A comment sent to The Art of Manliness
I always kind of thought The Art of Manliness was a silly, timewasting article site like Cracked. Then I read something that led to the comment I've copied below. Halfway through writing the comment I realized it was a blog post - so I cleaned it up and now it's here for you to enjoy :)
I'd like to thank you for your article on rites of passage: http://artofmanliness.com/2008/11/09/coming-of-age-the-importance-of-male-rites-of-passage/
Reading this article has helped me tremendously. I have been wrestling with certain consistent, but very abstract, thoughts and feelings for over a decade. I was raised in the LDS religion (Mormon), which has its own very serious, and effective, rite of passage: the Mormon mission. Starting at the age of 19, every young man is expected to serve "in the mission field" for two years. Contact with home is extremely limited, and the lifestyle required of missionaries is demanding, rigorous and austere. Prospective missionaries are required to pass a "spiritual worthiness" test - it's not common, but sometimes a guy isn't allowed to serve because he's been judged spiritually unclean. Other times people simply decide not to go. Males who don't serve a mission, for any reason, are viewed... well, now that I've read your article, I would say that they're viewed as not being fully men. It wasn't something I could articulate very well before, but put in the context of a rite of passage it's much more clear. I'm sure you can see how a conservative, tight-knit religious community might treat someone who does not make it through the rite of passage.
I didn't serve a mission, but it wasn't for the reasons I listed above - it's a long story, and full of bitterness that I don't want to revisit. I spent many, many years feeling lost and directionless, knowing that I was wasting time (and my own potential) but not knowing why I couldn't engage myself in my own life. I had the vague feeling that I was somehow impotent, out of control, and unable to reclaim myself. I knew I had to change something, but I had no idea what was really wrong or how to go about fixing it. My father, bless his heart, was no help.
Finally I decided to join the military. After Infantry school, it was like a switch had been flipped in my head. All of a sudden I started doing all of the things I'd known all along I was capable of, but had never actually tried. I could only explain it by saying "I felt like I was waiting for someone to give me permission to go." In the four years since I enlisted I have gone from living unemployed in my parent's basement and playing World of Warcraft (I shit you not, I really did that) to working half-time at a technology startup in Boston while I study computer science at Harvard. The crazy thing is, I *knew* - while I was sitting in my mom's sewing room killing night elves with my level 80 tauren hunter - that Harvard was in my future. I had always known it, I just couldn't do anything about it, and I never understood why.
Reading your article has helped me understand how powerfully I'd been impacted by being denied the rite of passage within my culture of origin. It has helped me solidify and articulate the concepts and emotions that have coursed through me over the past 14 years. Already, in the hour or so since I finished reading it, I have begun to look at my experiences in a different light. Another piece has been fitted into the puzzle, and I am one step closer to putting my agony over the past to rest. Thank you.
Now off I go to Facebook to delete the automatically generated link-back, so I don't have everyone in my family coming here to read this.
I'd like to thank you for your article on rites of passage: http://artofmanliness.com/2008/11/09/coming-of-age-the-importance-of-male-rites-of-passage/
Reading this article has helped me tremendously. I have been wrestling with certain consistent, but very abstract, thoughts and feelings for over a decade. I was raised in the LDS religion (Mormon), which has its own very serious, and effective, rite of passage: the Mormon mission. Starting at the age of 19, every young man is expected to serve "in the mission field" for two years. Contact with home is extremely limited, and the lifestyle required of missionaries is demanding, rigorous and austere. Prospective missionaries are required to pass a "spiritual worthiness" test - it's not common, but sometimes a guy isn't allowed to serve because he's been judged spiritually unclean. Other times people simply decide not to go. Males who don't serve a mission, for any reason, are viewed... well, now that I've read your article, I would say that they're viewed as not being fully men. It wasn't something I could articulate very well before, but put in the context of a rite of passage it's much more clear. I'm sure you can see how a conservative, tight-knit religious community might treat someone who does not make it through the rite of passage.
I didn't serve a mission, but it wasn't for the reasons I listed above - it's a long story, and full of bitterness that I don't want to revisit. I spent many, many years feeling lost and directionless, knowing that I was wasting time (and my own potential) but not knowing why I couldn't engage myself in my own life. I had the vague feeling that I was somehow impotent, out of control, and unable to reclaim myself. I knew I had to change something, but I had no idea what was really wrong or how to go about fixing it. My father, bless his heart, was no help.
Finally I decided to join the military. After Infantry school, it was like a switch had been flipped in my head. All of a sudden I started doing all of the things I'd known all along I was capable of, but had never actually tried. I could only explain it by saying "I felt like I was waiting for someone to give me permission to go." In the four years since I enlisted I have gone from living unemployed in my parent's basement and playing World of Warcraft (I shit you not, I really did that) to working half-time at a technology startup in Boston while I study computer science at Harvard. The crazy thing is, I *knew* - while I was sitting in my mom's sewing room killing night elves with my level 80 tauren hunter - that Harvard was in my future. I had always known it, I just couldn't do anything about it, and I never understood why.
Reading your article has helped me understand how powerfully I'd been impacted by being denied the rite of passage within my culture of origin. It has helped me solidify and articulate the concepts and emotions that have coursed through me over the past 14 years. Already, in the hour or so since I finished reading it, I have begun to look at my experiences in a different light. Another piece has been fitted into the puzzle, and I am one step closer to putting my agony over the past to rest. Thank you.
Now off I go to Facebook to delete the automatically generated link-back, so I don't have everyone in my family coming here to read this.