Yesterday, after reading the news about Jensen Huang, I looked at my wife and asked a question.
“What the fuck is wrong with men?”
Frankly, I could end this blog right here. But as a man, I know the question deserves a much deeper look.
Here is a man (Huang) who built one of the most extraordinary companies in history. Enormous wealth, intelligence, influence, and power. And now he’s apologizing for cheating on his wife and hurting his family, while his company investigates separate national security concerns.
Then there’s Stephen Miller, the architect of some of America’s most aggressive immigration policies, just appointed White House Chief of Staff. Yesterday, newly elected Senator Abdul El-Sayed called Miller the “most broken man” on national television.
Broken. That word caught my attention.
Bill Clinton betrayed his wife while serving as president. Jack Welch championed a model of capitalism that prioritized relentless profit growth, often at the expense of the very people that made his company special. Elon Musk has accumulated unimaginable wealth while exercising extraordinary political and economic influence.
Different men. Different circumstances. Different consequences.
But how can men accomplish so much and still cause so much harm?
The Lost Boy
I don’t know what motivates these men. I won’t pretend I do. But I know something about the wounded little boy who grows into a man still needing love, affirmation, safety, and a sense of worth.
Because I was one.
I grew up with a father wound and a persistent feeling that I wasn’t quite good enough. I looked elsewhere for affirmation. Coaches became fathers. Teammates became family. Later, bosses became father figures, and professional success became a measure of my worth.
I learned to compete, achieve, lead, and win. And I became pretty damn good at playing the game.
But no amount of success could heal what was happening inside me.
I’ve spent decades working to understand those wounds. My studies in psychology and spirituality have only deepened my understanding of how profoundly our families and cultures shape us.
Our parents carried wounds of their own. So did their parents. Generation after generation.
And our culture reinforced the message: Toughen up. Don’t cry. Compete. Conquer. Win. Never show weakness.
We’ve taught boys how to become successful men without necessarily teaching them how to become whole human beings. And those wounds don’t simply disappear with age. They can follow us into marriages, families, businesses, and positions of extraordinary power.
I have empathy for the wounded boy. But the grown man is responsible for what he does with those wounds.
Explanation Is Not Absolution.
For millennia, men have held most of the world’s political, economic, military, and religious power.
And we’ve built extraordinary things. Civilizations, institutions, businesses, and technologies that have transformed human existence.
But we’ve also destroyed extraordinary things through wars, genocides, exploitation, environmental devastation, broken families, betrayed spouses, and children growing up afraid or believing they’re not enough.
Violence isn’t always physical. It’s emotional, psychological, economic, and institutional. And when destructive behavior is rewarded with greater wealth, authority, and influence, the consequences can reach millions of people.
Now look at the world we’re handing our children: climate catastrophe, artificial intelligence with consequences we barely understand, weapons capable of destroying civilization, and wars that continue to take innocent lives.
Our ability to transform the world has advanced at a breathtaking pace. But has our emotional and spiritual maturity kept up?
I don’t think so.
Women carry wounds too, of course. But historically, they haven’t held the same concentration of power over the institutions shaping humanity’s future. Men have. And I wonder whether our traditional model of masculine leadership, built around competition, conquest, accumulation, and control, has reached the limits of its usefulness.
What got us here will not get us there.
Is Something Beginning to Change?
Maybe, just maybe, last Tuesday’s election offered a glimpse of something different.
A record number of women will serve as governors, including women breaking historic racial and cultural barriers.
And something about the political conversation feels different to me. The endless culture wars, the yelling, the meanness, and the constant need to turn one another into enemies suddenly feel like a relic of another era.
Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic. One election doesn’t transform a culture.
But I wonder if we’re finally growing tired of all the anger and division. If we’re beginning to recognize that winning another argument isn’t the same as making life better.
I certainly hope so. Because it’s time to evolve. Not simply by changing who holds power, but by changing what we value in those who do. Whole Human Beings.
And here’s an irony. Somewhere along the way, “woke” became an insult.
When did empathy become weakness? When did compassion become something to ridicule? When did caring about the dignity and well-being of others become a threat to masculinity?
If being woke means being awake to our own humanity and the humanity of others, I’ll gladly accept it.
I’ve spent enough of my life trying to prove I was worthy of love and approval. And through my own healing, I’ve discovered a freedom I wish more men could experience:
Nothing missing. Nothing to prove. Nothing to earn.
Healing doesn’t make us perfect. I still have my moments. But it gives us a chance to stop passing our suffering on to everyone around us.
That’s what maturity looks like to me. Not abandoning ambition, but no longer needing it to establish our worth. Not giving up power, but exercising it with wisdom, compassion, and restraint.
Men who can love without possessing, lead without dominating, build without destroying, and succeed without needing to prove they’re enough.
Perhaps the future doesn’t need another generation of men proving how powerful they are. Perhaps it needs more men willing to become whole.
Our children deserve that. So does the world we’re leaving them.
So…I’d rather be “woke” than “broke”.
