Manhood

The WARRIOR

The Hero is only an advanced form of boy psychology. If carried into adulthood as the governing energy, it blocks men from full maturity. The hero has to die in order for the warrior to rise. The death of the Hero is the death of boyhood, and the birth of manhood. It means that the boy has finally encountered his limitations. He has met the enemy, and the enemy is himself. He has met his own dark side, his very unheroic side. He has fought the dragon, and been burned by it. He has overcome the Mother, and then relized his incapacity to love the Princess. The death of the Hero signals the end of arrogance and insensitivity, and a boy’s or a man’s encounter with true humility.

The Warrior is always alert and awake. He knows how to focus his mind and his body, how to control his own mind and attitudes. He achieves clarity of thinking and discernment through discipline and training. He is the mindful Samurai, and the native American hunter. Unlike the immature Hero, the Warrior realistically assesses his capacities and limitations, and never acts just to reassure himself he is potent. He never spends more energy that he has to, and he doesn’t talk too much. He knows what he wants, and how to get it. He is a strategist and a tactician. He demonstrates endurance and perseverance. He has great courage, and takes responsibility for his actions.

The Warrior traditions all affirm that, in addition to training, what enables a Warrior to reach clarity of thought is living with the awareness of his own imminent death. Rather than depressing him, this awareness leads him to an outpouring of life-force, and to an intense experience of life. He can withstand incredible amounts of pain, both psychological and physical. This is the energy behind most sports, street gang warfare, and violence in movies. A man’s urge to fight is his urge to face death in order to feel alive, and intensely experience life force inside his body. Aggressiveness is a stance towards life that arouses, energizes and motivates.

A man is emotionally detached and distant as long as he is a Warrior. This bewilders and frustrates many women, who don’t understand that this attitude is part of the clarity of his thinking. It is not that he doesn’t want to share his feelings, but he looks at his tasks, decisions, and actions dispassionately and unemotionally. He cannot think or feel too much, because he cannot hesitate. He has to make split-second decisions and act decisively.

Unlike the Hero’s loyalty, which is primarily to himself, the Warrior shows loyalty and commitment to something larger than himself: a cause, a god, a people, a principle, a marriage. When a man’s psyche is organized around his central commitment, he shows endurance and perseverance, and it eliminates a great deal of human pettiness and personal Ego.

The Warrior is a destroyer, but he only destroys what needs to be destroyed in order for something fresh, more alive and virtuous to be created. In the very act of destroying, the Warrior energy is building new civilizations, new commercial, artistic, spiritual, and personal ventures.

We live in a time when people are uncomfortable with the Warrior form of masculine energy. Women especially are uncomfortable with it, because they have been the most direct victims of its active shadow form, the sadist. When the Warrior operates on his own, the results can be disastrous, because his bi-polar shadows can take over. However, when he is connected with the other mature masculinity energies – the King, the Magician, and the Lover, something truly splendid emerges.

The SADIST The Sadist is the heartless killing machine in society. He runs his family like a miniature Boot Camp. He is commanding, deprecating, critical, and cruel towards his wife and children. Like Darth Vader, he constantly has his emotional sword out, swinging at everyone. The Warrior as avenging spirit comes into us when we are very frightened and very angry.

The Sadist is unsure of his own masculine power. He is still battling against what he experiences as the frightening power of the feminine, and against everything supposedly “soft”, emotional, or relational. He hates the “weak”, the “helpless” and the vulnerable, which is really the Sadist’s own hidden and projected cowardly Masochist.



The MASOCHIST The Masochist is obsessed with succeeding, and doesn’t like to take care of himself. He neglects his physical and mental well-being. He is also the martyr, stressed out, overwhelmed by exhaustion, high blood pressure, loneliness and self-pity.