a journey to manhood

There's a site online called Art of Manliness. It's a blog that is run by a couple who write interesting and thought-provoking articles about what it is to be a man. Not in the contemporary 'LOOK AT MY MUSCLES THEY ARE BIG' or 'I'M A PLAYAAAAAA' type way; it's examining what it was to be a man in the past, and how we can apply that to our lives today. [Disclaimer: most of this post is from information I garnered from this site. It's a really great place, check it out! Females...not so much :)]


This is part of a more general, broad direction I want to go in life: What does it mean to be a man? Men throughout the ages have always had a ritual, a time or ordeal where they can go in, come out, and become men. There are ordeals in Africa where a man has to spend 3 days out in the bush and come back alive. Probably has to live off the land like Bear Grylls, but with less pee-drinking. Only then will he be accepted as a man in the community, elsewise he is shunned and banished. More recent examples are those of war; boys who go into the army come back as men, having seen the horrors of war and suchlike. All of them mature, and are re-integrated into society as men.


We don't have set standards and norms about what it is to be a man in today's society. Earlier times had benchmarks for success; a house, a car, three kids, a job and a wife. You could measure your success (and apparent happiness) by seeing what it is you had. This was an obvious precursor to men who compare...things =D These days, there's a sense of freedom about what we can do. Sure, laws may bind us in some ways, but we live and let live (most of us anyway). There's female empowerment, no segregation, gay marriage (hopefully soon), breaking down of social and societal norms; the list goes on. The earlier generations were all about breaking down the rules that the government and society of the day set, but now that that's done, what are we left to do?


So back to the first question: What does it mean to be man? Well, it's not really certain from this discussion, but I'll examine it further through the course of...these posts. Slightly more personal than usual, but it's nice to have these thoughts all ordered out and stuff.


And so we start a journey :)