Cognitive Autonomy & the Male Psyche
I’ve scoured various corners of the internet to find suitable literature on the intersection of the two categories. What I found was limited. The kind of depth I was looking for was largely missing within the mainstream vernacular.
As humans, we’re not given a rule book to help guide us through life’s uncertain nature. From birth to adulthood, we get emotionally scared, traumatized, broken in ways that embed in our brain’s limbic system. An individual can surge through such experiences without harm in the interim period, but their effects begin to unfold in the long term. We trudge through our problems, fix our visual blinders when they’re damaged and constantly seek to resolve familial & personal issues upon their arrival. Some might say these are the biological markers of what makes a man. While there are levels of truth from a moral & ethical lens, we cannot ignore the psychological affects of these cultural norms. As a collective, we are not ready to pay for it.
What is cognitive autonomy?
There’s a couple ways to look at it. Firstly, cognitive autonomy is the ability to choose where I focus my energy and attention, and to carry that focus through. A more clinical approach to the concept includes an individual's ability to evaluate thought, to voice opinions, to make decisions, to capitalize on comparative validations, and to self-assess.
Cognitive autonomy matters a lot. Although every now and then it's great to ‘zone in’ and get pulled into something you're really passionate about, sometimes we need a certain level of command over our focus or else in-attentional blindness - visual filter that casts a shadow to other stimuli - can occur as we need to manoeuvre our focus around other things cohesively.
A genuine awareness of cognitive autonomy allows for setting healthy mental boundaries that are not porous in nature. But if looked at critically, this is where the issue is born.
Importance in relation to male psyche
The dominant force associated with the male psyche is one that is strong, an active leader who makes decisions based on reason, and is the provider for his family. Juggling multiple responsibilities both professionally and personally are hallmarks of what is defined as a successful man. Part of that requires prime executive functioning - mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and prioritize various tasks successfully.
"If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now". - Marcus Aurelius
The general view is that men are not taught things like communication, vulnerability and relationships. In broader social circles, that homogeneity is expected to continue as few set out to challenge the status quo. Eventually, partners become their emotional guru, their default therapist who take on the load to soothe a man’s anxieties about work or family issues or whatever it is that may be bothering them.
Men want to be seen and feel needed. While It has its benefits, the corporate world has spread a veil on their role as downtrodden employees, allowing them a cushy position both in the workspace and society. Access to therapy is expensive if it isn’t backed by insurance. If it is, the social and societal cost an individual pays for not accessing them is also very expensive. Men can drain the emotional energy out of women, and I see this as a pervasive issue particularly in the South Asian diaspora.
Operating system in individualism and family systems
On a surface level, the ideology behind men’s health seems simple enough to crack. Give a man food to eat, a roof to sleep under, a loving partner and you have a perfect recipe for life. Today’s reality is coalesced with contemporary culture, which seems to disagree. The needs of today’s man are subtle, hidden, not easily expressed. Sex seemed to fulfill many of the underlying desires of men, but there comes a point where men need companionship. And that can come in the form of a friendship rooted in trust or a community based on intellect and interrogation of the human condition.
A common denominator in both societal structures is that men need direction. South Asian family systems comprise of familial & broader kinship networks, rarity of one- or two person households, and prevalence of the gift economy. The excitement of the former and anticipation of the latter leads them to adopt an autopilot ethos to life. Such an approach has been heralded with labels like the ‘good man’ and allows a direct entry on top the totem pole of values. We are taught that family provides that direction in the shape of meaningful purpose. While it is true in many cases, if it doesn't align with a man's personal ambitions, it can directly interfere with a man's sense of self.
I have seen multiple two-person households in my recent past. Both these households expected a dominant, independent role from the male, but when put to the test, a lot of these masculine traits did not translate well within their relational dynamic. Sometimes the sustained wear-and-tear to the chemistry can have side effects which are permanent, causing ruin in other facets of life. The male psyche might operate at a pace persistent with its internal rhythm, but collectively, it may need to organize a better structure for enhanced emotional regulation. That sense of cognitive autonomy — the ability to choose where we apply our focus and how we organize a supportive and effective structure around it to do it well — is often compromised for the benefit of the collective.
While such topics are often broached with caution, a man's agency is quite frequently seen to be ridiculed as submissive, passive to their female counterpart which ripens the cyclical nature of embedded generational trauma. Men experience a disconnect between who they are vs who they are expected to be. Any attempt to bridge the two with a hyper-individualized methodology is met with dissent which isolates the individual further.
The reality is men are only respected when they're presented as a finished product. There is no such thing as a finished human being. Corrosive change in values, behaviour, internal infrastructure is often hard to observe; things look the same, until they don’t. Today's man has to adopt a science based approach to living life. It can present itself as not only being a personal issue, but also an environmental or social issue for many of us.