Masculinity. A topic arguably more controversial than feminism. Terms such as ‘Soy Boy’ ‘Simp’ and ‘Cuck’ occupy one end of the spectrum, with the opposing corner lauding the titles of ‘Alpha’, and ‘Chad’ — but what does it really mean to be a man in 2020? This is the question that drove me through hell and back, and when I emerged from the infernos of my own psyche, I was changed forever. Here’s what I learned.
Chasing The Warrior
I suppose the best place to start would be my second year of University, where I was studying law at the time; law was always something I believed I wanted to do, it was high paying, it had status — what more could you want? Like many men on the cusp of adulthood, I had resolved that money was to be my guiding north star, and had done away with ‘childish pursuits’ of creativity and fulfilment. At least I thought I had…
In the summer break between my first and second year of study, this all changed. On what seemed like a whim, I decided to enroll as an Officer in the Royal Marines. The service was always an idea that I had flirted with, but I had never really grasped the nettle. Before I knew it, I had bought a motorbike and shaved my head — it’s not quite an affair with the secretary but if this sounds like a mid-life crisis, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
Over the next year, I trained to get into ‘Marine Shape’. After graduating with First Class Honours, I made it down to Lympstone, the second to last stage of recruitment, which involves a three-day intensive course aimed to push an individual to both his physical and mental limits. After making it through the first day with high scores, I got to the second day, and an hour into PT, I withdrew my application.
The following six months were genuinely the hardest days of my entire life — my confidence was in tatters — my own personal narrative was telling me that I was a failure, that I had no right to call myself a man — and honestly, I believed it.
The Masculine Fiction
The fact is, myself like many other young men trying to find their way in the world, looked up to the likes of Jocko Willink and David Goggins for inspiration. For you it might be Jordan Peterson, or some other icon, or perhaps it’s an idea of what a man ‘should’ look like, but the fact remains, many of us are more impressionable than we’d like to admit. When we consume their media, the likelihood is we introject it — it becomes a part of us that we begin to identify with — you start saying their phrases and regurgitating their manifestos as your own.
Pulling myself away from that voice in my head telling me I was a failure was extremely painful — not only because I believed in it and that hurt in and of itself, but because at least that voice gave me a purpose. It might seem odd, but at least if I knew I was a failure, I knew what it meant not to be a failure — I knew what it was to be ‘successful’ and I had an axis in which to orientate myself, despite falling short of it. Without it, I was seemingly in an abyss, without direction — I had to figure out what being a man meant to me.
No Role Models
In ancient societies, Tribal Elders guided young men into the ways of manhood — of course, these weren’t always perfect, at least by modern standards, but they did provide a structure for men to anchor their identities. In 2020, it is likely we have never met our father-figure, but rather seek his counsel from the comfort of our own bedroom, bathed in the blue LED lighting of our computer screens. We are inducted into believing that we should ‘bear our suffering’, or that simply the pursuit of masculinity is inherently toxic, and act to neuter ourselves before we even begin to explore it for ourselves.
After spending some time working at a law-firm, I was fortunate enough to meet James P Dowling at Jung To Live By (JTLB), who introduced me to the world of depth-psychology. Over the course of around a year, and with the support of the JTLB Team, it was then that I realised, among other things, that the question of “what does a man look like in 2020?” was based on a false premise. The real question you must ask yourself is this, ‘what kind of man do I want to be in 2020, and, for that matter, the rest of my life?’.
Trial By Fire
The purpose of Ritual, for me at least, is to use elements of an individual’s own personal unconscious, as well as elements of the collective, to empower an individual to make a definitive step in their life — a conclusive event performed in the presence of an individual’s unconscious, indicating that they are ready to move on in their journey and leave behind the past.
With this in mind, on the 17.08.2020, I travelled down to the coast along with some wood and two artefacts, to perform my own, personal Ritual. I travelled down to a secluded beach, descended the long flights of stairs down, and waited until the sun was setting and the fire was burning hot. I then took the artefacts, and after speaking some words over the fire of personal significance, laid them in the fire and watched them burn as the sea lapped against the shore.
This is my journey. As such, a ritual may not be necessary for you. What is necessary however, is that you recognise that you, just being you, are worthwhile, and it is you alone that can decide what being a man in the 21st century means. We may no longer have tribal elders to show us the way, and so it’s up to us to rediscover fire, so we may teach the next generation to do the same.
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