What came up for me when reading this was the idea of proper adult development. We find ourselves on threshold moments throughout life that challenge, stretch, and often break us. They give us opportunities to discover more of who we are and what we are capable of leveraging to meet those moments. This gives us both a renewed sense of ourselves and a sense of our own value to our social groups.
In the "good old days" (or really, just the old days), these thresholds were proper initiations given within the context of a very predictable rhythm of communal life. You could predict them, because life looked pretty standard for everyone across very long time horizons. You knew what these individuals needed to become in order to support the tribe. So, you had initiations to help them become more and more adult - less dependent, more independent, and eventually more interdependent as elders.
Now, in our much more chaotic and fluid modern times, we have the same developmental needs as adults, but far less predictability and structure for a common life. We don't have initiations anymore. We do have thresholds.
In all cases, Presence is the catalyst for this development. To your point, we need to be WITNESSED in these threshold moments in order for them to take hold - they are not a solo sport. However, we lack initiation rituals for common life, so there's a need for a more organic way of meeting people in those thresholds so the developmental leap can take hold.
This, I believe, is the role modern coaches are being called to fill - among others.
This is what resonated with me most JJ Vega: the process of becoming "less dependent, more independent, and eventually more interdependent..."
My "initiation" into manhood was working at my parents' lumberyard every summer, starting at the age of 14. Learning to drive a forklift, load up contractors' trucks, take care of homeowner orders, and eventually, driving flatbed trucks, was my repeated initiation into adulthood, while my male boyhood friends were playing baseball, going to camp, etc.
I became interdependent with adult society from a very early age, and being both independent but learning how I also was dependent on others as a human did something inside my brain that has always made me feel like I was capable of taking control of my life.
It's interesting how some form of manual, physical work (getting something done in the material world) seems to be an important element of those initiations for men. We need to test our capability in environments that will tell us, in no uncertain terms, that we've got the right stuff to be useful in our tribes.
It seems obvious to me, but perhaps less so to an anthropologist, that what's happening isn't so much about brawn, but about aping what the adult males do.
"If I can do what they do, then I'm one of them."
This is nothing to say of what's "natural" or how anything should be.
Yeah, but there is something there. I sense that we've become almost ashamed of how important that "aping" is for us to not only feel like we belong, but also to know what "good" looks like for our growth and development as men. Hence the vital importance of good role models.
Great context and great addition to the conversation, JJ. Thank you. Also, I’m not shocked to read something so insightful and integral from you.
It’s easy to see how knowing what we know about how initiation used to arise, that many could conclude “We just need to get back to those times, and those actions.”
In AA it’s called romanticizing the bottle or the the drink. It’s all romanticizing the past, which never works out for us.
Initiation, as a part of human life, has changed. They can take on simulacrums of the past, but they will never honestly be that again, not unless (maybe) there is a great reset of some sort. Even then, it’s dubious. If time marches any direction, it’s forward, and we’re part of it.
Last thought. I’m with you, but you know this. Presence is the thing no matter how we talk about what qualifies as an initiation. It’s what the march demands from us for so many reasons, but especially in human development, adult or otherwise.
Great article, but I wonder here if you and Stephen are using the word "initiation" in a way that is different to the inherent anthropological interpretation in which the term is usually spoken of.
It seems like you and Stephen are arguing that initiation happens organically and often painfully in Stephens example, through the circumstances of everyday life, which is a different sociological mechanism and different definition from which I understand and write about the term.
I feel like Stephen's essay, and your focus on presence, although valid, its the top layer of a deeper problem, by almost romantizing trauma as initiation, and this is because we have lost lots of the older "proper" initiation frameworks seen throughout the anthropological record.
Without structured, communal rites of passage (whatever we may call these in the modern day) men end up abandoned to suffer in isolation and forced to retroactively invent meaning for their pain just to cope, or hope they have people in their life to acknowledge these moments or curate enough presence to recognize them himself.
Your point is correct that presence is key to being able to recognize these things as important and thus able to leverage them properly. But by calling these life events initiations I fear we're basically slapping a noble label on societal neglect and the loss of actual guidance.
Thanks, Jai, for being here. You keep the bar high, so I take your thoughts with gravity.
I’ll not try to speak for anyone else, but for myself, yes. This perspective and word usage breaks from the anthropological tradition, but not to deny more traditional forms of initiation either. It’s both-and.
For this man, the idea of structured, communal rites feels like pageantry. That’s just me. I don’t like it.
Also, the arguments for their value smell a little like fetishizing the past, a la “the 1950s were so much better.” I just don’t believe these formalities are necessary, but I doubt they’re harmful.
What I take from Bradford’s work, and what I’m trying to illuminate, is that we’re striving through challenges all the time, unregarded, both by ourselves and by others. It seems that few people (adults?) teach us to recognize what fires we’ve walked through.
I believe we can both be concerned about societal neglect and still acknowledge resilience against life’s worst. My bully doesn’t get credit for making me tough, but I get credit for developing resilience in the face of his constant abuse. He’s still a dick who needs help.
We can also still want a world with more guidance. Few, if any of us, will ever walk the path of a Buddha and discover presence in a cave. It’s through exposure to the presence of others that most of us can feel into this deeper something.
From my work, I’ve seen what presence does to a grown man’s ability to discover the powerful man that already lives inside him. Intentionality of presence is what’s always necessary in my humble opinion.
Upon further reflection I see where you're coming, this actually makes a lot of sense. I've spent a lot of time pointing out the decline of initiation rites in the modern context, Gilmores book Manhood in the Making had been quite foundational to my understanding, but I never really thought about what could replace it outside of finding replacements to the ones that have been lost. Stuff like Men's Sheds, Sports Clubs etc., but "ability to discover the powerful man that lives inside you" without a structure actually seems more empowering and inline with my libertarian/ individual sovereignty biases, and crucially seems like it would actually work.
This idea has gone in my notes app, deffo more to be thought about it regarding this so thanks!
Not gonna lie, it feels great to articulate a position and have it land. That would've been true even if you still didn't agree, but I take it as a bonus that you found some truth in my perspective.
Thanks for staying in the saddle with me, but even more thanks for pressure testing my thoughts. As is obvious from my hedged writing style, I'm still honing them.
Update upon re-reading I realise the use of "non-traditional" initiations! But I do wonder, in your work do you feel from working with men that we need these more traditional versions, or can non-traditional initiations + acknowledgements and presence be enough do you think?
“Shoved onto a plane”……”Forced to go”……my memory serves me differently…….and I know, I’m picking at straws. And, just look at how much you grew from it 😁.
It's much less about you, if any at all, but more about what it means to be a young person in this world. Life is doing the forcing and shoving. There is no avoiding this.
To be fair, I do say in the text, "Mother shoved." You got me. I could have been more careful with how I worded that, but in fairness to you... who could blame you? I was a lot. I would've shoved me into a plane, bus, or train... anywhere else.
I'm not sure I agree with you that boys and men need "structured, communal rites of passage," or they otherwise end up abandoned.
I think Damon's experience is more akin to what a large share of male society experiences without those rites, and still find themselves living present and capable lives.
I think what is important to any human is a lot like what Damon poses here -- a prolonged period of exposure to challenges that are more akin to what an adult life is like, regardless of whether there is some "rite" that structures things.
Damon was forced into adulthood at an early age, living in a different culture, with a different language, without parental supervision. He had to travel internationally by himself. These kinds of exposures, over time, wire the brain no differently than say learning how to cook or manage a budget.
It's the repeated actions over time for me that have led me to giving me a sense of "male hood" if you want to call it that (I don't. I call it adulthood. Independence). And yes, being seen by others for the competence you are developing is reinforcing and helpful to propelling that process.
I had not heard of The Mankind Project so naturally my first assumption was “oh this will be problematic” so I’m really glad it’s not inherently, I trust your gauge.
I was also put on a plane at about 14 and sent to my cousins in Spain a few times and I’m sure it did my a world of good! It’s a chance to self manage and many of us could realise that we’re not the centre of the universe that way.
As you discussed glamping being below you, I think you’ll also appreciate this:
I wish I could claim that Guatemala taught me I was not the center of the universe. In many ways, it made that problem worse for me. I was very well cared for there. I should have learned more Spanish. I carry this shame still today.
Yeah, “MKP,” as they call it for short, is really a well intentioned organization. I genuinely trust them as good actors. I just am not sold on the universality for all men.
Thanks for this Damon. Really great insight. Acknowledgment. Recognition. These are things we're hesitant to ask for but so deeply want. What we're going through is tough. What we overcame deserves notice. Not getting that acknowledgment or recognition deprives us of a sense of honor and, honestly, mattering. We want to know for sure that we've earned this honor. If you get a chance, watch the last scene of Saving Private Ryan. It dramatizes this need in a really profound way. If we can find it in our daily lives we feel so much more fulfilled.
Oh, it's been a minute since I saw Saving Private Ryan. I remember it as a watch once, throw out all the used facial tissues, and really consider if you have the strength to watch it again. Maybe I can look up the last scene on YouTube so I can decrease my sobbing.
This is going to be a bit of a tangent but I appreciate your post for a number of reasons. For one, I am a mom of two boys now. And I'm constantly thinking of balance with raising them... Because I think we often take away what is good for men in terms of initiation and strip away all masculinity because it's "bad"... And this makes a lot of young boys lost and anxious. We don't give them opportunities to explore and be valued for being them.
On the flip side, we also still don't do a whole lot of emotional validation. When you wrote this: What’s often missing, as Bradford points out, is acknowledgment. There’s nobody who says, “I see you,” as in ”I acknowledge the hard thing you did.”... I feel it. Because just like we've demonized being masculine these days, we also still expect men to just buck up and figure it out without emotions.
Like, you can't win.
And when I wrote "we" this comment, I meant collective societal we.
This comment may or may not have made sense. Both my kids are sick I'm lacking sleep haha
Kat, it TOTALLY made sense to this guy. Thank you for this comment. This feels like some kind of beautiful loop, especially if it helps your boys see their own initiations.
What came up for me when reading this was the idea of proper adult development. We find ourselves on threshold moments throughout life that challenge, stretch, and often break us. They give us opportunities to discover more of who we are and what we are capable of leveraging to meet those moments. This gives us both a renewed sense of ourselves and a sense of our own value to our social groups.
In the "good old days" (or really, just the old days), these thresholds were proper initiations given within the context of a very predictable rhythm of communal life. You could predict them, because life looked pretty standard for everyone across very long time horizons. You knew what these individuals needed to become in order to support the tribe. So, you had initiations to help them become more and more adult - less dependent, more independent, and eventually more interdependent as elders.
Now, in our much more chaotic and fluid modern times, we have the same developmental needs as adults, but far less predictability and structure for a common life. We don't have initiations anymore. We do have thresholds.
In all cases, Presence is the catalyst for this development. To your point, we need to be WITNESSED in these threshold moments in order for them to take hold - they are not a solo sport. However, we lack initiation rituals for common life, so there's a need for a more organic way of meeting people in those thresholds so the developmental leap can take hold.
This, I believe, is the role modern coaches are being called to fill - among others.
This is what resonated with me most JJ Vega: the process of becoming "less dependent, more independent, and eventually more interdependent..."
My "initiation" into manhood was working at my parents' lumberyard every summer, starting at the age of 14. Learning to drive a forklift, load up contractors' trucks, take care of homeowner orders, and eventually, driving flatbed trucks, was my repeated initiation into adulthood, while my male boyhood friends were playing baseball, going to camp, etc.
I became interdependent with adult society from a very early age, and being both independent but learning how I also was dependent on others as a human did something inside my brain that has always made me feel like I was capable of taking control of my life.
It's interesting how some form of manual, physical work (getting something done in the material world) seems to be an important element of those initiations for men. We need to test our capability in environments that will tell us, in no uncertain terms, that we've got the right stuff to be useful in our tribes.
Thanks for sharing, Richard! Very insightful.
It seems obvious to me, but perhaps less so to an anthropologist, that what's happening isn't so much about brawn, but about aping what the adult males do.
"If I can do what they do, then I'm one of them."
This is nothing to say of what's "natural" or how anything should be.
Yeah, but there is something there. I sense that we've become almost ashamed of how important that "aping" is for us to not only feel like we belong, but also to know what "good" looks like for our growth and development as men. Hence the vital importance of good role models.
100%, JJ.
Great context and great addition to the conversation, JJ. Thank you. Also, I’m not shocked to read something so insightful and integral from you.
It’s easy to see how knowing what we know about how initiation used to arise, that many could conclude “We just need to get back to those times, and those actions.”
In AA it’s called romanticizing the bottle or the the drink. It’s all romanticizing the past, which never works out for us.
Initiation, as a part of human life, has changed. They can take on simulacrums of the past, but they will never honestly be that again, not unless (maybe) there is a great reset of some sort. Even then, it’s dubious. If time marches any direction, it’s forward, and we’re part of it.
Last thought. I’m with you, but you know this. Presence is the thing no matter how we talk about what qualifies as an initiation. It’s what the march demands from us for so many reasons, but especially in human development, adult or otherwise.
Hey Damon!
Great article, but I wonder here if you and Stephen are using the word "initiation" in a way that is different to the inherent anthropological interpretation in which the term is usually spoken of.
It seems like you and Stephen are arguing that initiation happens organically and often painfully in Stephens example, through the circumstances of everyday life, which is a different sociological mechanism and different definition from which I understand and write about the term.
I feel like Stephen's essay, and your focus on presence, although valid, its the top layer of a deeper problem, by almost romantizing trauma as initiation, and this is because we have lost lots of the older "proper" initiation frameworks seen throughout the anthropological record.
Without structured, communal rites of passage (whatever we may call these in the modern day) men end up abandoned to suffer in isolation and forced to retroactively invent meaning for their pain just to cope, or hope they have people in their life to acknowledge these moments or curate enough presence to recognize them himself.
Your point is correct that presence is key to being able to recognize these things as important and thus able to leverage them properly. But by calling these life events initiations I fear we're basically slapping a noble label on societal neglect and the loss of actual guidance.
Thanks, Jai, for being here. You keep the bar high, so I take your thoughts with gravity.
I’ll not try to speak for anyone else, but for myself, yes. This perspective and word usage breaks from the anthropological tradition, but not to deny more traditional forms of initiation either. It’s both-and.
For this man, the idea of structured, communal rites feels like pageantry. That’s just me. I don’t like it.
Also, the arguments for their value smell a little like fetishizing the past, a la “the 1950s were so much better.” I just don’t believe these formalities are necessary, but I doubt they’re harmful.
What I take from Bradford’s work, and what I’m trying to illuminate, is that we’re striving through challenges all the time, unregarded, both by ourselves and by others. It seems that few people (adults?) teach us to recognize what fires we’ve walked through.
I believe we can both be concerned about societal neglect and still acknowledge resilience against life’s worst. My bully doesn’t get credit for making me tough, but I get credit for developing resilience in the face of his constant abuse. He’s still a dick who needs help.
We can also still want a world with more guidance. Few, if any of us, will ever walk the path of a Buddha and discover presence in a cave. It’s through exposure to the presence of others that most of us can feel into this deeper something.
From my work, I’ve seen what presence does to a grown man’s ability to discover the powerful man that already lives inside him. Intentionality of presence is what’s always necessary in my humble opinion.
You’re the best, Jai. Thanks again.
Upon further reflection I see where you're coming, this actually makes a lot of sense. I've spent a lot of time pointing out the decline of initiation rites in the modern context, Gilmores book Manhood in the Making had been quite foundational to my understanding, but I never really thought about what could replace it outside of finding replacements to the ones that have been lost. Stuff like Men's Sheds, Sports Clubs etc., but "ability to discover the powerful man that lives inside you" without a structure actually seems more empowering and inline with my libertarian/ individual sovereignty biases, and crucially seems like it would actually work.
This idea has gone in my notes app, deffo more to be thought about it regarding this so thanks!
Not gonna lie, it feels great to articulate a position and have it land. That would've been true even if you still didn't agree, but I take it as a bonus that you found some truth in my perspective.
Thanks for staying in the saddle with me, but even more thanks for pressure testing my thoughts. As is obvious from my hedged writing style, I'm still honing them.
Update upon re-reading I realise the use of "non-traditional" initiations! But I do wonder, in your work do you feel from working with men that we need these more traditional versions, or can non-traditional initiations + acknowledgements and presence be enough do you think?
I honestly have no idea!
“Shoved onto a plane”……”Forced to go”……my memory serves me differently…….and I know, I’m picking at straws. And, just look at how much you grew from it 😁.
It's much less about you, if any at all, but more about what it means to be a young person in this world. Life is doing the forcing and shoving. There is no avoiding this.
To be fair, I do say in the text, "Mother shoved." You got me. I could have been more careful with how I worded that, but in fairness to you... who could blame you? I was a lot. I would've shoved me into a plane, bus, or train... anywhere else.
Jai,
I'm not sure I agree with you that boys and men need "structured, communal rites of passage," or they otherwise end up abandoned.
I think Damon's experience is more akin to what a large share of male society experiences without those rites, and still find themselves living present and capable lives.
I think what is important to any human is a lot like what Damon poses here -- a prolonged period of exposure to challenges that are more akin to what an adult life is like, regardless of whether there is some "rite" that structures things.
Damon was forced into adulthood at an early age, living in a different culture, with a different language, without parental supervision. He had to travel internationally by himself. These kinds of exposures, over time, wire the brain no differently than say learning how to cook or manage a budget.
It's the repeated actions over time for me that have led me to giving me a sense of "male hood" if you want to call it that (I don't. I call it adulthood. Independence). And yes, being seen by others for the competence you are developing is reinforcing and helpful to propelling that process.
I had not heard of The Mankind Project so naturally my first assumption was “oh this will be problematic” so I’m really glad it’s not inherently, I trust your gauge.
I was also put on a plane at about 14 and sent to my cousins in Spain a few times and I’m sure it did my a world of good! It’s a chance to self manage and many of us could realise that we’re not the centre of the universe that way.
As you discussed glamping being below you, I think you’ll also appreciate this:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXvFibVxCiG/?igsh=YTQ5eXI3M3huaWth
That Reel, tho. Zactly.
I wish I could claim that Guatemala taught me I was not the center of the universe. In many ways, it made that problem worse for me. I was very well cared for there. I should have learned more Spanish. I carry this shame still today.
Yeah, “MKP,” as they call it for short, is really a well intentioned organization. I genuinely trust them as good actors. I just am not sold on the universality for all men.
Thanks for this Damon. Really great insight. Acknowledgment. Recognition. These are things we're hesitant to ask for but so deeply want. What we're going through is tough. What we overcame deserves notice. Not getting that acknowledgment or recognition deprives us of a sense of honor and, honestly, mattering. We want to know for sure that we've earned this honor. If you get a chance, watch the last scene of Saving Private Ryan. It dramatizes this need in a really profound way. If we can find it in our daily lives we feel so much more fulfilled.
Oh, it's been a minute since I saw Saving Private Ryan. I remember it as a watch once, throw out all the used facial tissues, and really consider if you have the strength to watch it again. Maybe I can look up the last scene on YouTube so I can decrease my sobbing.
Thanks for being here, Jim.
You can definitely find it on YouTube. I've watched it many times. Never a dry eye.
This is going to be a bit of a tangent but I appreciate your post for a number of reasons. For one, I am a mom of two boys now. And I'm constantly thinking of balance with raising them... Because I think we often take away what is good for men in terms of initiation and strip away all masculinity because it's "bad"... And this makes a lot of young boys lost and anxious. We don't give them opportunities to explore and be valued for being them.
On the flip side, we also still don't do a whole lot of emotional validation. When you wrote this: What’s often missing, as Bradford points out, is acknowledgment. There’s nobody who says, “I see you,” as in ”I acknowledge the hard thing you did.”... I feel it. Because just like we've demonized being masculine these days, we also still expect men to just buck up and figure it out without emotions.
Like, you can't win.
And when I wrote "we" this comment, I meant collective societal we.
This comment may or may not have made sense. Both my kids are sick I'm lacking sleep haha
Kat, it TOTALLY made sense to this guy. Thank you for this comment. This feels like some kind of beautiful loop, especially if it helps your boys see their own initiations.