God made man to be the master of creation.  It is accordingly natural for a man to take pleasure in mastery of those things which are meant to be subordinate to him. A man must first be master of himself, which is virtue. Mastery of a skill or craft is also proper to man and for most men constitutes one of the chief satisfactions in life. As a father, a man needs to exercise a certain mastery over others in his family, both in the sense of authority, and in the origin of the word, which is magister, teacher.

Mastery is not proper to adolescent men, since it requires greater age. Adolescents are not, properly speaking, virtuous yet, but will only be so as a man if formed in virtue as a boy and young man.

Mastery of a skill or craft requires training and practice into adulthood, but there is a degree of competency which is available to young men, which can be a great source of satisfaction and can encourage adolescents to work towards mastery.

Conventional teaching of academic subjects in a classroom does not create opportunities for competency in young men.  Receiving good grades may provide a young man with a sense of accomplishment, but that should not be confused with a sense of being able to do, to make or construct in a self sufficient way. Experience with manual work creates many opportunities for development of competency.

Without a proper experience of competency, which is the first step on the way to mastery, a man is likely to seek a  sense of mastery wrongly, by exercising authority over his family, or other men, or nature in a disordered or tyrannical way.