A Boy’s Guide to Seeing What Matters
Bondi, The name itself conjures images of sun, surf, and a certain kind of physical perfection. It is a place celebrated for its culture of health, its beaches a runway for the sculpted and the strong. It is a world of muscles and posturing, where the Adonis types hold court, their power written in the lines of their six-packs and the confidence of their stride.
But in December 2025, when chaos erupted and terror descended on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, the world learned the true measure of a man. It had nothing to do with muscle and everything to do with character.
As two gunmen opened fire, killing at least 15 people, the heroes who emerged were not the chiselled archetypes of the beach. They were ordinary people, propelled by extraordinary courage. And while they ran towards the danger, it is a stark and uncomfortable truth that many of those Adonis types, the very men a boy might crave to serve, used their strength to run away.
The true heroes were an elderly couple, Boris and Sofia Gurman, both in their 60s. Dashcam footage shows them, not running from danger, but charging towards it, attempting to wrestle a long-barrelled gun from a shooter. They were described as locals who lived “honest, hardworking lives and treated everyone they met with kindness, warmth and respect”. They paid for their bravery with their lives, dying in each other’s arms. Their son would later say that in their final moments, they showed “the depth of who they were by facing those moments with courage, selflessness and love”.
They were a mother, Jessica Rozen, who, while desperately searching for her own three-year-old son in the chaos, saw another little girl, alone and terrified. She lay on top of the child, shielding her with her own body until the shooting stopped.
They were a 62-year-old man, Reuven Morrison, who physically confronted a terrorist, throwing bricks at him in a desperate attempt to save others.
And they were Ahmed Al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old fruit shop owner with no firearms experience. He was not a trained warrior; he was a man having coffee with a friend when he heard the shots. The now-famous footage shows him running from behind, tackling a gunman, and wrestling the rifle from his grip. He was seriously wounded for his actions, but his courage undoubtedly saved countless lives.
The State premier praised the “heroics of ordinary, everyday Australians” and that is the crucial lesson. In the moment of ultimate crisis, it was not physical strength or aesthetic perfection that mattered. It was character. It was the ingrained instinct to protect, to serve, to sacrifice. It was the depth of a person’s soul, laid bare.
The Lesson for a Boy in Choosing a Sir
This is a vital lesson for any boy, especially when choosing a Sir. How many boys have walked the length of Bondi, their eyes drawn to the parade of masculine perfection, imagining service to one of these physical gods?
The events of December 2025 are a brutal and necessary corrective. They teach us that the man who looks the part is often just an actor, and that true strength is not in the bicep, but in the spine.
A boy’s duty is to look deeper. To seek the character beneath the surface. Does the man you wish to serve possess the quiet courage of the Gurmans? The selfless love of Jessica Rozen? The decisive bravery of Ahmed Al-Ahmed?
Or is his strength merely posturing? Is his authority a performance that will crumble the moment it is truly tested? In difficult times—and there will be difficult times in any dynamic—you do not need a man who looks good in a photograph. You need a man whose character is an unshakeable foundation. A man who, when the shooting starts, will face the danger to protect what is his.
And here is the most important takeaway: men of true character are everywhere. They are not confined to the beaches or the boardrooms. They are the fruit sellers, the elderly couples, the mothers, the unassuming men having a quiet coffee. A boy must learn to see with more than his eyes. He must develop a sense for character, for substance, for the quiet fire that burns within a person, regardless of their exterior.
The Mandate for a Boy’s Own Training
This truth is a mirror for a boy’s own training. It is not enough to sculpt your body into an object of desire. You must forge your character with the same, if not greater, intensity.
Your service, your submission, your daily acts of devotion—these are your training ground. Each time you choose obedience over ease, each time you endure discomfort for his pleasure, each time you silence your own ego to amplify his will, you are building character.
You are strengthening the muscle that matters most. Looks will fade. Physical strength will diminish. But character, once forged, endures. It is the only thing that will see you through the inevitable challenges, the only thing that will sustain you when the easy path calls, and the only thing that truly defines your worth.
Work on your body, for it is a temple to be offered. But obsess over your character, for it is the foundation upon which everything else is built.
