| Manhood: Challenges and the Lost Generation X |
Manhood
Beaten up.
My nose was bleeding, my head was hearting like hell and wherever I was going I was leaving behind me a trail . This is what happened every time I sparred with my lovely boxing buddy, Theo.
Looking my self in the mirror, I remember thinking: Man, why on earth are you doing this to your self ? I mean you do not live in a ghetto, you do not have to defend your self from anyone and you haven't yet slept with that married sexy neighbor of yours. So, what are you trying to prove ?
I have to say that I am not the only man volunteering for such forms of ... miseries. I know so many men of my age that have been going through all kinds of extremes: Pain, Cold, Humiliation and Body fatigue without knowing WHY they are doing it. However, there seems to be a category of people that don't have to prove their manhood. What happened during their upbringing that is different from ours ?
Where have all the fathers gone ?
Most men brought up after the industrial revolution belong to a long series of generations that have been brought up without fathers. Up to the 19th century, families were following the rhythms of the land and fathers were working next to their sons through each phase of the life in the farm. This meant that fathers would be very present during the early life of their children upbringing until their adulthood.
Modern times would bring an end to all of that.
Men were now obliged to leave the house in order to earn the family's bread, while women would stay behind to take care of the little ones. The result was that children would grow up in the presence of an all powerful mother figure that would be the only one offering life education, apart from the rare exposure to a distant, punitive father. Even when women started to work, this pattern continued to hold making mothers the only person close to her children.
The result was mass confusion. Whole generations of men had to find ways to compensate for the over presence of women during their early years and to defend themselves against to what they thought would be a feminization of their character.
Capitalism and militarisation of our society gave a new spin to this: This was one of the reasons how modern sports came to be so brutal and competitive. Anyone having watched the Arctic Winter Games would probably observe that these sports that have origins in more farmer/hunter families, are based in cooperation instead of conflict AKA 'being the bloody best'.
How many men, searching for their manhood, elisted themselves in military training programs, to wake up one day in some faraway war zone and to wonder, why on earth they are there ...
« Tomorrow I am going off for a military exercise and I will spend the whole week swimming in the sea, while air temperature will be ... no more than zero degrees ... All that for only 25 euros per day » ~ An 'elite' Spec Ops officer wondering why he was working where he was working after his third beer.
Unlikely women who are considered to be born with all necessary character traits, manhood is considered to be something that one has to work and strive for in order to achieve it. The special events that mark the passage from boyhood to manhood are known as Rites of manhood.
From the South Pacific tribe of Vanuatu men, who jump from a 100m high construction with nothing but Tarzan ropes to hold them to life, to the brazilian Mati beatings and drug consuming that produce uncontrollable body reactions that include vomiting and emptying your bowel, manhood rites seem to share some common elements: Extreme fear and overcoming difficulties.
It seems that when a boy has experienced fear, somehow he matures and becomes a stronger person. This element seems to have disappeared from our modern way of life. We breathe, eat and walk through areas of extreme security. Our parents make sure that we are never exposed to any unpleasant feelings and if something brakes, then daddy will fix it.
However, your body needs fear in order to live and if it doesn't find it outside, it will readjust its sensitivity levels until it experences fear from the simple things that occur in your life. A healthy dose of externally induced fear will permit you to unwire this and make you strong enough in order to withstand any form of psychological pressure that comes in your way. Every other thing in your life will fade to the background, unveiling only the things that really matter.
As Tony Robbins nicely put it, it is mind boggling how many wealthy and famous people have been going in and out from rehabilitation centers, while people that have been through extreme social, emotional and real pain turn up to be so strong and happy with their lives.
Difficulty makes you rewire and acquire all the characteristics that build a man. Overcoming difficulties means to be able to see the storm and keep moving through, even when everyone else is telling you not to. Difficulty is the training gear that sends a man through a prison wall, towards his land of freedom.
So, what is manhood ?
1) Determination and Intent. Setting goals and going for them no matter what the obstacles may be.
2) Courage under Fire. Watch out for the moments when your whole world is coming crumbling down, when pressure is measured with cries and everybody else asks for help, as these moments are the ones that separate a true man from the hundreds of boys surrounding him. The capacity to hold your lines even under extreme pressure signifies that when the stakes will be at your favor, you will have learnt how to succeed.
3) Vigor, Force and Energy. To be alive, to take initiatives and to have the necessary will power to chase your dreams.
4) Interest for the other Sex. Yes, a man should seek to find a woman and to become a father. This means chasing, this means dating and yes, my church friends, this means ... sex.
5) Taking the Right Decision. Every decision you have to take, you must take it as this was the last decision of your life: With responsability, preparation and courage, like if you are going off to war. After this happens, you should never look back. What has been done, it has been done and in this short life, there is not time for regrets or after-thoughts. There is time only for actions.
6) Empathy for those around you. A man that has been through difficult times can feel empathy for people suffering around him and thus, he will try to help them.
Ok, cool. What does all this mean ?
For us that have been raised without parents this means two things:
You must know to tell when your research for manhood guides you in harms way. Taking boxing courses, walking in the wilderness all by your self and swimming in cold water is ok. However, when you have to enlist in the army, or get into fights in order to prove your manhood, you become a victim of modern propaganda.
Second point is that you must re-invent these rites of manhood that no longer exist in our society. You must keep pushing your character to new unchartered territories and remember that challenges are the ground the makes you grow as a character, no matter how unpleasant they may be. In order to become a strong man, you have to sweat and this stands for psychological training as well.
The last point, comes for those among you that you are about to become fathers.
Be Present during your sons upbringing.
Experience your sons growing up and make sure that they have all of the above so as not to run around like decapitated chickens as most of us have been doing. A good friend of mine has grown up working next to his father, who was a plumber. « When the summer was coming and all of my friends were running to the beach, I was cursing because I knew that I had to go help my father ». This guy is one of the few of my generation that did not feel he had to prove his manhood. He was already a man. The father IS the best coach in the world and with this way you will arm your genes to continue their trip, towards eternity.
Hit play for the outro
Outro
A boy around eight or nine years old once found a very large caterpillar. It was dark green, as long and thick as a man's finger, and decorated with curious stalky and warty protuberances in blue, red, and bright yellow. Since it was nearly the end of summer, he took it home and put it in a large open jar, and kept it supplied with leaves of the type he had seen it eating.
After a couple of months it began to spin a cocoon about itself. He watched this with fascination, and when the cocoon was complete, he put the jar on a shelf of his screened back porch, where it remained through the winter. When the days began to lengthen and the weather grew warmer he checked the jar every morning and afternoon, waiting for a little miracle of rebirth.
One Saturday morning his patience was rewarded. There was movement within the cocoon and a small hole had appeared. The boy watched in fascination as the hole became larger and the reborn creature inside struggled to emerge. The struggle went on for what seemed to the boy a long time and he began to feel sorry for the trapped insect. Out of compassion, he ran off and returned with a pair of his mother's smallest, finest, scissors. Carefully he enlarged the hole, and then stood back to watch a beautifully patterned moth emerge into the light of day.
The moth spread its folded wings, moving them gently to dry in the air. Their tan- and-gray markings seemed to the boy to be one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.When the moth's wings seemed dry, he carefully held the jar to the outside of the porch screen so that it could crawl out. He planned to watch it until it flew away to find a mate. The moth crawled onto the screen and perched there. It flapped its wings from time to time but did not fly. When evening came, several male moths came and fluttered about the female clinging to the screen, but although she seemed to be trying to fly off and join them, she never moved from where she was. She stayed where she was for three or four days, and finally died and fell to the ground.
The boy later learned that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon is so prolonged for moths and butterflies because the long effort serves to pump necessary fluids into their wings and strengthen them for flight. By shortening this process, to spare the moth pain, he had prevented her wings from fully developing and so she could never fly and mate and lay the eggs of the next generation.
~ THE MEN'S CIRCLE at Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal by Robin.
Das Bibliography Manhood
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