Boys II Men

I'm struck by something Joseph Campbell once called "The Father Search."  It's a theme that appears in myths of every culture.  Often it is heard described as a "coming of age story,"  but I think that definition is too narrow.  Coming of Age indicates some sort of threshhold crossed over into maturity.  This happens usually in the early twenties sometime.  The Father Search allows for a birth-like transition that can take place at any time in a person's life.

The Father Search is a term coined from the myth of Telemachus' search for his father, Oddysseus.  Telemachus leaves as a boy and returns a man, basically.  A popular reference of this story would be Luke Skywalker.  He sets out into his life beyond his mother's home where trials then start to draw him from the shapeless boy indentified as Odysseus' son into the man identified as Telemachus.  Of course, he needs help along the way and Athena joins him as a mentor.  This is where things get interesting for me.

Myths are defined as myths and not stories because they have elements that collectively resonate with all of human experience.  Frodo needs Gandalf, Luke needs Obiwan, Arthur needs Merlin, Elisha needs Elijah, and Telemachus needs Athena.  Today we have something that a lot of young twenty-somethings are suffering through which has been called, "The Quarter Life Crisis."  It's the questioning of purpose and vocation that has struck starting with Generation X.  Of course, The Quarter Life Crisis isn't a recent phenomena, it's The Father Search.  Maybe where it starts to feel more like a crisis and not a search is when our shapeless boy can not find a mentor to guide him into becoming a hero.

As a boy standing on the precipice of becoming a man, my first instinct is to run to my father.  Father will take care of everything.  However, like most boys, my father is not around.  So I need a Helper.  Really, the Helper is far better suited for the journey I have to go on than the Father.  Fathers have an unfortunate instinct that tells them to fix their kid's problems.  That makes for a pretty crappy guide into adulthood.  It is only fitting that I set out on my journey to find my father who has the power to fix everything, only to discover through the trials along the way that I have become the man and, if anything, father needs me to take care of him.

But The Father Search can take place at any time.  Most men say they secretly feel like boys trapped in a man's body.  Their Father Search may have been truncated early on because they didn't find their Helper.  So there are grown men, parents now, who have yet to go on their Father Search.  They can be spotted with a little looking.  In a nutshell, in all sorts of different scenarios you'll see them running away.  I have a friend who's dad drives each Saturday from Chicago to Wisconsin to fill up his gas tank.  He claims he does it because gas is cheaper in Wisconsin.  It doesn't matter that he burned through a tank of gas just to reach the cheaper gas prices.  He's running away from Saturday mornings, intimidated by the emotional needs of a wife and three kids.  Monday through Friday he's a false hero at work.  He's a 55 year old man who needs to go on his Father Search.

Then there is his son.  He is starting who is own Father Search which is to say, he is looking for the thing to take care for him and in that looking, with some help, he will hopefully find that he is the strong one who is here to take care of others.  The boy will die along the way and be replaced with the man.  Another way of looking at it is that the thoughts and heart of a boy will be put to death.  In their place will be the thoughts and heart of a man.  Which brings me to my controversial question:  When I consider the recent "phenomena" of the Quarter Life Crisis and the parallel phenomena that Sony now sells more video games to adult males than children, how many men really bother to go on their Father Search anymore?

Comments

[Wow]

Woah. That's powerful stuff there, Paul. It seems that perhaps most boy-men don't even know of the lack. Don't even know of the search. And therefore the mature-er ones, the ones who maybe have remained intact for whatever reason who have grown into Men with Help and Mentoring and whatever it takes - aren't offering it up because they don't perceive the need. There's a big Father Hole going on and you wrote about it really well.

[studiobeerhorst]

How does one search for the father? Is it the same thing as living out of your heart? Does searching for the father ever really end or does it go on as a lifestyle for ever? I feel like I am still looking for fatherhood in the older men that come into my life. I watch the way they handle themselves with their wives. I look to see how they interact with their children. I look to see if their is still life and sparkle in their eyes. Are we as men still willing to take risks? Are we willing to look bad, really fall on our face as we try to live out what it means to be a man. Today as I rode with my family of six children all under 14 yrs of age and two strollers through the subway system down from the Bronx Zoo back to Brooklyn my 1 yr old was screaming for at least half of the way and I could not do anything to get her to stop I even tried pinching. I had to just hold her squirming and kicking and screaming. The car was full of people most very well dressed and by that time most of my kids had oreol cookie smears and soda spills staining their clothes. I felt like I was on the battle field with my wife and children as I toke that long ride back to Brooklyn. I did not look good by any earthly standards I could think of. And yet I was there and I was not running away, I was finding the father by being the father. And as I finish this comment I am going into the next room to apologize to my oldest daughter for telling her I was looking forward to the day she would move away. God help me, and God help us all because after all you are thee Father of all fathers.