This is a vast question, one that the Globe and Mail is trying to answer by asking some writers their thoughts on the matter. I am flattered to say that I was one of the writers they asked, and this was my response:

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A real man must have a healthy respect for nature. 

A real man knows that humidity is a festering curse, so if the Humidex rises much above 30, he will stay inside with the AC cranked. He does this because he is smart and powerful and worldly. The real man never retreats, he merely lies in wait until favourable conditions arise. 

A real man is also wary around birds.

He believes flight to be cheating and does not trust cheaters.

If any cheater birds come around a real man’s family, that bird would be a fool. A real man will wave his arms about and shriek, he will do whatever it takes to keep that bird from attacking his family.

Even if his family can be ungrateful and mocking.

That sort of stuff just rolls off a real man’s back.

A real man knows how to build a scarecrow to keep birds off the property he rents, too. If the real man lacks money because of his integrity, because he’s unwilling to be a sheep and get a “job” working for some soulless corporation or media conglomerate, then he will scavenge goods to create his scarecrow, and his scarecrow would be just as good, and a lot more scary, than any fancy, professionally manufactured scarecrow.

A real man is not scared to use coupons.

He is industrious.

And his fearfulness makes him fearless.

And if he cries easily, like when Jon Snow had to kill his red-headed, Wildling girlfriend on GOT, or when a sweet, little gymnast just nails the program she’s worked so hard on, it is only because he feels things so strongly. 

A real man feels it in the gut.

He feels it in the gut hard.

You must understand that.

When at a party and spotting a turntable, the real man knows that it is his duty to assume all DJ responsibilities. He doesn’t shirk from this the way a not-real man might, but he owns the goddamn responsibility. He was born to educate the world by playing the barely recognizable esoterica from his youth. He was born to explain things to people.

And so, the real man won’t be bothered by all the pretty women rolling their eyes and leaving the dance floor. He won’t care that they call him DJ BuzzKill and make fun of his leather bomber jacket. In such a situation, the real man would be crying because the complicated beauty of his music had touched him in a holy way, that is all. 

The real man used to be really good at sports.

He’s receded from public life and many have been wondering what he’s been doing. As it turns out, one of the things he’s been doing is applying to attend an Icelandic Writer’s Retreat in April. The application required that you write a short story or essay based on the following photograph of the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center:

This is Doug Ford’s entry:

Sometimes a guy can go to a pretty black place. That can happen after you lose an election. When your whole life has been about winning, and winning hard, losing feels like a sucker punch to the gut. Not even football or pornography or yelling at people can fill the hole. Sometimes a guy has to go to therapy.

Therapy is for the weak, and Ron Ice, a very successful businessman and philanthropist, was not a weak man. He was a powerful man, a man who was a shot put champion at his high school.

Girls used to gather around to watch him throw the shot put. Ron was like a Nordic god and he did very well with the ladies, thank you very much. Those were good times for Ron, but now, with all the critics and small people yammering away at him after the election, all the people who don’t understand how to run a business, he realized he needed to clear his head, even if it was the weak thing to do.

Ron looked deep into his soul and realized that he wanted to broaden his horizons.

Iceland.

Iceland was the territory that Ron always started in when he was playing Risk.

It had access to markets in both the east and west, had plenty of challenging terrain to hide in and there was little pollution. Ron would move to Iceland and start his empire there!

People loved Doug Ford in Iceland. He stood a good six inches taller than the rest of the population, and as he still looked like a Nordic god, people began to worship him, “Look!” the villagers would cry, “The prophecy is true and the Ice King now walks amongst us! Ron Ice took the country by goddamn storm.

One day ISIS terrorists took over the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center where they planned to burn Christians in cages. Ron Ice would have none of that. Ron drove down there in his jeep, got out and just walked into the place. People were in awe of what big balls he had. When the terrorists saw him they all started yelling and getting excited in that language of theirs. They waved machine guns around, but Ron was as cool as ice.

He just stared at them, a penetrating hate stare, and then he began to yell, his mighty eyes bulging, and when he did they all put down their weapons like subservient kittens and were arrested.

Ron Ice walked out of there, got back in his jeep and drove up to the misty green hills of Norðurland vestra, where he had some property and a condo, and from where he would soon launch his internationally successful printing business Ice King Labels and Tags.