Listen to “Reclaim Your Play: Masculinity, Aging, and the Power of Playfulness” on Spreaker.

DeepSeek Analysis of the Transcript on Playfulness, Aging, and Masculinity

Main Argument:

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander contends that societal pressures compel men to abandon playfulness as they age, conflating it with childishness. This psychological aging, distinct from chronological aging, leads to physical decline and loss of vitality, undermining true masculinity rooted in strength and resilience.

Key Themes and Discussion:

1. Playfulness vs. Childishness:
   • Distinction: Playfulness is framed as a vital, health-sustaining trait involving dynamic physical engagement (e.g., martial arts, squatting), whereas childishness implies immaturity. Hakeem emphasizes that activities like capoeira blend play with rigorous training, fostering resilience without compromising seriousness.
   • Example of Capoeira: This martial art exemplifies “playful rigor,” combining agility, combat skills, and endurance. Ali-Bocas Alexander critiques how such practices are often dismissed as unserious or juvenile, particularly for older men.
2. Societal Pressures and Ageism:
   • Perception of Activities: Hakeem notes that activities like karate are stereotyped as “for kids,” reflecting broader societal biases. Media references (e.g., Dave Chappelle’s comedy) underscore cultural mockery of adult engagement in playful physicality.
   • Fear of Judgment: Men avoid playful movements (e.g., cartwheels, squatting) to evade being labeled “goofy” or “childish,” leading to sedentary lifestyles and physical decline.
3. Consequences of Psychological Aging:
   • Physical Decline: The “use it or lose it” principle is highlighted; avoiding playful movement results in lost mobility, flexibility, and strength. The speaker contrasts this with their own vitality at 47, attributing it to sustained physical engagement.
   • Health Misconceptions: Criticizes the notion that aging inherently causes decline, citing examples like Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander’s 83-year-old father’s agility. Attributes poor health in older adults to lifestyle, not age.
4. Personal Anecdotes and Cultural Observations:
   • Public Reactions: Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander describes being stared at for squatting (“Asian squat”) in grocery stores, illustrating societal discomfort with non-normative movement.
   • Family and Cultural Practices: References to Trinidadian and Asian cultures normalize functional movement patterns, contrasting with Western tendencies toward stiffness and vulnerability (e.g., bending at the hips).
5. Masculinity and Power:
   • Reclaiming Vitality: The speaker ties physical prowess to “real masculinity,” arguing that playful, vigorous men are formidable both physically and mentally. Criticizes “wannabe alphas” who neglect their bodies yet claim dominance.

Counterarguments Considered:

• Biological Inevitability: Some might argue physical decline is unavoidable with age. Hakeem counters by emphasizing lifestyle choices, citing personal/familial examples of maintained agility.
• Societal Influence vs. Personal Choice: While the speaker blames societal norms, they also stress individual agency in resisting psychological aging through deliberate practice.

Conclusion:

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander advocates rejecting societal norms that equate aging with rigidity, urging men to embrace playfulness as a means of preserving health and masculinity. By framing physical activity as both joyful and disciplined, they challenge ageist stereotypes and promote a holistic view of aging that prioritizes resilience and adaptability. The critique extends to cultural attitudes that undermine vigorous movement, calling for a reclamation of childlike vitality without infantilization.

UnEdited Galaxy AI TranScript From Samsung Voice Recorder on S24 Ultra

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (00:00)

An unfortunate adverse reaction of psychological ageing of detrimental psychological ageing in society amongst men is the fact that men are told when they get older that they must lose their playfulness. Now I must distinguish this from child dishness childishnessness. Is not what I’m talking about?

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (00:38)

I’m talking about the difference between, for example, using your body in a child like way, but you do not have to be child dish, you can be playful and still be serious and even stoic., a great example of this is the martial art capawa. It’s most original form. You have a game that is rough.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (01:15)

That incorporates catches catch can wrestling, slamming buddy, slamming and in the dirt and grass with sweeps, leg sweeps and low Kix, lots of full body movement mobility. And it’s a game that is much like how bare Cubs or Wolf Cubs Play in it, there is a playfulness that is also a training. It’s a training on physical exercise into training in and fighting in self-defence, it’s a training in being tougher and more resilient with the biting and the cloying and the tumbling.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (02:19)

and this is the kind of playfulness Many feel way too many men lose as chronological time. and chronological age goes by because that effects their psychological age, where they feel like if they were to do these kinds of things with their body. cart wheels and Kix and tumbling and sping.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (02:50)

that they would look childish. When that’s a mistake, they’re mistaking playfulness and child likens. to beat child dish., and so they hide.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (03:07)

And not only do they hide the simply stop doing those things. that would allow them to have a child like suppleness and agility and mobility and resilience and endurance to their physical bodies. People, we’ll say things to them.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (03:33)

Why are you doing that? That’s so goofy, that’s so stupid, like believe that for the kids, there’s an interesting example and. it’s an exaggerated comedy show.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (03:47)

But the Dave chapel show once had an episode where Charlie Murphy was talking with somebody and they had mentioned karate, it was like I’m like 9 years or I don’t know riding and it was basically just saying, oh, that’s for kids, and so we all know we’ve seen. The strip mall karate Kung Fu Taekwondo, and they have kids classes. And that’s the thing that a lot of parents like to do to put their kids in.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (04:18)

You know, mainly they do it so that they can sit down and and nowadays have some time to scroll through their mobile device in that have to be constantly babysitting. Their own child. and we a lot of people know that for the most part, a lot of those places, what some people call mcdon’s, even for if it’s not just for the kids with it for adults, teenagers and adults, there are people consider themselves to be martial artists who might spar and fight, or even do Professional or amateur bouts are tough man competitions, or whatnot, they might say that the people who train in those kind of places are not really fighters.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (05:04)

So that’s a distinction that’s made in the margillart community. And so this is also one of the ways that it’s perceived, that karate is for For kids right now, this is an example that I’m generalising. Now out to how a lot of people regard any type of playfullness, especially physical playfulness, that men might engage in.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (05:34)

And. because of this men begin to hide, not in that they just do those things on the weekend, or they don’t let some people know they hide by simply not doing these things anymore. They hide by human be, not engaging in those playful, yet rigorous and endurance, preserving physical exercises because a societal pressure of what other people might think.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (06:15)

I have many examples of this, even when I’m not playing just simply using my body. I often do a lot of shopping. For customers and clients, and when I’m in the grocery stores, if there’s something on a lower shelf, I will squat all the way down to the floor and look at the shelf and sort of almost every human rights crawl, not using my hands but low to the ground while I’m in the scrap.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (06:48)

Finishing our walk, low to the ground and people will look at me like I’m crazy. And the interesting thing about it is and I know it, I’m doing it. I’m not naive to it.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (07:02)

I’m not I’m like ignoring it to the fact that what I’m doing is different from other people, most people That they want to get something out of a lower shop. But I’m saying everyone because I’ve seen other people who squat down all the way to the ground 2. And what I’m talking about is what some people consider the so-called Asian squat right feet flat on the floor heals down, bringing your butt all the way down to the ground.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (07:27)

Right, your knees basically touching your chest, you could probably touch your chin to your chest, if you wanted to write sloxing other people do that when I lived in China for 5 years. I’ve seen a lot of people doing that, which maybe is one of the reasons why they called the Asian described. Because well, when in different parts of Asia that I went to a lot of people moved like that, but my dad From Trinidad also moves like that still at 80 years old.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (07:52)

So. what is actually 83. But just moving like that, instead of how a lot of people will bend over at the hips to pick things above the floor and for one thing, I know that this is going to seem offensive to some people I know that, but When you bend over like that, it’s like you’re offering up your butt to get poked in when you bend over at the heap in your butter, just sticking up in the air, like that right.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (08:29)

And it’s a very vulnerable position, not only through that, but for the health of your. Back and the fact that you’re not Using your quads, your legs cause some people do it almost straight leg and then bend over at the hip, only to the point where they can bend over with their lake street. Because the other issue is that a lot of the people who move like this also don’t have very flexible hamstrings.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (08:54)

So they can’t been very far down. And this is the whole point of this. men are losing their physical promise.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (09:07)

Men who would otherwise like to assert themselves and consider themselves to be alpha mails and yet. as these wannabe alpha’s get older, they are unable to move around to physically assert control over their own bodies for squat to jump to run to bend to twist to park wheel. To kick the backflip to spin, do any of those things?

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (09:41)

Why, because if you don’t use it, you certainly do lose it, that is what’s happening. because of psychological ageing, not chronological ageing, we are all subject to chronological agent. but because of psychological ageing.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (10:11)

Which is a large part of fear of what other people will think about, the way that they’re moving and using their body, just like karate is only for kids, right? That’s somehow learning how to kick and move and use your body is somehow childish. no it may be child alike and what’s ridiculously contradictory in hypocritical?

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (10:45)

About that is that people often people often admire. youthfulness and often want to they miss in remiss about their usefulness. and miss and reminness about how they are not able to use their bodies anymore and some people, not everyone, but some people even Get Bitner and.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (11:20)

and critical about younger people and jealous and talk about. Oh you know they’re young so they can do that and they are very young in a wait till they turn 30, which is ridiculous, that people even say though age 30, as if like, wait till they turn that age so as if that’s some kind of detrimental time period I remember lots of people. When I was in my friend late 20s and early 30s, who would say things like that?

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (11:50)

And I thought, wow, you think that 30 is a time when you’re supposed to be getting stiff and old and an immoble and all I said no, that’s when you’re maybe 90A 100. You know if you’re fortunate enough to make it. Then maybe you can start slowing down like that.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (12:08)

I’m being completely serious. Because of what I’ve seen I’ve seen quite a few joxtoppositions in life, people in my family who directly as a result of the way that they eat and the way that they move has resulted in radically different results. In their physical abilities and health.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (12:34)

and fortunately, I practiced in my life a way that people at 47 years old, I’m still highly moble. strong endurrent and flexible and have an incredible amount of stamina and mobility and enjoy life moving around in my body. As I wish and so 4 billion years idea of somehow convolung.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (13:14)

movement, playful vigorous, vital supple. energetic movement with being childish to the point where so much of society puts pressure on men to stop being playful in their own bodies. and it’s stealing them of their real.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (13:37)

Masculinity Because you come up against somebody who is trained and physical. and also fierce and energetic and powerful. You stand no chance and you know, before all the naysier.

Speaker 2 (13:57)

I just got my pew and editor.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (14:00)

Realise this. that there are very many people who are trained in unarmed combat, who are also a very well-trained armed combat. You’ll hear that kind of silliness all the time as well.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (14:12)

when all of the., you know, mediocre normal people who aren’t doing anything about their athletic longevity. They see people practising martial hardson, having great feats of physical ability, and they’re the ones who bring.

Speaker 2 (14:29)

My my back, my richest tour, just watching that, or you know which later in 30 or 40 or or why that’s why stay strapped all the time.

Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander (14:39)

You know, it’s, it’s completely misguided, and it is definitely a factor of this detrimental hypnosis, this very unexpected malpracticed programming influencing training conditioning and hypnosis.

Consistent….