Every Father Must Die
What do lost boys become?
“You don’t realize it, but you need me son.”
Mother….f*cker….
I don’t know why this hurt me so much.
But even more so, it infuriated me.
From the very center of me, I burned with anger and resentment after he said it.
Who was it?
My Father of course. The man that I’ve struggled to have a relationship with for my whole life.
The very sentence screams arrogance and ignorance to me. But, maybe that means there’s something more that I hold against him. It’s my reaction to his words that are the issue. Not the words or him necessarily.
The worst part, was that I didn’t even call him on it…
My own mother’s love made me fear that type of conflict, and the pain I may cause others.
I just…care too much.
From personal experience I’ve found out that being a responsible human does not make a responsible man.
Bummer…
In many ways, I’ve missed the mark:
I invested in toys more than I did myself.
I avoided rejection and any discomfort that wasn’t necessary.
I thought only of what I could get from situations and people.
I internally blamed everyone else for my place in life.
I was seeking pleasure more than growth.
I played love as if I knew what it was, only to get what I was starving for.
And realizing true responsibility later rather than sooner has quite a detrimental effect…
I’ve come to realize that the real responsibility of man is when he can sacrifice his own impulses and indulgence in order to take care of others. It means that he can face his emotions and move them to the side when the priority of others comes first. It means that he can create value for the people that count on him.
And to many men there’s a heart throbbing pride to knowing we are valuable. Without it, we question our potency and sometimes our existence. It just takes seeing past our own impulses to see what comes from those sacrifices.
No wonder so many men struggle…
POWER BEHIND MISSION
But this responsibility…this sacrifice…doesn’t mean it’s void of passion and mission.
It’s easy to take sacrifice to it’s extreme.
Don’t make the mistake of being an extremist about anything. It deadens the ability to be open.
However, the soul of a man doesn’t need to be sacrificed. That love of self. The desire to build an empire based on what you love or with your talent.
The thing is, is that pride of giving to others gets men only half way to a deathbed absent of regret.
A man has to have the freedom to seek out the answers to the universe.
His universe.
I think a man has to have something that calls to him. Something that purposely lies beyond innumerable adversaries…almost as if he seeks to overcome an impossible darkness…
It’s odd this thing…
When a man finds something to metaphorically die for, he embodies it as if he would truly give his life for it.
Inherent heroism.
And even more so, I think that he knows the emptiness he would endure without it, this impossible mission or adventure…like it’s death itself.
It’s like walking the Earth with a heartbeat, but no heart for anything.
But what about the men that have no call?
That hear no whisper?
That wander blind?
That live by another man’s compass instead of his own?
This may be the greatest killer of all men…
A lost man is a volatile one. Not because he is inherently evil, but because evil toxifies the space in which he would otherwise have purpose and intention.
He is lost not because he never found his way, but because he was thrown into darkness with no tools, no guidance, no compass. And because he was taught to see himself as valuable only by conditions; standards set by someone else.
He’s chained by beliefs that are not his own. So deeply, he drowns in this pseudo belief system.
But a man without purpose is just a sign of something gone amiss in his history. Something has taken his light from him. Something has tattered his spirit, tampered his character, enslaved his love of the world.
Maybe it was the tyrannical father…the distant father…or the absent father?
Maybe it was poor leadership, superficial friendships, or dismissive love?
Maybe it was teachers and peers and parents that told him no, punished his expression, demonized his belief system?
But to the lost men reading this:
I know it’s tempting, but it’s not the cause of your pain that you seek. It’s the understanding of what was taken from you. Don’t spend more than necessary time on the history. As quickly as you find what led you astray, spend the time afterwards on finding(or re-finding) the one thing.
THE VALUE THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN
A ‘fatherless son’ can be multiple things, but for the sake of argument, let’s say a boy raised without a good male role model and mentor.
Once I realized what fatherlessness did to me, I spent an exhausting amount of time in self pity. Playing the victim, expressing my fucked psychology and my metaphorical chains.
Until all of it no longer mattered. Only the solutions to become the man I said I would be.
- Initiations, formal or informal are necessary for boys.
- The “death” of the father is necessary.
Men miss their true potential without these things. Men will melt in misery without these things. Men wander without any idea of mission without these things.
Thinking they are useless as a man…even as a human, they dabble and desperately reach for anything to make a difference, not knowing that they missed the challenges they needed from fathers and from initiation to make them formidable.
They live a life with just enough to motivation to exist, never seeing what lies beyond their self restricting ideas of the self.
PERSONAL EPIPHANY
A boy with any luck will inevitably outgrow is father, but without the death of his father, he will remain a clinging, prideless boy.
I’ve always wondered why I can’t love my father.
He’s always tried…
It’s because my father thinks I need him the way a boy does. He still clings to the idea that there are things that he still needs to teach me, things that would make up for time lost.
But…it doesn’t work that way.
I can’t return my mind to the malleable, submissive place it once was in. I can’t return to the naivety in which lessons can be learned.
I’ve surpassed my father in so many ways…
Yet, neither of us got to experience some sort of transition of me becoming a man. That place where the torch is passed, the respect is given, and the son becomes his father’s equal.
I needed him to challenge me.
To force me into clarity and autonomy.
To push me to become formidable and independent with my own intentions and belief in my own thoughts.
And it never happened.
When I came to this, I knew that there was only one thing I could do:
I would have to find my own initiations. I would have to face men myself physically, mentally and emotionally to level up. I would have to face my fear, accomplish real goals, and be encouraged and praised by the men closest to me in place of my father.
And even more so, from myself.
THE POTENTIAL
So, how do men become better men in manhood?
How do they remedy what was missing?
They will have to force themselves into challenge.
They will have to force themselves into metaphorical war. Go to battle with other men.
Test their own resolve.
Let their fathers or the resentful lack of one die.
A healthy boy/father relationship should include consistent presence, ramping challenge, and testing of the boys ability to stand on his own. And whether with love or with loathing, the acknowledgment from a father that a boy has turned man is crucial. Something that may come from the father himself, or the masculine father-like energy that comes from the men around him. From friends, adversaries, combat peers…and even without literal words said. It is the energy in which a boy instinctively knows the breakthroughs he’s made.
This is why manhood isn’t about money or status or even power…because all of these things are tools of men, not men themselves.
Manhood is about our sacrifice of impulsivity and selfishness. Our ability to use our lives to provide breath for others lives. Even through our own personal mission and passion we can do this.
It’s not about sacrificing our own soul or desire to fill ourselves. It’s about our priority. It’s about initiating others, challenging others, supporting others with their growth. Being steadfast for others, being examples for others, being humble for others.
I come from a soft raising. Many men today have.
Meaning that self-promoting push into masculinity and the bluntness of manhood will be a difficult one….but one I can do with love and compassion, not the other way around. Which to me is an advantage, a silver lining, a minimization of collateral damage.
The question is….can I do it?
Can I overcome impulses and arbitrary things?
Can I grow for the sake of others?
Can I be of service in my work?
Can I fulfill a destiny and be something worth anything to others?
Can I initiate myself?
Can I find pride for myself?
Can I move from boy to man?
Can I create responsibility I can’t run from?
Can I find formidable power?
Can I create and provide necessary sacrifice that forces me into becoming a resilient, adaptable, empowered man??
Not unless the father dies. Not unless I either have his blessing and respect, or I stand over his corpse and take it from the air itself.
“No father. I don’t need you”
That time has gone. It’s the unfairness of life. We can never reenact what I may have needed. The only thing that can be done is me finding what real manhood and freedom looks like to me. To test myself against my own psyche, test myself through discomfort, test myself by challenging other men, dissolving my fear of them, and replacing it with belief and confidence in myself to win battles. To believe that I can create my own legacy…
We all have a unique position in which to grow from. Just because something was missing, doesn’t mean we are without an advantage. The missing space was just filled by something else that we can make use of.
Seek out your purpose.
Seek out the power of your history.
And give yourself what wasn’t given.
Truth and Love,
Zackary
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