There's a long rant about the Problem of Armies (once anyone has one, everyone needs one) but at the personal scale, "a miserable pile of secrets" isn't so bad.
The fours (forthrightness, foresight, fortitude, and forbearance) might be more "adult" than "man"; necessary, but not sufficient. And the "strangers presume you so" construction, while grimly factually the case, is not much in the character of being personally useful.
The wretchedly zen but possibly personally useful version is "if you have to say you is, you ain't"; fours plus competent insecurity management will do it. (The parts that aren't socially coded presentation.)
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There's a long rant about the Problem of Armies (once anyone has one, everyone needs one) but at the personal scale, "a miserable pile of secrets" isn't so bad.
The fours (forthrightness, foresight, fortitude, and forbearance) might be more "adult" than "man"; necessary, but not sufficient. And the "strangers presume you so" construction, while grimly factually the case, is not much in the character of being personally useful.
The wretchedly zen but possibly personally useful version is "if you have to say you is, you ain't"; fours plus competent insecurity management will do it. (The parts that aren't socially coded presentation.)