When Hurricane Sandy disabled much of the Northeast's power grid, millions of Americans had no idea what to do without their smartphones and iPads. Instead of helping us, our digital devices have made us helpless. We cannot hunt, build shelter, start a fire, nor utilize any other skills that have kept our species alive for millennia. To prepare for the next blackout, we should follow the example of history's greatest author (and manliest man), Ernest Hemingway, who didn't need fancy gadgets--just a typewriter and a bottle of scotch.
Sure, his brand of hyper-masculinity is old-fashioned in a world of skinny jeans, Pilates classes and gluten avoidance. A guy is now more likely to impress women by treating animals with kindness than traveling to Africa and slaughtering them by the thousands. (Hemingway didn't take pleasure in hunting endangered species; his pleasure came from making species endangered.)
But even though we're more compassionate today, we've lost our zest for existence as we spend our every waking moment in front of glowing screens. The closest we come to genuine adventure is watching IMAX 3D superhero movies. We're too busy posting on Facebook about our lives to actually live them.
Since nobody has the attention span anymore (thanks, Twitter) required to slog through an epic tome about the Spanish Civil War, or even a breezy novella about a geriatric fisherman, I have collected Hemingway's manliest wisdom into The Heming Way: How to Unleash the Booze-Inhaling, Animal-Slaughtering, War-Glorifying, Hairy-Chested, Retro-Sexual Legend Within, Just Like Papa! [St. Martin's Press, $12.99].
So without further ado, here are 9 ways to live like Hemignway: