The Measure of A Man

Everybody get ready, it's time to get philosophical.

One of the oldest arguments of rhetoric and prose struggles to find by which measure can we use to quantify or qualify the life of a human. Writers, poets, philosophers, scientists and other great minds have all tried to determine what it means to have had a successful life. Now I intend to touch upon this, but only on a topical level. What I really want to look at, is how we can measure a man.

There's a whole smorgasbord of ways to put numbers to how a man has lived his life. This includes the acquisition of wealth, the number of healthy heirs born, the count of great feats accomplished in a lifetime, the amount of women laid (I think most young men my age are still stuck on this one; putting rulers up against their manhood as if they were magical gauges of self-esteem), etc. And I think these are all well and good, even though some are clearly more valid than others. In some respect, they surely measure something, but I don't think they are the de facto measure of a man.

And before I go any further, I will apologize, because I'm going to quote Rocky (actually no, I don't apologize for that in the slightest. I love Rocky) - and this was from part of a quote that used to be on the wall of my wrestling locker room. The quote said:

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward."

Using this particular quote to explain an ancient philosophical quandary may seem silly or cliché, and it probably is. (Don't like it? Tough cookies.) But, what Rocky so elegantly describes in the last movie is resolve. And this, above all else, is how I compare myself to all other men.

Resolve is something internal, inherent, essential. It's something you possess from the womb - you just don't wake up halfway through your life and realize that you have resolve and that you want to do something with it. No, what you may think was a momentus and spontaneous divine gift, was actually  inside you all along. I honestly think Sylvester Stallone understands what this is all about, because as the quote explains, a man is only as good as he is on his darkest days.

A man can be measured by how he chooses to act on those days and times where life breaks down everything around him, and it seems as if his life is falling to pieces in front of his very eyes. It is the man who stands up and trudges though the muck and the mire, fighting for tomorrow, who I believe to be a strong man that has what it takes to find success in any form. Consequently, it is the man who crumbles and folds under the pressure that is weak, and is destined to spend his life leaning on the shoulder and charity of others.

If you look at Rocky as an example, this may become clear. Rocky was strong and athletic and he had love, money and family in his life (eventually), and to be fair he was a bit stupid, but none of that matters. What you always come back to realize is that Rocky is a great man because of his inner strength, his heart - his resolve. It's the fact that he never backs down from any situation life throws at him. He takes every blow and comes back hitting harder than before.

It's this strength of character which makes Rocky the hero. And all things considered, it's his resolve which we should all idealistically look up to. I truly draw inspiration from Rocky, because even though he was a simple brute, he was a great man. Plus, I would even go so far to say that his moral sturdiness and infallible inner resolve should be the standard by which we determine the measure of a man.