No-Man’s Creed

I practice the invisible Art of Love
It is the cause for all Creation
It is the Word that is spoken without a sound
It is Truth without justification

Why do you call yourself No-Man?  That was the question that was often asked of me when I started using the name publicly for 3 years at open mics in around Maryland, Virginia,and Georgia. Well to answer that question I simply say, “No-Man is the alternative to what many people consider a man.”  This in no way implies that the popular male attributes are not perfectly acceptable.  I just made a different choice.  For example: They say men hold back their feelings.  Well, No-Man expresses his.  They say men shouldn’t cry.  No-Man says, “Shut up.  Radio is a tear jerking movie so hand me a tissue.”  They say a man can be measured by the women that adore him.  No-Man says, “If I can get one woman to adore me for the rest of my life I’m doing good.”  You get the picture.

You see, many of us have been conditioned or programmed that in order to be a “man” you have to follow certain criteria.  I have realized that the path to Manhood is a solitary one.  It is also a path of discovery.  This means that only his Creator and the man himself knows what it takes for him to be a real Man.  There is a difference between a Man and a male just as there is a difference between a daddy and a Father.  Often times history, culture, popular media and the guilt these mediums impose leave us feeling unsettled and uncertain about the individual we attain to be.  No-Man won’t go for that.

Growing up I came to many conclusions about what a man was and what a man was not.  Now these are solely my opinion, but they rang true to me.  As a child I desperately sought a father figure.  I imagine I am not the only one out there.  Originally, I thought that any man taller than me would do.  But over time I came to see that a real man would be able to teach me to nurture all the ideas I was curious about and help me when I lost my way.  I never found that.  What I did find was a persistent idea of what that man would be like.  I grew to love that idea so much that over time I came to see that I was fast becoming the person I imagined a Dad would be.  It is written that “as a man thinketh, so is he.”  In other words, we are what we think about.  It was through these ideas that No-Man was born.  The name was inadvertently given to me by every person that did not understand the choices I made, because when I chose not to follow the crowd, they often berated me saying, “You ain’t no man!”  Now I say to them, “Yes I am.  I am No-Man!”

A poetic expression of No-Man’s struggle to BE can now be found in this blog and in paperback and Kindle format.