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Chapter 10- Midlife Brothers

At some point in a man's life he realizes that he is at a crossroads. He may not know exactly what all the stakes are, but he knows he must make some crucial decisions that will greatly affect the rest of his life. This is a time in most men's lives toward the end of the age of the father.

This time, after the mid-30's, is often referred to as midlife. Most men have been to this crossroads often in their earlier life but never recognized it as such. Maybe they didn't recognize its urgency because there was some instinctual knowledge that there was still time left in the age of the father. Maybe there was nobody there to explain their situation. This crossroads is really a place near the boundary of the village. One road leads back towards the boy's life in the village. The other road leads to initiation and manhood.

As we have seen, a man's outside age continues along a biological continuum from year to year. However, a man's inside age can fluctuate depending on the wounds and deficits of the boy inside, and the outside stressful circumstances the man is experiencing. Under stress, a wounded boy/man, wandering at the crossroads, will run back to the village. He will either run toward the mother and her comfort or the father and his directions. In other words the man will regress to the boy under 12.

There is also an adolescent boy inside a man. This is the boy who can act more like the man we all recognize in the street or in the executive suite. He loves the games of adulthood. He loves the risks and challenges. Yet inside he is still struggling with leaving boyhood behind. He also struggles with what it really feels like being a man from the inside out.

The crossroads is the place of adolescence, at the outskirts of the village. Adolescents like to be at the edge, hanging around the village boundaries, yet keeping a respectable distance from the wilderness. Part of him yearns for the freedom and adventure of the wilderness, as well as the experience of the mystery of manhood. This is his adolescent inside. However, the younger boy inside is often afraid to think of unconsoled aloneness, without rules to follow and a role to play.

In helping a man to make the next steps toward manhood, a man must be introduced to the adolescent within him and to the place where the adolescent hangs out. A confused, unguided, angry or depressed adolescent inside can be a significant obstacle to a man's growth, keeping him in the village long after he needs to leave. This is the adolescent Robert Bly talks about in his book The Sibling Society. Bly talks of how most men are stuck in adolescence, are stuck at the crossroads. He talks of adolescents that never grow up, because they have no elders to prepare them for the wilderness. He talks of a culture of regressed adolescents disguised as men.

The adolescent is the older boy inside. Men need to consciously contact the adolescent within if they hope to find their manhood. This is the boy of 12-16 years. He has many crucial tasks to perform before he is ready for initiation. Preparation involves finding initiatory brothers, separating from father, finishing the separation from mother, and preparing for the sudden presence of the elder.

Midlife

Most men are not ready to take up adolescent issues until long after they are young teen-agers. In this culture there is precious little good fathering and eldering energy to bring a man past adolescence to initiation. This dearth of initiated men causes most men to top out in a perpetual, unhealthy adolescence. Men are ill-prepared for what will become painful mid-life issues because they have not had a healthy adolescence.

For many men, an insidious dissatisfaction of life creeps up in their late 30's and 40's. This is the time of the stereotypical midlife crisis. Daniel Levinson talks of the time between 35 and 40 as the normal mid-life transition from novice adulthood to full adulthood. Levinson feels this normal transition need not be a crisis even though there are big changes going on. I agree that this time need not be one of crisis if healthy adolescence, Levinson's stage of novice adulthood, has been dealt with. However we are a culture where we are led to skip a whole stage of growth, the stage of healthy adolescence.

Men are unprepared for the adolescent transition because men are stuck in the father's world. Where the healthy adolescent is prepared to move on to the wilderness, a patriarchal man is taught that the marketplace is the end goal.

For most men who have gotten to the crossroads, the crisis is not from mother separation, though there are usually these residual issues to be dealt with. The crisis is from the growing awareness of the betrayal by the patriarchy. This is the time a man starts to realize that his ladder of success is on the wrong wall. The satisfaction he was promised is not there. He realizes he does not feel like a man even though he looks like a man in the mirror. He may not realize his dissatisfaction as betrayal. But he realizes a mounting and insidious discomfort with his life.

He also realizes that he is unprepared to answer the questions that are starting to plague him. Questions such as what work do I really enjoy doing that can also support my family? Is this the work I want to do the rest of my active life? Have I wasted my talents and energy? Is this the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with? Is this the kind of father I want to be to my children? Is this the reputation I want in the community?

Men often tell me in counseling, in a defeated tone, that they are horribly late in dealing with their issues, because they are in their 30's or 40's. They feel ashamed. They feel depressed. It is hard to convince them that they are really not too late. They are at the crossroads, again, with time to take the right turn this time. Now they have to deal consciously with that uninvited but thankfully persistent adolescent.

Adolescent Unbidden

When we experience this increasingly frustrated adolescent inside at midlife he has become angry and aggressive. He has been ignored for a long time by most men who have followed the rules of the patriarchy. He will not be denied. If a man will not deal with him consciously he will take over unconsciously. An unconscious man in his 30's or 40's or even 50's will encounter this unruly adolescent in the form of his own "adolescent" behavior. To a traditional, patriarchal man his adolescent behavior comes as a great surprise, to others it is a shock. Often the unbidden adolescent has just gotten a man into trouble through some uncharacteristic, irresponsible behavior. This "misbehavior" could be anything from reckless and aggressive driving, to having an affair, to hanging out in bars, to spending into big debt. Sometimes the adolescent shows up, unbidden, in the stereotype of the midlife crazy who breaks his neck with gold jewelry, buys a red convertible, dates women half his age, and generally acts half his age. Other times he arrives quietly, staying hidden, but creating havoc.

John was a successful consultant for retail stores. He would take over a store in trouble and turn it around with remarkable finesse and ease. He was respected by peers and subordinates. Another source of respect was his intense dedication to his work. He spent untold hours during the week and weekends doing what he could to get the job done. If the truth be known, John was a very successful work addict, trying to find his manhood in spite of an alcoholic father.

John was married for 23 years and was faithful to his wife the whole time. He was in a traditional marriage where his work addiction was considered normal, even exemplary. He was frustrated with the lack of companionship in his marriage, but chalked it up to the "reality" of marriage. John accepted his lack of companionship, since he was taught that the traditional marriage role had little place for that. His wife, Cathy, was over-identified with the mother archetype and seemed happy just being a mother and keeping a good house for John. She had no need to be a companion to John.

John spent his life energy at his work, rather than home, unconsciously trying to find his fathering there. In many ways, work was more home to John than his own house. On one job John found himself spending a lot of time with an assistant manager, who was an attractive, intelligent younger woman. John felt it appropriate to spend lunch and some dinners with her on a regular basis since they talked mostly of work.

This woman, Patty, was obviously very interested in John's work, which was something his wife was not interested in. John enjoyed Patty and the conversation. As time went on John found himself thinking about Patty more and more, outside of a work setting. He started to think of their relationship as a friendship, though a part of him knew that his feelings were deeper. His feelings were getting much stronger for Patty, and friendship was not quite the right description.

John's adolescent was stirring, though John did not recognize him. He arrived, though John never called him. John was a good man. He tried to stop thinking of Patty. He did what most work addicted men do. He tried to work harder to forget. Yet she was there every day, and she was interesting and interested. And they worked together very well.

The store was rapidly turning around. John was turning round and round. His adolescent was alive and yearning and active. Like all adolescents, he was bound to get caught eventually.

John's wife found out about his relationship when she caught him in a lie about where he was one evening. John confessed at the time that he had some feelings for Patty even though their relationship had not turned sexual. John's wife was furious, feeling betrayed after a lifetime of loyalty and responsible motherhood.. John promised the relationship would stop.

However, John continued to see Patty and lie to his wife. He couldn't understand this compulsion since he had always been a moral, honest man. He felt guilty. He couldn't stop seeing Patty because his feelings were so strong. He didn't realize that his strong feelings marked the emergence of his ignored, unguided adolescent. His adolescent came unbidden and unwanted. His adolescent was in love and awakened sexually. His adolescent was also out of control. His adolescent was experimenting at the crossroads with no wise help.

Since John had always been so responsible and traditional, he never had a healthy adolescence. He didn't know how to handle such strong adolescent feelings. This was new territory even though he was married for a long time. The patriarchy never taught him to live outside the box. The wilderness is outside the box.

His wife found out again about his dishonesty and threatened to leave. This is where John came into counseling. He was terribly torn. As we have seen in this story and will see in the story of Alex in the next chapter, the adolescent comes out, unbidden, because he is a part of us that wants to grow and be initiated. He often does it in unhealthy ways because he hasn't been fathered well. But his coming out is really a sign of our hardwired need for taking those next steps to initiation. The road to initiation must go through adolescence. There is no detour around the crossroads.

In John's case he was acting out his adolescent in looking for a companion. He was looking to find a part of himself different from his role as father and traditional husband. He was unconsciously trying to separate from traditional family, and grow as an individual. His dishonesty arose from the unguided adolescent who was obsessed with Patty, another adolescent to share with. His adolescent didn't want a mother. He wanted a companion.

John didn't realize his midlife issues were triggering the adolescent in him to grow. Without guidance he would probably regress into using Patty as his next mother object, or return to the patriarchy, unfulfilled and bitter. John didn't realize that his needs for companionship sprang more from needing brothers and sisters, rather than mothers and fathers. He didn't realize that Patty represented his adolescent hunger for a life outside the village. He didn't realize that his obsession for Patty, including sexually, was a healthy adolescent urge to find his own identity as a man.

Midlife Adolescent

There is a strong connection between modern midlife and unfinished adolescent issues. As a man's outside age moves past his mid-30's he is ending the age of the father. The adolescent issues of separation and individuation surface again forcefully. For a man to take up these issues effectively he has to realize the signs of the healthy adolescent.

First he must realize that his restlessness about following in someone else's footsteps is a natural sign of his own growth. The restlessness is the yearning of the adolescent to go on his own. He must realize that even the restlessness of the unbidden adolescent is really the unguided adolescent looking for initiation. The initiatory archetype is at work here. A man at this stage yearns for the unknown as a place of discovery, more than a place of danger. The yearning to create one's own footsteps, away from the crowd and the village, has the marks more of unrealized dreams than unrealistic fantasy.

Often men at this time fantasize about leaving their job and their home, sometimes even leaving their family, to start over in a small town where they are unknown and unexpected. They think about starting over like they did in their 20's, except now they're in their 40's. Sometimes men think wistfully of their college or high school years and the different decisions they could have made. All these thoughts signal the adolescent inside, who is still in his teens, wanting to finish his tasks and his dreams.

Unfinished dreams is the stuff of the unbidden adolescent. It is also the place where all healthy adolescents need to start. If a man reacts to his freedom fantasies without shame or hopelessness, he can start to contact his inner adolescent, just like he contacted his younger boy. He will realize that he doesn't have to leave home or family to start over, for the journey is really an inward one. He will start to take seriously his adolescent dreams and hopes. He will start to take seriously his adolescent within.

The adolescent within needs to be taken seriously. His restlessness about having to obey needs to be honored. His discomfort with living someone else's dreams must be recognized. His boredom with the traditional rewards of society must be accepted.

His needs to separate from the patriarchy must not be ignored. This is the time when a man often has a falling out with his mentor or other second father. To a man who doesn't understand, this is a tragedy. To a man who understands, he realizes this is inevitable. The adolescent must separate from the father. Sometimes the separation is as hard as the connection was good. As Daniel Levinson writes, "Most often, however, an intense mentor relationship ends with strong conflict and bad feeling." However, as he writes, "After the separation, the younger man may adopt many of the qualities of the mentor. His personality is enriched as he makes the mentor a more intrinsic part of himself." The adolescent needs to go on alone, yet, like Luke and Obi Wan, the mentor's voice still encourages.

Alf came to me because he was having chest pains that were found to have no medical basis. Though he was relieved to find that his chest pains were not serious medically, he decided to take them seriously anyway. He was starting to realize that the stress of his job may be worse than he thought. Though he was quite successful in his career he also realized that in the past year he no longer looked forward to going to work every day. He also felt that the orders he was being given, as financial officer in a small corporation, were not in line with his own ethical code.

Alf had been laid off two years before because of downsizing. At that time he had been rather desperate to get another job, because of the impact on his career and his dreams of financial success. Alf had gone to school with boys from very well-to-do families, even though his own family lived modestly. A good part of his motivation to be successful was to finally fit in with this crowd, who never quite accepted him in high school. When he was more candid, he admitted that he wanted to be more successful than most of them just to show them up.

Alf, the man, was a humble, ethical man and a good father. He didn't realize how much his competitive, unguided, stuck adolescent was running his life. He had taken his present job primarily because of the money and opportunity. The job looked fine on his resume. Because of his reservations, he didn't necessarily plan to stay more than a couple of years.

Alf's boss was a hustler who tended to see himself as a legend in his own mind. He seemed to feel fine about bending the truth because he knew he would pull things out in the end. Alf was not so sure of his boss's judgment, and he was sure he didn't believe in warping the truth as much as this man did. Alf was also questioning how much he enjoyed his work for its own sake. He started to question how much his job was just a vehicle for his career and status needs. He did enjoy a challenge. He enjoyed studying the big picture and devising financial plans that were creative and effective. He enjoyed creating teams of people from different backgrounds and managing them. He did not necessarily enjoy the day-to-day number crunching, Neither did he enjoy taking orders from someone whose judgment he suspected.

Alf was miserable. He was so miserable that he impulsively quit his job the next week, after arranging for a decent severance package. Alf figured his boss probably wanted him out of there anyway, because of Alf's 'problems' in supporting the boss's judgments. His boss was probably a competitive, narcissistic patriarch who needed yes men to prop his ego.

In counseling with Alf I encouraged him to stop from impulsively looking for another job. I tried to help him, as second father, by letting him borrow my judgment that he was not in a desperate situation and that his talents would be recognized in a number of career areas. I gave him the benefit of my experience in telling him there were other facts about his life that he was unaware of, and that he might need these in making future decisions. I told him that much of what he was going through was not abnormal psychologically, though it was not necessarily what the patriarchal society considered normal.

I first tried to get him in touch with the adolescent inside. I tried to show him how his adolescent was following a career track, only because he still felt less than his peers. We talked about how useless and meaningless this dark competition was. I encouraged him to look at his numerous accomplishments and start to appreciate the gifts and talents of that neglected adolescent.

I talked about his father. I showed him how his father was a good, ethical man who happened to be depressed. This man had no time to father Alf because he had struggled with his own career as an insurance salesman. Alf's father never fit into the corporate world, nor was he a success. He had a hard time helping Alf find his talents. He had little stamina to give Alf the strength he needed to make choices about corporate life.

I talked to Alf about fathers and second fathers, and how those in his life were unable to give Alf the self-esteem he needed. I suggested that he didn't have to attain material success in order to feel like a man. I then talked of the steps the adolescent within had to go through to feel like man on the inside. I encouraged Alf to go within to find his answers.

I started to elder Alf by challenging him to find the other dreams of his adolescent, the ones he never lived out. Healthy adolescent dreams, the dreams we all had at 16, are often the keys to our true direction. He would need these dreams as a starting point for his coming ordeal.

When I talked of the patriarchal separation and the need for ordeal, Alf understood. He recognized my emerging elder voice. He was starting to become ready for the confusion and chaos of the coming months. He promised he would not neglect his adolescent and abort his ordeal.

Besides individual counseling I talked to Alf about joining a men's group. I was doing some of the work of second fathering and eldering. However, Alf also needed brothers. Brothers would be crucial in his coming ordeal. Brothers would help prepare him for initiation.

Healthy Adolescence

Adolescence is the time of significant relationships outside the family. The adolescent has a need to separate from family, mother and father. He needs to experiment with being a separate person, though he still needs a good father as a safety net. This experimental time is the time of transitional separation from father. He separates partially, developing significant relationships with peers, especially male peers.

Friendship is the new relationship that this time brings. Friendship allows a man to significantly separate from family yet get the support needed for the initiatory journey. Friendship with men gives a man significant masculine energy, without a regressive pull toward the patriarchy. Friendship with a woman allows for support, without the regressive pull toward the mother object. In this chapter I will talk about the necessary bonding in friendship that men need with other men.

Adolescence is the time when a boy experiments with the edge of the village, where all the other adolescent boys are also hanging out. In some African societies, even today, the adolescent boys have their own huts, still in the village, but away from family for most of the day. They return at night, not ready for total separation, yet much more attached to their brothers than their family. I repeat. All men have a hardwired urge to bond with other men. The urge is there because the need is there.

All men have a deep need for brothers. The natural tendency for young adolescents is to explore friendship and teamwork with other boys, in preparation for many adult pursuits that benefit the community. For example, in primitive societies men had to learn to work together in intricate patterns of behavior and nonverbal communication in order to be successful as hunters and feeders of the community. Cooperation was vital for survival. Teamwork was born way back then.

Today the overpowering urge men and boys have for sports has a lot to do with this hardwired need to team up. The hand and head signals in football, baseball and basketball mimic the silent hunting signals of our distant fathers. The high of winning as a team often brings the deepest satisfaction that many men feel. The bonds of the team often override the bonds of blood. Men often talk of team as family.

This same sense of bonded togetherness for a purpose comes out in war. Sometimes the closest many men have ever felt to another person comes in war, the facing of death, with each covering his brother's ass. The warrior yearns to fight with other warriors. Though men don't miss the violence and destruction of war, they often miss terribly their brothers in war. The sense of a warrior's loyalty to each other is really the strongest motivation men have to endure the violence of war. The military has always taken advantage of this loyalty to make men fight in the first place. Forget about the purpose of fighting, just don't let down your brother. Men are hardwired to care about their brothers.

Competition

It is a cruel paradox that the dark patriarchy uses healthy male aggressiveness and turns it into the competitiveness of keeping men apart. Where men are kept apart as brothers there will usually be some kind of violence, disguised as unhealthy competition. Adolescence has always been the time of the brother, except in our modern society.

Friendship, to a person who is taught from an early age to be independent and competitive, is confusing. Men are told of teamwork in corporate America, and team players are supposed to be rewarded. But my experience suggests that the teamwork really rewards the topmost, dark fathers while the team players are often betrayed. Men band together at the corporate level to get an edge on their coworkers rather than to help each other.

Men in our society see groups of other men as instant competition rather than as avenues of initiatory cooperation and support. The negative father voice, intent on sabotaging growth, tells men how many ways other men will beat them out if they are not careful. As I have said, the patriarchy is designed so that there are many losers and very few winners. The system is designed for a man to be a great competitor or a loser, pitting men against men for the patriarch's gain.

Manhood is defined in terms of a dark competition. The playing field is the work world. Other men are obstacles to manhood, not brothers or friends. There isn't much room for a lot of men in this world. Competition supposedly weeds the men from the boys. In this environment it is easy to see how men do violence to other men. Men are taught to believe they are in it alone. Men are taught that ultimately no other man will help. Men are taught to be selfish, and not think past their own needs and the needs of their family.

Stuart Miller writes in his book Men And Friendship that most of modern life demands that we be ready to compete "thereby ever-honing us to belittle, to criticize, to search for flaws". In earlier times competition did not mean what it does today. Even in Greek antiquity the idea of competition was to use it to bring out the best in each opponent. Michael Meade points out that the word competition actually comes from the Latin words which mean to petition together. In the Greek case, each man's petition was for the gods to bring out the best in each other. Competition was a kind of mini-initiation in which brothers helped each other find their best selves.

Michael Gurian in his book The Good Son shows that competition can be a kind of nurturance between men, especially between a father and a son. It can be a way of teaching in a language a growing boy understands. As long as competition has the value of calling out natural talents as its highest goal, it can enrich both a man and his community. In this way it becomes an important preparation for initiation, both as a way of receiving fathering and a way of bonding with brothers.

Adolescent males are hardwired to seek brothers. Male friendship is one of the most potent forms of triggering the initiatory archetype and gaining a sense of strength to do the initiatory work. Patriarchal competition is unnatural. Competitive violence is not what men are made for. Men are made to bond for gaining strength and courage. The dark patriarchy, however, is afraid of initiation. The dark patriarchy only wants talents that serve its cause, only strengthening the bond of father to son, not brother to brother.

Finding Brothers

It sounds strange but men have intimacy needs for other men. This is not sexual intimacy, but a sense of closeness and trust. If men do not feel close to other men they will look to have all their intimacy needs met by women. This is not how we are hardwired. For men, it is not essential to have a friend who has a bosom to have a buddy.

Stuart Miller talks of the difficulty of finding deep male friendships. When he mentioned writing a book on male friendship to colleagues he was astonished to hear their warnings that he should not write a book on homosexuality. They were worried for his career. Stuart is not gay and did not intend to write a book on homosexuality. The idea of deep male friendships was too foreign for his colleagues to understand in ways other than homosexuality.

Most men I meet in counseling will automatically think of a woman when they want to share their deepest feelings. One struggling man felt stuck because he felt most men "extremely boring". To him, his newfound women friends were quite interesting. This man was succumbing to regressive maternal forces, as do most men, by obsessing sexually and emotionally about one interesting 'friend'. This detour took energy away from his own internal journey and a marriage that could be saved. When he did start connecting with other men, in sharing his internal journey, he stopped obsessing.

Stuart Miller talks of the danger of even a good relationship with a wife or significant other. He says that "the problem then arises that, as rich as his relationship with his wife may be, he eventually suffers from claustrophobia, from a sense of being suffocated in the arms of the Great Mother, an archetype he gradually projects on his spouse as his relationships with men become less vital."

Men's groups, formal or informal, are a form of friendship extremely helpful to men's development. Besides providing second fathering they provide brothers. This is why I recommended a men's group to Alf. Men's groups are the analogue of ancestral tribal bonds. In men's groups the bonding of members is a crucial step for the healthy adolescent within. It is the key to healing the adolescent as well as preparing for healthy maturity. Men seem to quickly develop a different sense of themselves in a conscious men's group. The archetypal need to bond gets stimulated early. The adolescent immediately seems to feel a lift and a desire to go the next steps, and face the initiatory pain. Young men have always started the the initiation with their brothers. Brothers lend courage for those first steps into the wilderness. Brothers understand those first steps.

In my experience men feel a support that uplifts their sense of a male, valuable self. Brothers give different feedback than fathers and mothers. They tell us of different parts of ourselves. Brothers have less of a stake in our life direction. They don't succumb to the manipulative temptation of the mother's dreams or the father's ego. They are as open as we are to questioning the patriarchal rules or the matriarchal pleasures. They yearn as we do for satisfaction and the inside sense of manhood. They provide a safe place for us to experiment with other ways of relating and being.

In the adolescent subculture, no longer is the adolescent just taking from parental figures. Now he is asked to give also. At first it is very hard for the adolescent to realize that others have legitimate but sometimes contradictory needs. He will make a lot of mistakes in this learning process. Brothers help us learn the give and take of the next steps. We can make mistakes with brothers and not feel judged or guilty. These mistakes can teach an adolescent the beginning of relationships of equality and mutuality.

Brothers can provide a second family to help us leave the first. We are not hardwired to go the whole initiatory journey alone. Most of the journey is with men as fathers, brothers and elders. Only the last part is alone. We need the strength of other men to face that ordeal of aloneness. Bonding with a brother helps men finish the mini-initiations of separating from mother and father.

Once a man is able to grow past early adolescent issues he is ready for late adolescence and the time of initiation. He will have the yearnings of midlife, yearnings for a greater sense of self and more meaningful direction. The regressive adolescent fantasies of sex and success will feel less and less satisfying and attractive. His need to fit in to the adult world will seem more and more irrelevant. He will become more uncomfortable with the empty values of pseudo-adult responsibility and rewards. His fear of other men will dissipate. He will realize the satisfaction of good friendships and his ability to give of his emerging self. He will start to learn the blessing of having brothers.

It is interesting that the Chinese pictograph for the word crisis in composed of two symbols. One symbol means danger, the other opportunity. A modern man needs to take advantage of midlife crisis by turning it into an opportunity. Often at the inspiration of a second father and brothers, he can double back to finish issues that are important to him. He can then have the ability to turn the ongoing crisis into an ordeal, an ordeal that will change the rest of his life.

Han Solo

In the Star Wars myth Han Solo is the prototype of the unguided adolescent. He is in it for the money, partly because he is in deep debt to the loan shark, Jabba. The assumption is that he gambled, somehow, and lost Jabba's money. He is single and answers to nobody but himself. He is unmoved by the larger struggle of good and evil in the galaxy. He is obsessed with the marketplace.

Han is in the presence of a mentor, Obi Wan, yet sees no strength in him, nor use for the 'old religion' of the Force. His initiatory urge only comes out in his need to take reckless chances in smuggling or evading bounty hunters. His big adolescent toy is the Millennium Falcon. He is proud of it and what it can do, just like any adolescent is proud of his 'wheels'. He boasts about it constantly, as if it makes him manly.

Han continually displays the persona of a man, including calling Luke 'boy' throughout their first encounters. His reaction to stress and danger is always the dark warrior's reaction, anger and focused violence. He doesn't learn from Obi Wan that there are other ways of the mature warrior. He is immediately attracted to Princess Leia, but acts with bravado toward her. He hides behind his male persona and ends up acting more adolescent. As a maturing young woman, she is unimpressed.

Finally, the only thing that keeps him in the story, and close to the initiatory process, is his sense of brotherhood with Luke. He has his money. Leia is ignoring him. He won't go on the suicide mission of destroying the Death Star, a true initiatory experience. Yet he returns to save Luke from Darth Vader's destruction. Han somehow does not fall prey to a dark competitiveness with Luke. He must sense from deep inside that brotherhood has some answers for him. Maybe he is tired of the loneliness behind the persona. He saves Luke from the destructiveness of the dark father, as good brothers do. In doing so, he finds a new family. Luckily, the second father is Obi Wan Kenobe. Luckily, that brother is Luke Skywalker. This bonding to a brother, who has a second father's values, becomes a key to a whole new life.

Questions

In working with the adolescent inside a man has to continue his refathering and guidance just as he did for the younger boy inside. In speaking with the adolescent he will often find a dissatisfaction with his life direction. He will find an anger at patriarchal fathers and any authority that seems heavy handed or manipulative. He will often find a sense of hopelessness. Most of the time these feelings are a sign of a growing readiness for initiation. These feelings are really the start of initiatory depression, the first step in the coming ordeal. A man who refathers his adolescent inside listens to these feelings and the inevitable questions these feelings bring up. If a man takes his adolescent seriously he helps turn a crisis into an opportunity. Good fathers, unlike patriarchs, encourage questioning even of themselves. A man who ignores his adolescent dissatisfaction and questions remains stuck in depression and in an unhealthy adolescence.

This crisis of doubt is also where friends as brothers come in to help. A good friend will take a man's questions seriously and add many of his own! Questions will start to become common, dissatisfaction normal. But for this to happen a man must risk sharing his internal life. He must risk sharing his doubts and deliberations with another who may be walking the same path. He must risk misunderstanding, even ridicule. He must risk leaving the protection of the patriarchy.

Friends who are ready to become initiatory brothers will not shame or minimize this risky sharing. With initiatory brothers common questions will emerge. This banding as brothers can happen at any time. A man does not have to be in a men's group for these connections. This kind of connection, in a men's group or anywhere in the world of men, will cause initiatory energy to rise.

This energy of connection will also inevitably draw elder energy. As we will see, elder energy draws a man deeper into his questions and confusion. The elder takes the adolescent very seriously, continually testing whether he is ready for ordeal and the answers in transformation. One significant test is whether the adolescent can stay with the discomfort of the questions. This is where fathers hand a boy over to elders. This is where brothers are crucial to the midlife dilemma. Brothers can keep a man from running scared back to the village. As in a good team or a good platoon, brothers keep each other going, even in the face of extreme fear.

Past chapters of Toward Manhood are archived.

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