don't deny it outright say men are not all alike. It's true men don't all drink the same beer. They don't all use the same after shave or hate French food. But there are some things they all have in common, and it's those things that shape the truth about them. The small differences between them are inconsequential, except that they help keep advertising agencies in business and, thereby, create jobs.

One of those characteristics common to all men is testosterone levels much higher than in the female body. Testosterone is an amazing and powerfully influential chemical that makes the human race possible. Without testosterone there would be no mating, and we would never have survived long enough to discover ways to perpetuate the species like laboratory dishes and sperm clinics that did not involve mating. Therefore, we would not exist. This is a fact acknowledged by everyone, except members of the National Organization for Women and certain elements of the Democratic Party, most of whom enjoy French food.

Younger people require simpler formulas in order to recognize the scope of a statement such as, “Without testosterone there would be no human race.” So, for these bewildered souls, here is a words-of-one-syllable declaration: Testosterone is the chemical that causes males to mount females, against their most strenuous objections, and pollinate them, thereby facilitating a next generation of human beings. If this process were taken out of the human story, there would be no human being.

The irony of testosterone is driven by its duality of nature – chiefly, its dark side. This propensity for mounting the female and imposing his will upon her is played out in the every-day life of a typical man in ways that quickly disguise it, preventing us from celebrating it as indispensable to the species. This irresistible urge to dominate the female is manifest in mixed company as a need to dominate and conquer all things. These include riddles as small as “How can I cross an ocean,” “How can I alter a tree into a split level suburban home” and “How can I get from here to there without a horse” all the way to large challenges such as “what secrets lie within the eye of a microscope” and “what mysteries lace the stars above?”

Man’s indefatigable need to face a challenge and subdue it is not only responsible for pollinating the female of the species and, thereby, making the human race possible, but it is also responsible for all the human progress we have enjoyed since coming down from the trees and out of the caves. Testosterone!

Of course, the chemical is manufactured in the male of other species, but only when it is coupled with the enormous potential of a larger human brain does it result in the magnificent difference between us and the other creatures. What we all too often miss or willfully dismiss is that the larger brain would never have produced human life as we know it without the need to confront challenges, conquer them and enrich our quiver of achievements. Testosterone – the fuel that powers the vehicle of human progress!

The old man can recall younger days, during which he lusted for the challenge of battle on the field and in the foxhole, jousted for upward mobility in the professional arena, engaged the mysteries of science and hungered for dominion of all he surveyed. But only in the eve of his time on earth, when testosterone levels have subsided, does he recognize the profound impact the chemical has had upon his will, his mind and his spirit. Only when it is gone does he begin to understand why the women without it have gone almost completely unnoticed in the ledgers of scientific achievement, invention and human progress.

In an alternate tale, seen through a different filter, shaped by a different agenda the lack of female participation in enterprises that have marked the human journey is viewed as a result of male suppression. So for the benefit of those who naively buy into this absurd paradigm, let’s share a truth perhaps only visible to the old man – there is no male conspiracy to ignore valuable contributions made by female people. Electricity, the printing press, the airplane, the locomotive, the automobile, the radio, the foundry and the impact of gravity would have been just as quickly embraced by the world if they had sprung from the minds of women. But they did not. Testosterone – the chemical that compels the brain to mount…that is what drives all human beings who face an insurmountable challenge with the determination to conquer it. It is what propels a man from the foot of a mountain to its summit with no greater explanation than, “It was there.” It is what causes him to sail into uncharted waters to discover new worlds and it is what launches him from the rocket pad in an incomparable cloud of confusion into the deepest reaches of space to the precipice of clarity.

How is it possible, the old man wonders, that such a beneficial chemical can be so roundly maligned and so often overlooked in examinations of the human dynamic. It is because two things are necessary to see the truth of it clearly -- a wrinkled brow and a drooping pecker.

The impact of high testosterone levels has never been felt in the bodies of half the human race, so its power is entirely hidden from the females. The younger males cannot imagine being without it, so its impact on their minds is imperceptible. Only the old man, who has known it and now is without it can weigh its significance with a clear mind; can examine dispassionately the difference it makes in the spirit and focus of a human being.

The preponderance of old men who grow into understanding become like wilting tulips strangled in a sea of weeds, suffocated by the vibrant agenda of an ill-advised feminist protocol, which seeks to muffle the roar testosterone evokes, to torture truth and shape it to service in the doctrine of equality. But the truth cannot be hidden from the old man. He knows it first-hand. He has simply become too weak to protest, too indifferent to care and too feeble to resist.

From the ranks of these old men comes a small cadre of malcontents who refuse to go quietly to their graves. They have no weapons. They have no power. They have no voice. They have only their discontent. They are dismissed, disregarded and roundly ignored. They are called…curmudgeons.