Meet Mac
A guy walks into my office. We’ll call him Mac.
Mac is proud of his self-appointed title: Enneagram 8—the “8hole,” as he calls it. In his words, he’s “not a jerk, just an asshole.” A lifelong bad ass, and he wears that title like armor. And to be fair, it worked. It got him through. It helped him survive.
Mac grew up hard—South Boston hard. There were scraps in the schoolyard and scraps at home. Pain was normal. Trust was weakness. Survival was everything. So Mac became exactly who he needed to be to make it through that world. He got sharp. He got cold. He got in control. He turned himself into a street-smart, bulletproof, emotionally armored force of nature. And over time, he came to believe that’s just who he was.
But that’s the lie. Because what Mac had actually built wasn’t a man. It was a mask.
The Asshole Is Just a Mask
The word “persona” comes from the Latin for mask. It’s a role we put on to survive—to protect what’s too raw, too soft, or too sacred to show the world. That’s what Mac had done. He didn’t become an asshole because he was cruel or sadistic. He became an asshole because he had been hurt. Because it was safer to be feared than to be dismissed. Safer to be in control than to be vulnerable. And it kept him safe for a long time.
But I asked him the question every man eventually has to face:
“Do you want to keep surviving, Mac? Or do you want to actually live?”
Because what got him here—the armor, the rage, the control—isn’t going to get him where he wants to go. The men I work with, especially in the second half of life, are done just surviving. They want more. They want to love. To lead. To live with integrity and connection. They don’t want to keep wearing armor that’s slowly killing them from the inside out.
And so I told Mac what I’ll tell you now: You can’t truly live until you choose to take off the mask.
From Bad Ass to Defiant Spirit
Mac isn’t the only one who’s had to learn that the hard way.
Johnny Mitchell—better known in the streets and prison yards as “The White Crip”—was another man who built a life around force. Violence. Domination. Pain. Like Mac, he grew up on the wrong side of everything. Like Mac, he hardened early. And like Mac, he ended up trapped—not just in prison, but in himself.
Johnny’s story changed when someone handed him a book in lockup. Not just any book. It was Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
It’s no accident that Man’s Search for Meaning is the second most requested book in American prisons, right behind the Bible. Why? Because every man eventually ends up in a prison. Sometimes it’s made of bars and steel. Sometimes it’s made of trauma, addiction, shame, or disconnection. But all of us, sooner or later, find ourselves locked inside. And that’s when Frankl’s message becomes a lifeline.
Frankl survived Auschwitz. He lost everything—his family, his freedom, his dignity—and yet he wrote:
“The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
That single sentence became a mirror for Johnny. He realized that he didn’t have to keep reacting to life. He could choose his response. He could reclaim what Frankl called the defiant power of the human spirit. And in that moment, he stopped being a bad ass—or an asshole—and started becoming something new: a free man. Not because he left prison, but because he chose to rise within it.
The Midlife Crucible
You don’t have to be in prison to be trapped. Most men are. They’re just stuck in different kinds of cells. Some are chained to their careers. Others are trapped in their marriages, their expectations, or their quiet desperation. They wear masks that look like success, achievement, or indifference. But beneath it all, they’re exhausted. Disconnected. Running on fumes.
That’s exactly where Mac found himself when we met. From the outside, he looked like a man in control. He was successful. He was respected. But inside, everything was falling apart. His marriage was unraveling. His kids were drifting. And he didn’t know who he was without the mask. His survival strategy had turned into a slow death.
That’s what midlife does. It strips away the BS. It shines a spotlight on the lies you’ve been living and dares you to let them go. It’s not a crisis. It’s a crucible. It’s the place where men either fall apart—or finally come alive.
Masculinity Is Not Mask-ulinity
In my last blog, I talked about the Nice Guy—the boy who survives by pleasing and appeasing, playing it safe, staying small. In my next blog, I’ll talk about the Good Guy—the rule-follower, the approval-seeker, the obedient one who trades authenticity for acceptance.
But this one? This one’s for the Bad Boys. The men who built their identity on rebellion and force. Who raged against the machine. Who prided themselves on being tough, strong, untouchable. And who are now discovering that the very mask that once saved them is now suffocating them.
Every one of these identities—Nice Guy, Good Guy, Bad Ass, Asshole—is a strategy. A survival tactic. A mask. But none of them are who you truly are. Not deep down.
That’s why the work isn’t to find a better mask. It’s to take them off completely. And when you do, you’ll find something better than dominance or compliance. You’ll find presence. You’ll find freedom. You’ll find your true self.
The Choice to Be Free
Mac made the choice. So did Johnny. And so did Viktor Frankl.
Now it’s your turn.
You can stay armored. You can stay angry, reactive, and emotionally numb. You can cling to your mask and call it strength. Or—you can make a different choice. You can stop surviving and start living. You can choose to feel. To be vulnerable. To connect. To be free.
Because masculinity is not mask-ulinity. It’s not about performance. It’s about presence. And the freedom you’re seeking? It’s not out there. It’s inside of you.
Always has been.
Dr. Baruch “B” HaLevi is a men’s coach, Logotherapist (meaning-based therapy), and co-founder of Man Uprising—peer groups for men rising up in the second half of life.
Learn more about his work at defiantspirit.org or join the movement at manuprising.org.
