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Goodpain Season 02 Episode No. 01 – Introduction to Masculine & Role of Initiation
41 Plays15 days ago
Jeremy and Tyler open Season 02 of Goodpain with an overarching discussion of masculinity, how they arrived at the topic and introduce the importance of Initiation Rites, and what happens in their absence.
The discussion moves from Aboriginal Australia to sub-saharan Africa for wisdom involving of masculine energy. Ultimately, Jeremy & Tyler share their own formative stories around masculinity as an entry into this broad topic that will be explored more thoroughly in future episodes.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Good Pain' Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Jeremy. And I'm Tyler. Welcome to Good Pain, where we talk about life's true intensities without pretending they're easy to solve. What if the things we're told to fix, optimize, or get over are actually where the real wisdom lives?
00:00:14
Speaker
Each week we gather for the kind of honest conversations you desire to be a part of more often about the relentless demands, the unexpected grief, the quiet victories, and everything in between. Because maybe, just maybe, the answer isn't to eliminate the hard stuff, it's to find the good in it. Welcome to the conversation.
Thematic Focus on Masculinity
00:00:42
Speaker
About two months ago, a number of things started popping up, both professionally for me, for the nature of the content that kept getting onto our radar, the different people and new relationships that we were building, and thematically what came forward was this topic of masculinity. And one thing that we knew is is that we didn't want this topic to be one that That was academic. It still needed to be true to what our approach talking from the center of our hearts to what we call the center of the circle and really sharing narrative without defending, without trying to convince, without trying to persuade people.
00:01:23
Speaker
And that's something that when we mention this topic of masculinity, we see a lot of that. And there's venues and platforms for that already where people are debating these this very topic in through the lenses of their experience, through the lenses of their own agendas.
00:01:40
Speaker
And... We just didn't feel called to treat it that way.
Defining and Exploring Masculinity
00:01:44
Speaker
We've struggled even to name what this season is about. And we've gone from masculinity to healthy masculinity to maleness or what it's like to be men. And those still felt far too confining. They're confining because when we're talking about this, it's not just walking through the world as a boy or as a man, even though we're going to use that predominantly as the conversations for exploration.
00:02:13
Speaker
We are also going to have some conversations with women and invite them for their perspective and to hear their stories and and get their observations. We're really anchoring to this topic through the lens of masculine energy and dividing it up into probably the closest approximation of what we're exploring today. is mature and immature masculinity, both for boys and for men. And we're breaking this up in order to do that into two different tracks. We're going to have a common through line of mine and Jeremy's conversations discussing through a guided outline a number of aspects of this topic itself. And then we're going to punctuate that conversation with interviews and sit-downs with guests,
00:03:04
Speaker
across multiple walks of life and get their voice into this as well and hear
Evolving Conversations and Insights
00:03:09
Speaker
their stories. We don't have a pat answer that says, this is what it's like to be a boy. This is what it's like to be a man.
00:03:16
Speaker
This is what it should be like. We are approaching this from the perspective of an excavation, where we define an aspect of this topic or some experience, where we approach that as a dig site. We've cordoned it off. We've defined what are the questions that are going to get us started.
00:03:38
Speaker
But once we start digging, we're going to be brushing away the things that come up and seeing what emerges. on these topics. And as we've been in production for this series, I've been surprised with talking about one topic, whether that's male grief and ending up talking about play and stability. We don't expect that this is a conversation that has a beginning and an end.
00:04:04
Speaker
Where we're entering into this conversation is based on where we are today, and it will be different after each episode. It will be different in the midst of some of the conversations. We will get things wrong, and we will seek to find ways to navigate that and use those things that we uncover constantly. are ways of looking at our own biases or my own narcissisms, my own pride, and learning how to listen better and to call forth a sense of the genuine. That is always evolving.
00:04:40
Speaker
We're not going to do a lot of hedging that says, hey, we've we've really got to make sure that we're not propping up old ways of thinking. We're going to get curious about those without feeling we need to self-protect. And we're saying that now because we're asking for one thing, to trust us. We don't know of a better place or where we could possibly start, but with trust. We are moving and navigating through the experience of this time right now together. And none of us has a roadmap. None of us knows what is ahead.
Origins of the Season's Theme
00:05:18
Speaker
The only thing that we can have confidence in is is that this person right next to me is a human being that is at times scared, at times confident, and
00:05:28
Speaker
at times prideful, at times desperate to be witnessed and seen and acknowledged and validated, and that we are all a bundle of at times contradictions, but at the very least, we can move forward into topics that even historically have been charged, and we can embrace the imagination and the possibility of being surprised in those conversations themselves.
Cultural Practices and Mentorship
00:06:05
Speaker
All right, so season two, you approached me somewhat briefly about, hey, we should do a second season. I said, yeah, let's do it. ah Then you said, have you thought about this? And I thought, well, no, but you clearly have.
00:06:18
Speaker
What are your thoughts? And so then I said, let's get into it. That's kind of my recollection of where we ended up today. yeah do you want to give us some of the backdrop of how we landed on the conversation of masculinity? Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
ah in Aboriginal Australia, the initiation rite as young males would come of age, that they were required to, under the guidance and and oversight of the elders of the tribe, were sent out into the wilderness to build their own acts. Mm-hmm.
00:06:52
Speaker
And in going out to build their own axe, they had to to learn how to assemble it. They had to learn how to put it together. They had to put a lot of effort from themselves, individual effort into that. yeah When they were brought back, the elders would put them through additional testing to see if they knew how to responsibly wield that axe.
00:07:13
Speaker
Now, in our world, a credential is what we have built ourself. I built the ax. I can do whatever I want with it.
00:07:25
Speaker
Sure. And a lot of assumptions at that point. Yes. And and it's, I mean, I'm 18 years old and I want to run for mayor. Well, I should be able to do that. And we have this with this wild streak in us that says and lionizes that individual effort, that maverick, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Mm-hmm.
00:07:44
Speaker
Without recognizing the fact that if I was to look out on virtually anything that I've done, there is not a single thing that I can point to that says I did that absolutely exclusively on my own. Oh, yeah. If I build something here and and I drive to deliver it and I have a narrative that says i did all of this on my own.
00:08:04
Speaker
I neglect the fact that I drove on roads that were built by others before me. I neglect the fact I'm involved in a supply chain that happened and emerged from so many other people that I get to take advantage of. And I think that going back to this initiation event within Aborigines is that they test them on, do you have the capabilities, the inherent wisdom, the humility that to take this thing that you have built and now use it for your own individual prospering and for the flourishing of the community around you. In that culture, they have the ability to say, not yet, even though you built it. So they don't have that claim of ownership. They have that claim of being awarded.
00:08:51
Speaker
being recognized yeah in this book. There's this delightful footnote that says when others from European countries arrived on the scene and saw what was going on, they said, why, why would you do this? And they just gave everyone an ax. And the reason is, is because, well, in order to be productive, everybody needs an ax, but there were costs associated with that. So the focus at that point was on efficiency.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yes. Right. We don't have to worry about these other steps. We'll just give you the tools and maybe we'll cross our fingers. but I'm sure it'll work out fine. The imposition of a different belief system or thought process modified the example you just made about explorers coming in.
00:09:31
Speaker
Our way is better. Just do it this way. We'll give you the thing. Off you go. Yeah. accurate Okay. Yeah. And that really undermines the culture, the history, the support, and also the trials that have been created for that specific task with the understanding of what each one of those things, those steps signify.
00:09:53
Speaker
That's super dangerous, and it's kind of right where we're living. And we have been, well, all of my life anyway, I've recognized this in many ways. ah The example I'll give is that with my parents, I remember talking about things that can only be categorized as personal finance.
00:10:06
Speaker
I remember those conversations exactly twice, right? how do What do you mean you spent all the money? that That's not a conversation that's helpful or supportive or engaging. And it was not their fault. It was just that, oh, you'll figure it out on your own. But there's also a lot of steps along the way that could have been modified.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it's dangerous to give people a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I guess is the better quote of this. The credentialist model wants to say that these things, you can isolate one aspect, age, and that's sufficient. ki And what and you even with the example that you just gave is is that there's an interconnection here.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah. That the minute that we start using singular metrics for deciding what is success, success, age productivity. We're just going to give everyone an ax and they're going become more efficient and more productive. yeah That simplifies things in in our minds potentially.
00:11:02
Speaker
It shows us our singular focus. But going back to our conversation that we first had and the frustrations that I that i had and was was experiencing is is that I was in the process of reconciling that more and more I felt that that I was in a position where I was being asked to make myself singular, to only focus on productivity, to only focus on singular metrics. Right. There was something that felt wrong. There's a disconnect there for sure.
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, by that point when we were talking a lot of what I had anchored to was this idea that, well, we haven't always been in a credentialist model. and and And I had been exposed to the apprenticeship model through one of the bastions of commerce and and the model that we have. yeah but and and And it was through...
00:11:58
Speaker
um premium consulting services. And when I was with the firm that I was in, it was the it was the first time that i really, one, loved my job professionally. yeah And the reason was, was because of who I was working with. I was working with great people. You've always said this. But one of the the other areas, what made them so delightful to work together was the fact that there was a system of apprenticeship that was born into how they grew people up within the organization. You were part of that apprenticeship, the development element. Yes. Okay. yeah and and on on both sides one is that i was at the at the same time
00:12:42
Speaker
that i was expected to apprentice others i was being apprenticed as well and also there's this aspect which was in order for me to apprentice others well in order for me to demonstrate those skills I needed those people that I was apprenticing to be able to apprentice my skills as a master. as a You could not disentangle those two things. And I believe that that is a significant portion of what we inherently understand as a yearning for what it means to live together, to to navigate time together. And I also believe that is something that has been particularly abridged within men.
00:13:33
Speaker
It is largely missing. Rather than saying like, what? we're going to fix this by root causing why it's gone missing right is to say, well, what do we want to build?
00:13:47
Speaker
What does it mean to build potentially in light of the fact that if masculinity can thrive in more of an apprenticeship model, and we and we just hold that out as potentially being axiomatic for the purposes of our conversation,
00:14:03
Speaker
but If that is the case, what happens if we live in a world where there are no masters currently? No no guiding posts yeah to aspire to become. Yeah. Yeah. or or or or there's Or there's not even enough.
00:14:18
Speaker
There was a point in time in sub-Saharan Africa where there were villagers and parts of civilization that were being taken tormented by young bull elephants.
00:14:35
Speaker
And these young bull elephants were coming into civilized culture and they were causing mass destruction. as you would imagine. Yeah. Ripping up trees, ri running through crops and moving in herds, leaving detritus in their wake. Not politely going around the crops. That's right. That's right.
00:14:56
Speaker
but For whatever reasons, that was the observation that the people that were there were saying, what what is going on here? And they brought in experts who started looking at what was going on and observing.
00:15:09
Speaker
And then they realized that there had been a decision to take a number of old bull elephants that had been present in that area and transport them hundreds of miles, if not thousands of miles away to other areas. wow They decided, well, let's go find some old bull elephants and bring them back and reintroduce them back into the area. and Because the missing piece there was there was lack of leadership. There was a lack of somebody to be able to put down authority and say, we're not going to do it that way.
00:15:40
Speaker
I mean, as you can imagine, what happened was they brought them back. And it's not astonishing that order was restored. It's the speed with which order was restored. I have no idea. i've never heard the story.
00:15:52
Speaker
It was a matter of weeks. Really? By introducing someone who had so who had seen much more before, who knew how to provide structure and shape, coaching, mentorship, sometimes in ways that involved some degree of knocking them around.
00:16:11
Speaker
Sure. And I want to be clear here is because we're going to talk about there is some naive wisdom that says that what masculinity lacks right now is knocking heads together and just getting put in your place. From a solutions perspective, I think many of the people who will be hearing this and thinking about it will have their own idea of solutions. These bulls got introduced back in, but there's a whole bunch of dynamics that end up being at play here, including...
00:16:40
Speaker
some very pragmatic slapping some young bull elephants on on the ass and saying, like, stop behaving this way. sure And we see that in in a number of venues throughout the animal kingdom that that there is a pragmatic aspect here that says we have a deep craving, we have a deep yearning,
00:17:02
Speaker
for being coached into the highest versions of ourselves to our true selves. We can only reach certain levels on our own. Yeah, I think that's what we want to talk is is like, what does that look like?
00:17:18
Speaker
What are the things we're wanting to foster that that reflect the highest versions of ourselves, specifically through that lens of of masculinity? I'm struggling to find the word, but to say naive is not exactly it.
00:17:32
Speaker
Arrogant would probably be more correct. You think that one individual going through this part of their life cycle and recognizing, oh, I don't need anybody. I've got this, right? And it's really disheartening because a lot of people don't have the luxury of having people to look to.
00:17:49
Speaker
And they have to figure it out on their own. But I think the humility that's required to say, yeah, I could probably use some help with this, that assumes that there's some foresight. That also assumes that they do, in fact, need help, which is, for me, a difficult thing to ask. But I've been told because I'm an only child and that's just how it comes. I'm i'm hardwired this way.
00:18:08
Speaker
That is indicatively where it is we're at because with Those two barriers out of the way, the conversation I think we're going into now is it becomes a lot easier to either seek or receive that kind of wisdom and guidance.
00:18:25
Speaker
If I don't speak the language of humility, yeah then how do I learn it? Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great question. There's an aspect of, i might have eyes, I might have ears, but if I don't even know what the language is, that allows me to ask for what it is. That's right. How do how do I identify what it is that I need?
00:18:47
Speaker
It's really impossible. i mean, there's no way. Yet I think there is an expectation that we can do that through knowledge, through reading. And I love to read. I mean, we're sitting in a studio. It's surrounded by books. Almost being ground out by all the books that you have. Yes, yes.
00:19:06
Speaker
But we forget that knowledge is not sufficient. right That reading something on a book that sounds good and accurate is different than actually experiencing it.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah, I hate that I'm going to dumb what you just said down to the the goodwill hunting paradigm about you could tell me all these things theoretically, but unless you tell me how this thing smells and what this thing feels like getting to go through that experience, then you don't know anything.
00:19:33
Speaker
And I think that is so hard for people that want so desperately you say, no, I got this. But you don't because there's so much development and background of experience, whatever the experience is, that you're robbing yourself of.
00:19:47
Speaker
Two
Legacy and Impact Beyond Life
00:19:48
Speaker
things that bring that to life for me. One of which is there's, there's a number of videos online that can be found of some YouTube trained martial arts artists challenging.
00:20:01
Speaker
Oh yeah yeah. Somebody who has been training under different a master a sensei. And there, there's something within male desire to see someone humbled. Mm-hmm.
00:20:13
Speaker
And I think that drives a lot of that is is that we like to watch videos sometimes where where somebody gets humbled. And in every single case, the YouTube individual gets humbled. I think the kinder picture of it is we going back to that classic karate kid.
00:20:28
Speaker
Where sweep the leg. Yes. Where it's this picture of the young male believing that they know what they need, believing that they know how they ought to be taught and the petulance that rises up from that. Yeah. When we watch that, we laugh and shake our head. Look at, look at how dumb he is. Look at how little he knows. And then the kindness of Miyagi. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Of course. Yeah. Showing him that you've been learning the whole time. You didn't have the eyes. You didn't have the ability. You didn't have the perspective. for ah of Foresight for sure. That's right. To be able to recognize what it was or how it was being inculcated into you.
00:21:09
Speaker
It's such an interesting thing that you just brought up because making up numbers right now in front of you in real time, I think almost every male on the planet that grew up in the 80s was inspired by that movie and also looks to ah Mr. Miyagi as the person who guided their path. It's amazing the amount of impact that a positive story like that had on everybody that I know anyway. And it's It was so powerful. And why is it so powerful? I believe. And I think that axiomatic aspect of what we're talking about is, is that we yearn for that.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah. There's something about being seen even when when we start talking about the nature of, of some of the things that boys growing up without fathers. Sure.
00:21:53
Speaker
And we can talk about all of the psychological and development problems that are associated with that. But the thing for me that's much more accessible to that, the nature of what the yearning is within that boy is to live a life that is worthy of being witnessed and being told you are good enough.
00:22:14
Speaker
yeah That's different than being told that from your peers. In a way, it doesn't even count yeah from peers in some aspects. Yeah. Do you think that that's the piece that's missing? Is that recognition for males being more in touch with a masculinity that they can identify and also ah help guide through life? Or do you think it's something else?
00:22:32
Speaker
I think that definitely has a significant place here is not only the recognition that I am worthwhile regardless of what I produce. yeah Because the message that that we've all gotten is is that our value will be measured by what it is that we produce.
00:22:51
Speaker
And there's a significant portion of the population, even from a leadership perspective, that will boil down leadership, self-leadership on what you can grab as much as you can grab. Sounds very much like conditional love in that context, which is so dangerous, right? Yeah. Because what are you anchoring to at that point? That's right. Something you'll never get a hold of Yeah, what what I'm anchoring to at that point is I'm looking for signals in the market in the absence of any kind of coaching or leadership that's that cares about me because they simply say it's right to develop people. The legacy that I'm going to leave, yeah I may never
00:23:33
Speaker
get a benefit for it. I may invest in individuals for which they will never pay me back anything, but I'm doing that because that's an expression of building something that is going to outlive me. So from a recognition perspective, I think that's one aspect. I think also it's driven by that I want to build something that has meaning and I don't want the horizon as far as I can see to be the limit for that. And even at its most basic, I don't want the horizon of my life to be the limit of that. I want to have meaning and make impact beyond my own time. So I think those are two really big things that evoke very deep learning that we seek within ourselves for how to fill that.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm troubled by what you said a little bit, because I think it makes an assumption that every person in a leadership or elder role roll has that ability to identify and the tools to give.
00:24:32
Speaker
I think it's becoming more and more rare. That goes back to the chicken or egg. And if they were not apprenticed in a meaningful way, if they didn't have that type of safe environment for them to go and make mistakes and find the world, then they don't know how to do that for somebody else. So it's a tough one. And I'm not looking to create doom for answers here. But I think it, again, is a very rare soul that will be able to say, I'm going to do this. And I guess good leadership in the business world, the context of that, the vision should always be, listen, I'm going to work with this person. I'm going to train them up, do the best they can here.
00:25:10
Speaker
knowing that I don't want to keep them here. I want them, if this was not a good fit, I want them to explore other mountains, other obstacles, other things that bring them joy. And if I lose them, then I'm still doing my part in this process. And it's greater than the context of metrics or productivity.
00:25:27
Speaker
It's a big ask, especially for those that have never received the foundational work that we're talking about. I
Learning from Mistakes and Trauma
00:25:33
Speaker
think if we talk about what eldership and wisdom and being a sage mentoring, what that looks like. Those all big words, by the way. They are. And great things to aspire to. They are. Okay. Yeah. In that apprenticeship model, that, that idea of the master.
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, I'll turn this around on you. if a master woodworker, what, what does that mean? So I'm going to, again, take issue with the the language. Yeah. I think master is charged. And so I would, I'd be more comfortable with expert woodworker, which is what I met or where I met. I like the Benjamin Franklin model of this is that I've already made all the mistakes there are to make.
00:26:11
Speaker
I'm an expert now and I can get past those things. What's a mistake for you? What do you think? What what does that mean? Yeah. So woodworking is a great example of this because there is elements of infinite capacity with this material. So if I were to make a cut that was too short of the length of this material or make it smaller, that becomes problematic and that becomes now a mistake per the plan or the thing that I would like to make. But I kind of don't care about those things because with that level of expertise, I know ways that I can massage and work around those. And maybe that's a language or a phrase that I've
00:26:44
Speaker
grown to hate in my life, but it's now become a design opportunity, which to me sounds lame, but it is what it is, right? yeah I think it's so daunting for a new woodworker, and that's all that they see is kind of that linear path that you've described, and that, oops, oh man, i can't bounce back back from that. I'm totally screwed. Now my choices are ah can give up this woodworking thing.
00:27:06
Speaker
I could sulk. and ruminate on this, ask for help, which we just talked about is easier said than done sometimes, or I could buy more material. And at that point, I think that that mistake now has a fiscal factor that is, oh, well, I made a mistake because I'm not good enough.
00:27:24
Speaker
And so I think those are mistakes in that context. The goal for me as an educator in this realm is that we just push that all out and decide we can get past mistakes. And Bob Ross was a great example in our culture because there are mistakes. There are no mistakes, just happy accidents. And it's a funny punchline, but also true words have never been spoken. Right. It just allows you a chance to do something different. Let's just pretend this is the first person that decided I'm going to fashion something out of this material. I look at it and I say, this is this tree. I'm going to transform it into something else.
00:28:03
Speaker
It's the only tree that we have. Oh, so he cuts it down. And then the first cut that he made similar, what you said, it's too short. Oops. Yeah. You see the resource itself dwindling and that, that dwindling resource isn't just impacting him and his designs on what he wants to build.
00:28:24
Speaker
Each cut that he makes is a commitment that that might deliver to the community what they're hoping yeah or might steal from them right what whatever it is based on the mistakes that he must own.
00:28:43
Speaker
so So two thoughts, and I maybe jumped in before your question, but um I'm reminded of Dr. Seuss and the wisdom there with the truffala tree, if you're familiar with this story, and there was this beautiful forest. Ecologically speaking, they needed those trees, and some um person came in, chopping them all down.
00:29:00
Speaker
And then there was this moment of clarity where the last one was cut down, and they realized, oh no we cannot bounce back from this. So in that context, back to your analogy of this,
00:29:11
Speaker
That's an incredible amount of pressure. And the pressure never helps anybody ever, I think. I mean, and I guess I could talk myself out of that position as well, but I think that is not healthy, especially in a new woodworker dynamic, right?
00:29:25
Speaker
I think that if somebody is working with this material for the first time and there is limited capacity for doing a second one or a third one or correcting mistakes from the first then you just have to make it work. And I think that that's kind of the the wisdom that somebody been doing it for a while get and achieve and just realize, okay, this is not as big of a deal as I thought. The sun will probably come up tomorrow.
00:29:51
Speaker
I'll be able to do this. And yeah, hopefully in the context of what the sawyers of the 50s and 60s did, they just cut down as many trees as they possibly can. I'm assuming there's going to be more around the hill. Yeah, I think I'm devolving now into philosophy. No.
00:30:06
Speaker
We started this, this movement in this direction with that outstanding question is what do you do when but you look out on the landscape and there are no masters, there are no experts left. Yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
Particularly in this space, this apprenticeship model of bringing up boys to men. Yeah. Going back to that original pre-master, the one who set out, it's the accumulation of the mistakes that It's the accumulation of bearing the full weight of those mistakes that ended up shaping him into being able to, for successive generations, when they go to make that cut, to be able to say to them,
00:30:48
Speaker
Not don't do that because you're going to ruin, ruin this. It is. I'm going to come alongside you. And I know you have an aim for building this for respecting the materials. I cannot tell you all the mistakes not to make, but I can tell you the ones that I have made. Hmm. The ones that have traumatized me, that have caused suffering for me, yeah that have caused suffering for the community. And that those are unforced errors that because of the model that we have, the leadership, the wisdom that was grown up through trauma, that we can say we don't need to do those again.
00:31:26
Speaker
with though There are certain ones we don't we don't need to make those ones. We're going to keep making mistakes, but there's some that we're going to say we don't need to make those. And I
Mutual Benefits in Mentorship
00:31:35
Speaker
say this because when we look around, we don't have a population of leaders. It feels like there's something within us that says, if there are no masters anymore,
00:31:46
Speaker
If there are no experts, if there are no sages, if there's no wisdom left, then how do we go about creating it on our own? Well, we don't even know. We don't even know what the method is that. So what do we do? We create trauma. Trauma becomes the teacher. When we look out historically at some of the, like, if I look at the greatest generation, we we know that the greatest generation, if you don't like the moniker of the greatest generation, we can find all of the flaws of those things. Sure. It's there. Just Technically it is called the greatest generation. It's marked on the timeline. Yes. It's referred that not because they came out fully formed or perfect. Yeah. yeah It's because the excesses of the previous generation was not sufficient to teach them. Right. They learned humility.
00:32:31
Speaker
They learned what it means to invest. They learned legacy because they saw the horrors of a world that was of their own making. They made it and they couldn't escape the blame for being a participant in what they made. And I think this is important because in that apprenticeship model, part of what we're advocating for is is that in this model is an ownership on both the elder and the apprentice that says,
00:33:02
Speaker
I, as the apprentice, I know there are mistakes out there that I don't want to make. I don't want to impact on the people that I love most my learning just for me to satisfy my own pride, to satisfy my own appetite for self-aggrandizement, for you know building something of meaning.
00:33:24
Speaker
I'd rather not get on the other side of doing all that activity and then look back and see a trail of bodies. yeah How do I build the confidence that that's not exactly what I'm doing?
00:33:35
Speaker
You need somebody else who did that to tell you that's what I did. And I can't make the decision for you. You may make the decision to learn by a trail of bodies, but at the very least, if we surrender to some degree of a bi-directional apprenticeship here. Right. It has to be that way. That we actually stack hands and say, we can do better. Hmm. Even in our atmosphere of people saying, I don't know, I don't see the wisdom, I don't see what's out there.
00:34:06
Speaker
At the very least, I hear people crying out for saying, even through their bluster, even through their bravado, I hear them saying, i just want to do better.
00:34:19
Speaker
i just don't know how. yeah And I think that's a little bit of what we're working to share stories on is how can we learn to do better? In talking about this episode before we started recording, we kind of kicked around an idea about examples of those moments in our lives where we saw experienced that level of engagement where somebody was interested in taking you along I had a good father figure.
00:34:45
Speaker
Oh yeah. Not perfect. Like any child, there's been periods where the imperfections have been louder than the good in, in my narrative. i think everybody could relate to that. Yeah. And then there are, there've been periods of, of deep gratitude.
00:35:03
Speaker
My dad imparted on me working with my hands. Oh yeah. Probably but the the biggest thing with my dad was the example of if somebody needed help, he was, it wasn't a matter of obligation. This is what we do.
00:35:22
Speaker
Like we, we jump to, if someone needs help and we have the means for, for delivering it, yeah we give it great gift to be able to witness that ah for me witnessing that now looking back is, is actually recognizing that I was witnessing probably some of the closest approximation to my dad's true self.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. And having that example called forth things within myself that echoed That as well as options and choices about how I was going to pursue that long term and and what what venues I was going to deploy that within. And there was just a lot of formative work that was associated with that. Yeah, I bet.
00:36:13
Speaker
You know Tiffany and i we got engaged young and then we got pregnant before we were actually married and we didn't have a lot of money. And and i funded kind of building out where we were going to live. But what i saw in in offer to me was not even just my dad showing up to to help.
00:36:36
Speaker
me alongside that, but his friends, the people whom he associated with, one one individual in particular was my dad's best friend. His name was Ed. I didn't know at the time, and I'm just turning 20.
00:36:50
Speaker
I'm in college. in This semester, I'm taking 19 credits. I'm working full time and trying to get this place built so that my wife and eventually very quickly, my child right will have a home, a modest, small home. Sure.
00:37:15
Speaker
Ed, who is owned a construction company, showed up and I had framed out the space and done some things, but there were some things I had done wrong. But what I got to witness in this was a expert, a master who yeah who said, you did a great job here, but there's some things where and pulled it down real quick. Okay.
00:37:38
Speaker
started driving in 16 penny nails with a single swing. i mean, just, that guy I mean, that's amazing and this thing went up in, in 5% of the time that it took me to do that. And just being in that sense of awe that here's somebody who takes pride in their work, who does it well and deploys it in a way that is for that community flourishing that we mentioned earlier.
00:38:06
Speaker
Ed passed away from a heart attack at 51. Wow. wow That picture of an individual, I mean, going back to what I said earlier about that legacy, I'm talking about Ed because what Ed did mattered.
00:38:21
Speaker
Ed lives on. Oh gosh. Yeah. It's not just me. like that There are many, many stories of that regarding Ed. There are there. My dad is still here. There will be many, many stories about my dad in that similar way. Those are two really big individuals. I have others that are from different times.
00:38:42
Speaker
People I read. Okay. And then, i mean, season one is my other mentor. Like that believe it trauma was the most exacting mentor for me. Apprenticing in the face of that is, there is no book for that. There is no coaching for that. yeah There is, there is enduring within that.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah. Those are the formative aspects for me that influenced me amongst a sea of others. How about you? Wow. Such a powerful moment there. And I thought you were just talking hyperbolically about i'm building this place. You didn't go to a rental situation. You're like, nah, going to build this thing. Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
Amazing. I mean, i actually shouldn't leave this off. is is that It was my parents' unfinished basement. Okay. Yeah. I shouldn't leave that off because- It is one area that i i mean is a picture of of community.
00:39:38
Speaker
right My parents elected to make that available. If you ask Tiffany, she didn't know how much money we made that year. Like I said, I was working full time, but I was paying for school and covering the costs. Not lot of disposable income in that scenario though. There, there was virtually no disposable income. I think we made 11,000, $12,000 that year.
00:40:03
Speaker
Just enough to, um, to file for taxes or. I mean, yeah, it just, just at least when that was, is that I think the, I think the threshold is higher now, yeah but, but then, yeah, I think we, we had to. Yeah.
00:40:17
Speaker
Amazing. My story is similar in some veins. My parents were divorced and spent most of my time with my mom. I had a great relationship with my dad, saw him him on the weekends. The story that I want to tell has a ah background to it as well. The two people that really influenced me most were my uncles. Again, I mentioned Alaska, and they were my heroes growing up.
00:40:38
Speaker
I think I would have come to realize that at some point, but it came much faster based on an experience that happened when I was very young. and Maybe I was six, plus or minus, I can't remember exactly when, but my mom and dad had me when they were very, very young.
00:40:54
Speaker
So I say this because I'm not pointing fli fingers, I'm not assessing plane. i know they were doing the best they could with the tools they had at the time, but figuring it out while you're flying the plane, building it at the same time is not easy.
00:41:07
Speaker
There was a moment where i was in the swimming pool and we were visiting friend of by my mom's and I had just been on this floaty tube and was floating around the pool and i was there for hours and hours and hours, no problem. It felt like forever. Then at some point, the two of them decided they needed to go upstairs into the condo, bathroom, drinks, whatever. so I was by myself. And I remember the conversation very, very clearly as they were walking away saying, oh, he'll be fine.
00:41:34
Speaker
It turns out, as worst case scenario would, shifted a little bit on this tube and I slipped down. i didn't know how to swim. i was too young. And i remember so vividly, i got a hand on this tube. I couldn't pull myself up. I wasn't strong enough to do it.
00:41:49
Speaker
I remember the colors of this inner tube and looking up through it and seeing the sky. Like, all of this is so formative and vivid for me. i eventually, once my lungs started burning because I wasn't getting oxygen, found the strength to pull myself up and I eventually got out of this situation. But it could have been much worse, obviously. But in that moment, I knew from a very young age, I'm I'm on my own. The backdrop of this that I know that they were well-meaning, they would never intend to, this is just something that happens, right? And it could have easily become a statistic.
00:42:20
Speaker
But I think that was super formative for me and also helping to not foster the dynamic of trust. Mm-hmm. across the board for adults. and And I've moved on past this, but so that was really formative in ways that other people I'm sure have gone through similar experiences. But for me, that that was it. That did it. And so I found safety.
00:42:42
Speaker
I found mentorship in my uncles, as I mentioned. The closest in age, the uncle of mine that I share was 11 years. The other one was a little bit older. i was always that little Gilligan that they would want to have come around. And my one uncle would take me on dates and do all kinds of fun stuff. And I watched him specifically and all of his idiot friends where drinking was involved always. Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
And the poor decision-making that they made in that moment, and I was too young to drink, they were all very generous to offer me s sips, but I'm good, thank you. But that also helped me to say, I don't want to be or do that. That seems beyond stupid. I think for me, those were great people that in my life were able to walk me through and show me kindness, show me humor, show me how to navigate through relationships with people and They did stupid things, as we all do.
00:43:36
Speaker
But um yeah, that was a real kindness and soft spot in my and my world that changed everything. One thing with my other uncle, not not the younger, the older one, ah is the recognition of as you're transitioning from a boy to kind of getting smarter and savvier and becoming more of a man.
00:43:57
Speaker
There is a really telling moment in my life where we went on the psych in Alaska. My uncle is such a sweetheart. he He brought me this knife that he had purchased for this event, waited till we were the top of the mountain,
00:44:08
Speaker
And he had this lovely exchange about, you know I've recognized that you're no longer a kid and it's an important thing. And so he handed me this beautiful knife and that was so impactful for me about this transitional dynamic. It was one of a couple. The other one for me, strangely, years and years later was the second I graduated from high school.
00:44:28
Speaker
don't know about for you. You're kind of an idiot. You're you're barely human but up until the point that you walk across that stage. And I think you're treated as such. Like, yeah, your opinion doesn't matter.
00:44:39
Speaker
but's The adults are talking. Please sit over there. But the second I graduated, then people would seek me out, family members. The same people say, yeah, yeah, keep it down. like Hey, what do you think about this? i'm like, who who are you? What is going on now?
00:44:51
Speaker
And, uh, so that was a little bit of a transition time for me, which was powerful and interesting. And i was not expecting it. You talked about, you found some degree of safety and security with your uncles that you did not get there where you're not getting in home of origin. Yeah.
00:45:08
Speaker
Was that a conscious decision to seek that out? Or did you feel a pull for that? Yeah, it's a good question. And I haven't spent a time exploring those those feelings. I think that for me, it was not a framework that I was forcing.
00:45:22
Speaker
I think it just felt like I was never in harm's way with my uncles and they would protect me and all the things that I was not feeling in that moment that I described.
00:45:33
Speaker
Um, and there's more to the stories as aged and things where life was not perfect as you would see in a TV show. But yeah, it just felt that way almost instantly.
00:45:46
Speaker
You had no clue you were going on this hike to receive this knife. And then there's something that's given to you that is this form of recognition yeah that you didn't know was there.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah. What did that do for you I think it very clearly and irrevocably created a dynamic of trust and also a modification of the relationship that had otherwise developed into or or from a place of Michael was always great, always very humble, which I think I mentioned.
00:46:19
Speaker
I witnessed his patience with dealing with people and and that was fantastic. But the second that this gift was given, then there was more of a welcoming to, hey, you're now part of the insider group.
00:46:33
Speaker
You're in the inner circle now. And that was so powerful.
Expressions and Expansion of Masculinity
00:46:37
Speaker
And I don't know how else to articulate it, but I carry that with me i still to this day. I mean, that was such an impactful moment.
00:46:44
Speaker
And then I'm sure we we finished that and watched Airplane or something like that and just totally lost any of the... The good feelings. No, no, no. it's Still good feelings, but all of the ah the highbrow yeah moral superiority stuff and it brought it right back down to the simplest denomination, which is humor.
00:47:00
Speaker
that invitation into the inner circle yeah has elements of, of belonging. Yeah. And that aspect of you, we use that word recognition. It's that, it's that recognition that you do belong. There is space for you here.
00:47:17
Speaker
And I heard that a little bit when you described even the story of walking, the, across the stage and there's something that happens, some firmament that you walked through that all of a sudden people start saying like, okay, now you belong before you did not. Yeah. Now you do. It's powerful. Did you have a similar experience to that or do you have memories of it?
00:47:39
Speaker
Mine was different. Okay. Going through this is to talk about the different ways that we feel pulls to be masculine differently. Like my expression of masculinity was very much through a precociousness. Okay.
00:47:55
Speaker
I had my first job when I turned 13 in the state of Colorado, which by this point, so my parents moved us from, from California to Colorado when I was eight. Okay. So five years later, I'm getting my first job and, and you were the CEO of something I imagine. Is that correct or no? Yeah.
00:48:12
Speaker
Um, uh, I was the CEO of my own direction. You needed a worker's permit. Yeah. My mom needed to sign off on that. So she took me down to the school and they had the form, they got it filled out and and they needed to be almost like that notary public that said there's no abuse going on here for child labor laws. You're not being forced into this role. That's right. Yeah. Okay.
00:48:36
Speaker
And i was eager to just get on with my own self direction. Wow. And the means for doing that was having disposable income as a 13 year old. Amazing. And, and the means to do that was, was through a job. Okay.
00:48:55
Speaker
That's when I started working and, and had for that summer, a full-time job working 40 hours a week that continued. So I had, ah i had a precociousness that when I threw, when I went through the ceremony for high school, that was perfunctory for me.
00:49:11
Speaker
ah I had the benefit of a significant amount of regard for my skills, for my ambition. had an awareness of them. Very much of awareness. And people were not shy about sharing those things with me.
00:49:26
Speaker
I assume that you've been labeled type a pretty much all of your life. Is that accurate? It's interesting is, is that yes, people have labeled me that, but there's, there's a degree of controlling that narrative myself. Like going through high school, I was not a straight a student. My appetite was this. I don't want to study.
00:49:43
Speaker
And the reason I don't want to study is because I've got other things that are holding much more of my interest, yeah like holding a job and, and pursuing all kinds of other things. Like, and and that has not stopped, right? Like I,
00:49:55
Speaker
I'm interested in a lot of different things. And so I was always triaging my time so that I could pursue the things that had interest for me.
00:50:06
Speaker
the The way that I gave myself permission was meeting a self-imposed threshold. And my parents said, like, i need to get good grades. Well, I had enough horsepower to get good enough grades. Sure.
00:50:19
Speaker
But I think oftentimes that type a aspect, I've askewed the label simply because i don't have that obsessive compulsive right aspect of being type A. Yeah. You didn't feel the pressure. I have to do this because yeah that's my label. Yeah. I want to do these things, but really my interest is get these things done.
00:50:39
Speaker
i can really focus on the interesting things. I think that that aspect of being that precociousness manifested it more. Nobody's going to tell me really what to do. I love that. Yeah. I'm going to pursue what interests me.
00:50:53
Speaker
I'm not looking for external validation, whether it's from grades or whether it's like, yeah if there's something in the way, right I'll figure out a way to get around it, remove it.
00:51:06
Speaker
And just go. That's in line with a ah very deep seated ethic for me around this Epicurean aspect, not a hedonistic. I would i would say like that's the oftentimes the i want to distinguish between the hedonism of just pleasure for the sake of pleasure yeah versus the Epicurean aspect of I want to experience a lot of life.
00:51:30
Speaker
And there's never been enough time for me to pursue all of my interests all at once. Yeah. I think oftentimes differentiates from the type A aspect of being achievement oriented dominance oriented.
00:51:47
Speaker
now let's also be very clear here is, is that I do like achievement and I have been known to dominate. yeah I say that very tongue in cheek right now. If Tiffany came in here, she would say, oh dominance. Yes. Um, Tyler dominating conversations or decision-making or anything like, yep I wanted to believe that that has tempered over time, but, uh, my control complex definitely is, is saying,
00:52:14
Speaker
I mean, Tiffany will tell you we were enemies in middle school when we met. that's fantastic. Well, it's probably because you're pissed off because you're working so many hours. That's right. Yeah. She, I mean, we just, she didn't like me.
00:52:27
Speaker
i wouldn't say I didn't like her other than I found her to be very naive. I remember we got assigned to be on a project, a group of projects together. Yeah. And so we went off and i think there was a weekend and were going to come back and, you know, decide who was going to do what the following Monday. sure And so we go off for the weekend and then Tiffany will tell it that we got back and went to class and i came in and just take out the project done. And I put it down. oh that's finish It's done. Yeah. It's complete. Yeah.
00:53:00
Speaker
No more discussion, no more debate about who joined what. Yes. I think it was like a group of four or five. Three of them are like, this is awesome. We don't have to do anything. That would have been in my voice. Had we been at the same group. Yeah. Tiffany is, who is this jerk?
00:53:16
Speaker
Who does he think he is? upset yep Not involved. Who is making these decisions for all of us? this And and So, so that probably, that's probably a more accurate picture of the way that I was, is, is that I do have a lot of horsepower.
00:53:33
Speaker
That's not something that's gone away. Yeah. Right. Like it's, I've seen this again, not at all in a negative or pejorative way at all. Yeah. It's, it's, there's a little bit of it saying and were we're all, we all have a similar goal, but we do all have different means of expressing that mine happens to be really, really good for a lot of the systems in which we operate.
00:53:58
Speaker
A lot of the ways that people want to express themselves, whether it's like Tiffany in the way she wants to express the group project. Yeah. My skillset happens to be really, really good for the way the world is designed. Yeah. I think that's a fair assessment.
00:54:15
Speaker
That has nothing to do with me and my ethic, nothing to do with me and ah whether I am a better person than Tiffany or others. yeah It just is as that the things that come to me, yeah the way that I'm built, yeah The world recognizes that. And there is a degree of that being pretty significantly unfair. And I'm for a lot of people who ask me, like, how do you do these things? yeah I will tell them first, please do not denigrate yourself. Okay.
00:54:49
Speaker
for the fact that you have other priorities that are in conflict with the way the world is broken yeah because that's what a lot of people do a lot of people look at the world and the way it operates and they say i don't i don't know the entry point i don't what is going on i can't i can't keep up with this guy or i can't do those things i don't want to do those things something must be wrong with me oh yeah that's hard because i can't will or discipline my way to do those things and then they look and they're like but this guy has special needs daughter two other daughters a wife and he's doing well that's because the things that that come to me in some respects naturally and the things that i do and go about and how i go about learning yeah
00:55:37
Speaker
are also very rewarding to me. If you don't get the same level of intrinsic motivation that I do for doing some of these things, sure why would you compare yourself to me?
00:55:49
Speaker
ah People can't get there out of their own way with that, though. I mean, i think the comparisons are just as natural as breathing. Everybody does it, and it's so silly. And it's because I think we come from a common foundation with the academic system. I'm not, again, grandiose here.
00:56:07
Speaker
We're blaming, but it just if we start from the same position, some people escalate and grow out of that quickly. Some people, it takes longer. And inherently, that becomes a comparative dynamic.
00:56:19
Speaker
Yes, very kind for you to let me ah wax philosophically on that. Part of what I anchor to and and to come back to masculinity is is that how I've shown up has actually been oftentimes very complementary to our system's definition of what equals masculinity. And so I just happen to...
00:56:40
Speaker
be able to meet the form to meet the mold yeah of what that is. i have other things that are much deeper within me you that want to create a broader definition of what masculinity actually is beyond the utility, economic value the production models. What so many of us understand is historically being a producer, being someone that puts food on the table. And those are not bad. They're not bad. They are important things. And doing some of those things will come easier to some individuals versus others. I think our discussion on masculinity, even with what we started going down in terms of our, some of our different experiences that shaped us and how we showed up differently is we want to be expansive with there. There is a broader, yeah more expansive definition here. Yeah. And that even the apprenticeship to one another and the differences that we have between one another calls us into a broader collective, a totem pole version
00:57:46
Speaker
of different types of masculinity stacked on top top of each other. That's right. That I find to be more beautiful, albeit more challenging because there's a siren call to the standardization of what it means to be male.
00:58:03
Speaker
Right. Because it feels like that's going to be easier. Right. And I would say that's the other part that, that I, I, we will eschew in our conversations that says the minute that I start feeling that we're converging on masculinity equals this, this, this, and this, yeah we've lost the plot.
00:58:22
Speaker
The formulaic, to the nature of expectation of this totally negates that individuality that we were just comparing your experience and mine. So yeah, why would we attempt, why would we flirt with that?
00:58:33
Speaker
We're not the first men to struggle with what it means to be a man.
Challenges and Growth in Masculinity
00:58:38
Speaker
Every culture that survived understood something we've forgotten that boys don't naturally become Yeah.
00:58:47
Speaker
the transformation requires intention, community, and sacred disruption. What does that mean? yeah what what stands out about that to you? So in a lot of ways, my first response is that we've kind of hit a couple of these marks already. Yeah. And that's, that's important, right? Yep.
00:59:04
Speaker
The sacred disruption to me is the one that presents the most challenge, but also the most benefit because i think that's the one that's totally absent here. Mm-hmm. As close as we as a society in North America in the 2000s here or the, you know, where're at in 2025 as we're talking, I think the closest that we would see to this are things like a study abroad to a far lesser degree, right? you're Your personal safety and well-being are maybe not and challenged. Survival is certainly not a question there.
00:59:38
Speaker
military, if we were to ramp up the scale a lot, I think going through that bootcamp dynamic, that basic training element where you're away from coddling, you're away from familiarity, comfort goes away, and you really have to get to who am i at the core of everything. And you described one example from Australia. I know that African cultures as well do these things, and it is about that isolation.
01:00:04
Speaker
Love them or hate them, the Joseph Campbell dynamic about the hero's journey. Oh my gosh, it's predicated on all of these questions, right? How do we go through these things? How do you respond to the challenges?
01:00:16
Speaker
What has that what is that done for you as far as what your journey is? but also what the learning has happened from those. And I think by just kind of going from safe position A to safe position B and C and D, it's a little bit formulaic. And I think that that is a major element here that we need to disrupt in order for people to really challenge themselves and ask the hard questions about what you're made of. I don't know the college does it.
01:00:44
Speaker
And I think college I just threw out there because i think that's kind of the expectation, right? Yeah. I've had a lot of conversations with other parents, with our own daughters, other people that are considering going to college in 2025, 2024, 2023. I mean, just go back probably the past several years, if not a decade. and And we know that if you're looking at college through the lens of financial decision-making, you all of the standard decision criteria that would go into does it make sense to invest four years of time money going to debt etc etc these are big questions yeah that that most people would say like it's really hard to make that tally yeah and and to tie it out
01:01:33
Speaker
But what I have heard from other people is the lone holdout for that is the idea of the college experience. 100%. That is where I see a lot of still clinging to there's an important thing that happens here. I can disagree with whether that's the appropriate ritual for this, if that's where we want this thing to happen ah that we're calling disruption or or or severing. or What we really mean is there's some initiation that happens. And I think this is the part that other cultures and what our culture says is, what are our initiating events? What are the things that are creating this threshold that demarcates moving from
01:02:21
Speaker
this position to the next? What are the things that symbolically are the going out into the wilderness, into isolation, into solitude and building your acts and letting the building of that acts, the forming of it, the submitting yourself to the process shapes you that you then come back and you are ready to, in Campbell's words, offer a boon to your community as a transformed individual. Right.
01:02:51
Speaker
And what we have done, i think this is a really interesting dissection of what are the elements of this college experience as initiation. It misses a lot of the hallmarks that would protect for the purposes re-saving.
01:03:10
Speaker
building the confidence yeah development of stepping into the responsibility and accountability that's going to go with that. And so for me, without denigrating the college experience, because it has been wildly formative for many people. For me, for sure. Yeah. I'll speak to
Authentic Initiation Experiences
01:03:26
Speaker
that. Yeah. The question is, is that what is the yearning that it's pointing back to yeah for this initiation? What does initiation mean for us. And what if we were to actually look at the question of, is the college experience meeting the bar for what initiation actually needs to be? That's right. I know what my answer would be.
01:03:49
Speaker
It would be no. Yeah. I would echo that in a heartbeat. I think a lot of people would say there's something that's missing for it. And maybe that's the part is, is like, so what's missing, right? What would you say is missing?
01:04:03
Speaker
The element of survival to me is so formative with all these things. And I don't, I'm not a proponent of putting people intentionally in harm's way. Right. Again, thinking about that scene in the movie 300, where that cave and the bear, one of us was going to get out of alive. Right.
01:04:19
Speaker
Oh my gosh. what you do that, there is no question about your metal. You kind of know what you can do. Confidence comes from that. Options, if you get into a similar situation, those things are huge. I recognize that I'm quoting a fictitious scenario here, but with college, you're kind of leaving one safer environment to another, and it's challenging, yes.
01:04:42
Speaker
you have to hone skills in another way, but I don't think it replaces that element of solitude and expectation, specific tasks, but there's also this element of, I'm in real danger here, right?
01:04:56
Speaker
And I might not eat today, That's fine. That's one thing. But if I fall off this cliff, if I can't make shelter, like I know we're going a little caveman ask, but I think that that is the one common theme with all of the cultures that we've described here in developing countries or countries that have their finger on the pulse of how their culture is developed is, oh yeah, well, we've been doing it this way for thousands of years. Yeah.
01:05:20
Speaker
And it's because that these things are designed specifically to address these challenges that you will face in life. Yeah. If I go out into the wilderness and I don't have the eyes and the ears for recognizing what survival is going to look like or what it needs to look like, then how do I cultivate that? And what we know is, is that you can cultivate that through some degree of mentorship.
01:05:42
Speaker
You can have somebody who under their guidance presents the opportunities for you to start to recognize that on your own. I think what you're describing is in solitude of going off on our own, whether it's through indigenous practices around vision quests and having to endure,
01:06:05
Speaker
ah you know, some of the things that you're being broken down is your own limitations is saying that right now I can, I can only measure my limitations based on what I have been challenged by previously. And if that's the bleeding edge or the the knife's edge of what I intellectually or what I believe, even in my heart, yeah,
01:06:30
Speaker
that that's the That's as far as I can be pushed. There is something about the college experience that creates this reasonable expectation of safety.
01:06:41
Speaker
yeah I think we could go on down the list of in our system that has litigation and liability and all these things of why we we build things with certain degrees of safety because we do have some aspect that says if we don't,
01:06:54
Speaker
provide these limits, well, then ah then the school is going to get sued or all these different things. right Again, i I don't want us to get to a point where we start complaining about the system things that are doing this. Totally agree. I think what we need to remember, though, is is that Part of what we need are venues where people can challenge and find the edge of their believed limits.
01:07:21
Speaker
Right. And then be coaxed beyond those so that what they can see on the other side. But when looking back is, is that, oh, I had said the limit was this. That was my comfort zone. That was my comfort zone. Yeah. And somebody else.
01:07:36
Speaker
pushed me. And I think when you look through all of the initiation ceremonies, there are some that are very, very stark, like what you said, that picture of the bear and the, and, and you are, you're going to learn your limit because you have to, because you have to, and, and either you're going to learn that this was your limit and you no longer exist, or you're going to come back and realize, oh I, if I have ever faced that again, right then I will survive. It's less scary the second time. Yeah. i I mean, to a degree, going back to it, like, this is what I think some, some aspect of massive intensity, whether that's trauma or catastrophe does, is that before that event, you believe
01:08:21
Speaker
And you tell yourself, I could never survive that. Right. Because you've defeated yourself already at that point That's right. That's right. And then you find that nobody's going to choose to go through a traumatic or catastrophic or crisis. By choice. By choice. And then they find that I've gone through it.
01:08:39
Speaker
I'm still here. ah Maybe I am strong enough. I just don't know it yet. That's the part within the college experience. We don't understand what the wise aspects of what we're trying to cultivate actually are.
01:08:56
Speaker
yeah We believe that the variety of experience itself is all that matters. And I think a lot of us would say, yeah, we we got to explore new aspects of ourselves and figure...
01:09:08
Speaker
But in terms of my solitude and who i am regardless of what I'm bumping into around me, what I'm pursuing, what I think will make me happy, i think there's a question here that says,
01:09:23
Speaker
Do I know who I am better after a college experience or do I know what my preferences are from a pleasure seeking perspective, from an avoidance perspective?
01:09:34
Speaker
But do I know what it is that I want to invest my life in. I don't believe the college experience does a good job of that. There's something like nine in 10 individuals who go to college, come out and end up working in a field that's not even in what they studied. I don't think you have to look that up. but I think it's pretty accurate. it's it's And I think that's been the holding pattern for quite a while.
01:10:00
Speaker
At the very least, what we have is a college experience that that on the social domain, people might explore and find some some greater bounds.
01:10:11
Speaker
On the professional domain, they at the very least, with nine ah nine out of 10 people, find what they don't want to be doing, but they may not be really closer to what it is they want to use their time but to express and bring into into creation, to to invent. When you layer on top of that The fact that the average amount of debt that that students are coming out of school with on top of that. We're pushing all the buttons down, all the triggers. just saying that using this as a proxy for the initiation, yeah we could do better. Even if the initiation would happen prior to even considering college.
01:10:51
Speaker
I know that you love when I do this, I'm going to do it again, but the movie American Ninja, total train wreck 80s ninja movie, as the title suggests. ah There were two buddies who were in the military together. They were up now private contracting to do all kinds of havoc.
01:11:08
Speaker
ah The buddy who didn't make it was talking about, after we get out of this, I'm going to go home. I'm going to fall in love with an amazing woman. I'm going to have a nice place with a view. and like, that was it.
01:11:20
Speaker
the clarity that he had in that moment where he was experiencing the things we're talking about, just made it so easy to get rid of the other noise and clutter. It's like, oh, this is all I want.
01:11:32
Speaker
It could change a year from now, but right now in this moment, I don't care about anything else. These are the things that are important to me. And I thought there was a lovely metaphor of of what's the challenge of putting yourself outside of comfort zones and being given a task and coming out of it. If the goal yeah of the initiation is that either an elder, a mentor, a leader, or some event itself are all working in collaboration together. i would argue that they should. Yeah. Deliver that level of clarity oh my god or at the very least,
01:12:06
Speaker
a glimpse of what the true self might be. Because I think you, you I picked up on on a phrase there. At the very least, you said, at the very least, he had clarity then.
01:12:17
Speaker
And then oftentimes we have to come back to the real world and things start to become more murky. Noisy in a hurry. Yeah. If what our goal is with sometimes the initiating event is giving people a glimpse of what's real for them. yeah i don't think we have a lot of venues for doing that right now.
01:12:37
Speaker
And I also, ah the venue is problematic, yes. But I don't want to come away from this conversation thinking that, oh, well, we should send people out in a parachute in the middle of the desert. and Hopefully you can find your way home.
01:12:49
Speaker
I think that there needs to be developing stages. There has to be some element of mentorship. There has to be some guidance. To do this on your own, I think is setting people up for failure. And at this point, the stakes are too high. So I think it it cannot go independently.
01:13:03
Speaker
just have the experience or event or the mentorship. It really has to be. both I think what you just described is the wisdom that we can reach for. What we would want as a push towards a healthier version of masculinity. Yeah.
01:13:19
Speaker
is healthy initiation point. We don't have those right now. i would venture this. Even if we did right now, I would believe that they are likely not equally accessible to all demographics. That's a very valid point. And I and i think that's the other aspect is is that, at least for me, what I am increasingly learning, what my true self is interested in bringing to bear is is That opportunity for all, regardless of what their socioeconomic status is, what their ethnic background is, what the color of their skin is. we don't do those things, pardon me for your interruption. If we don't do this thing, then we've instantly created a bigger problem because now this becomes elitist. Yes. And it doesn't help the greater cause and the greater good of what we're hoping to do. But even having these conversations, I think actually there's a recognition for me going back to even how I'm built and what I talked about in terms of just wanting to experience as much as possible. Yeah.
01:14:21
Speaker
is is that I know that for that true version of myself, that highest version of myself that I've glimpsed at times through trauma, when when people are down, that I got role modeled to me by my dad, that when when people were undergoing the intensities of life,
01:14:39
Speaker
It didn't matter who they were. you You jump in and you help. And why is it important is is that I remember one time, it's but and it's vague. It's one of those memories where you're like, I i remember very specific elements of this memory. Sure.
01:14:56
Speaker
aesthetically I remember even some atmospheric things. My dad was a ah tradesman. he did HVAC work. He was well-versed in doing many others like many tradesmen are simply because you're working with your hands and you know tools and so leverage and transferable skills amongst a lot of things. Well, in this case, I think this was someone that they were disadvantaged and so in many ways. There was some special needs involved.
01:15:23
Speaker
All I remember is like, driving out almost, i just picture it felt like driving out into a desert or the plains and, and people were, these people were living in, in, in a old convenience store that had been converted into living and they didn't have air conditioning or heat. Wow. And he went out there and this is a way of living that I am not accustomed to. Sure. Sure.
01:15:54
Speaker
my My family was lower middle class. We had our struggles. we had We had financial struggles, all of those things as well. But this was not that. This was different than that.
01:16:05
Speaker
That version of myself can't get there without bumping into people from different walks of life. That context. That's huge. I can't discover that it's important to me to serve in those ways without bumping into those people themselves like This goes back to what we were talking about, like the limits. I can't, I don't understand my limits unless there's something that's pushing me beyond them. That's totally true. I need to be constantly initiated into new areas yeah of not knowing.
01:16:39
Speaker
I, at the very least, am aware that if I just serve the people that I'm comfortable serving, yeah then I am keeping myself from that version that i'm I currently don't know how it's going to manifest or how it's going to actualize.
Conclusion and Invitation for Ongoing Dialogue
01:16:56
Speaker
Yes. I can't just serve the me's of the world. I think that that's something also an aspect of this initiation from immaturity to maturity as men that we need to be initiated into our growth. Our expansion is only going to come by learning how to sit at the table with those we disagree with.
01:17:22
Speaker
That's a huge piece. Or don't even understand. Yeah. so And we may not know how to do that. You talked a lot about the word selfish. Not a lot, but you brought it up. I've been called so many worse things in my life than that. So I think it's okay to do some self-care and protect you in this process as well when you need to.
01:17:42
Speaker
Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. the importance of initiation, i think it's, it's a starting point that I, we recognize it's missing here. yeah And the conversations we're going to start going down the the path towards is painting this picture of, well, what, what does it mean to love as a man? What does it mean to, to fight, to be a warrior as a man? What does it mean to cultivate wisdom?
01:18:07
Speaker
We could talk about all those things we're moving towards. Yeah. But what if we don't have the thing that gets gets us started on the path? There has to be a starting.
01:18:18
Speaker
This is where we'll pick up. i think that next conversation is, okay, we need points of initiation. what do What do those needs to look like in our current? But now what are we being initiated into and and and how do we move down that path?
01:18:33
Speaker
Thank you for sitting with us in this conversation, for bringing your own story, your own questions, and your own hard-won wisdom to what we're building together. If you wanna keep this going, subscribe to Good Pain on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where you can also leave us a review that helps others find their way to these conversations.
01:18:52
Speaker
And for weekly doses of conversations that go beyond quick fixes or surface level advice, subscribe to our kindling newsletter at goodpainco.com. Good Pain is recorded in Colorado on Arapaho, Ute, and Cheyenne Ancestral Alliance.
01:19:08
Speaker
And let's remember, we are not alone in this. Our struggle is not our shame. Whatever we are carrying today, we don't have to carry it alone. We will see you next time.