Sods'n'Odds

In perhaps a minor bit of synchronicity, I find it interesting that I should be embroiled in a debate on gender at a time when I find myself listening to a couple songs on boys/men/masculinity. I just went to the store and saw some teenage boys there. Since my mind is disposed to such things, I immediately started thinking about masculinity, especially how teenagers seem to be hyper-masculine. They take a trait and magnify it without understanding restraint or that "being a man" means more than showboating, acting tough, picking fights, and the like.

As I type, across the street a father holds his young daughter while his son and another boy from the neighborhood are on the lawn hitting each other with these long colored foam tubes. Not only is masculinity unfolding in more than one guise, but there's a major opportunity for some Freudian phallus analysis as well.

So I get home and see what's going on across the street. And I think about a couple of the songs in my WMP playlist. One of them drew some direct inspiration from the book King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetype of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. While I find some of the Jungian concepts to be suspect, I think the book is interesting nonetheless. It provides some goods way to think about masculinity. I bought the book shortly after hearing the aforementioned songs in 1997. At around the same time, I developed some new interests as I underwent some personal changes. One thing that I became interested in was tradition - what it is, what it does for us, and how it is transmitted by people through time. So, as I read Moore and Gillette's book, the idea of theirs that struck me the most was the concept of the masculine ritual process. That is, how a society initiates boys into manhood. The authors felt that our culture was very deficient in this respect and I can't say that I disagree with them.

At that time in 1997, too many things happened too quickly and I neglected to foster these interests as much as I should have. Now, with this recent discussion, perhaps I'll delve back into the thick of things. So mote it be.

Alright, I've finally taken necessary steps to improving my cultural knowledge quotient - I've placed a couple holds on items at the library. One person recommended Little Birds by Anais Nin while someone else suggested the song "Three Hours" by Nick Drake. Ergo the book and an appropriate CD will soon be in my clutches. I'll let y'all know how they are.