Fair warning that first, this is going to be a relatively depressing article. Second is that it is going to be written from a mostly male perspective. If either of these are not your thing, feel free to skip this one. Why purposefully write a relatively depressing article? Because, counterintuitively, it offers some hope. But I’m weird that way. If you are too, read on.
Five Minutes
If you’ve been in a fight, you know what it feels like to get hit. Especially a headshot. Unless your adrenaline is really high, there’s probably nothing else that can knock you off center quite like getting a shot to the face. And Cerrone, in UFC 141, got hit in the face. He got hit in the face a lot. The punches weren’t necessarily heavy. But they were numerous in number. 40 headshots in the first round. 26 headshots in the second round. Every time he seemed to be close to getting a couple of hits on Diaz, Diaz would just unleash a barrage of hits in return. By the end of the second round, his face was covered in blood. He couldn’t see straight. He was exhausted in the way that only people who’ve been in a fight know. There’s resignation in his face. Going into the third and final round, as the doctors are patching him up as best as they can, his coach drops all decorum. ‘You give me five minutes of hell! You understand me son! YOU GIVE ME FIVE MINUTES OF HELL! His coach sees it for what it is. We see it too. We hope that he puts up a fight this time. And so Cerrone goes out. He gets hit for five more minutes. 35 headshots to be exact. And he loses the fight.
The Hero’s Journey
If there’s anything that to me sums up the entire experience of being a young man, it would be this fight. Every battle you enter into as a young man, is for the most part a losing battle. Whether it’s for jobs, for women, for recognition. There’s usually nobody more useless - and as such, expandable - to society like a young man. A lot of men have the experience of going through a period where they were functionally invisible. The same period where they wanted nothing more than to be seen. There is a fantasy that I think most men have, a fantasy that can only be summed up as ‘The Hero’s Journey.’ It’s the fantasy of doing something that earns you the one currency that every man wants. The feeling of being needed. If a woman’s fantasy is to be wanted, a man’s is to be needed.
The sad part is that when you look at life, especially as a young man, its usually the inverse of the hero's journey. We want to be Diaz in the fight. We want to win, and we want to win loudly. But for most of us, life often looks more like Cerrone’s side of the fight. Embarrassing defeat. We often have something (often someone) we wanted to go on that hero’s journey for. We want to be the savior. We want to be the one that she looks at longingly. But in our efforts to do so, we end up being the opposite. And it’s worse the harder we try. We fail, and we carry those failures with us. Failures that make us hurt. Failures that make us hate. Failures that turn some men cruel.
Innocence and Experience
There’s a thin line between innocence and experience. Innocence is often what you think the adventure will be. Experience is what the adventure actually is. Innocence is the man that thinks his life is going to look like the hero’s journey. But it most likely won’t be. We are embarrassing idiots way more than we are triumphant heroes. If you think otherwise, ask your girl, your mum, or your sisters, and watch them describe how embarrassing, but hopefully cute you are when you try. And even if you do succeed, experience will reveal to you that success usually isn’t celebratory. More often than not, it is a long sigh of relief. Relief is not fun. It is not exciting. Relief is actually, for the most part, a quiet experience. And a quiet experience is the antithesis of a hero’s journey. Because the hero is supposed to come back to a celebration. From his people. From his children. From his girl. And a lot of people will fuck up a good thing because they want the triumphant welcome. And they drift to where they get it. Whether that be bad situations. Bad people. Without realizing that nothing comes back from a black hole.
Who Are You
The thing about the hero’s journey, is that we think it centers on the external. At least we pick up on the external more than we do on the internal. But there’s a whole other aspect to the hero’s journey that we all seem to completely miss. And that is the internal journey. A good example of this is the Batman movies. I’m a big fan of the Batman universe and given how coveted making and starring in a Batman movie is, how much money the studios pour into the movies, and how there’s always another Batman movie around the corner, I can make a guess that I’m not the only fan. But when you watch all the batman movies, what you see is a man trying to get to terms with who he is, and where he fits into the world. That’s all it is. It isn’t his money - that is usually in the background. It isn’t the women - they are usually just adjacent. It’s the internal turmoil of a man getting to grips with his fears. Getting the grip on who he is.
Another good example comes from Avatar. The story in Avatar is as much Aang’s as it is Zuko’s. And in one of the most poignant scenes of the show, Uncle Iroh asks Zuko a question he seemingly hadn’t ever asked himself. A question Zuko was almost afraid of answering. A question that seems to cause unbearable cognitive dissonance in Zuko. But it’s a simple question really. A question that sets him on the path to the very greatness and validation he has longed for a long time. ‘Who are you? And what do you want?’
Side note. Fam! Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, needs an Uncle Iroh. I’ve not seen any other character that has had such an impact on men - an indication being the sheer number of essays on that man on YouTube. If there is a character to set the standard for masculinity today, it would be the Dragon of the West.
Mind. Body. Time.
As you go on the hero’s journey, remember one thing. Wherever you run, and however far you run, there’s one person that’s going to be with you always. That person being you. As the saying in the addiction community goes, no matter how far you drive, you’re always the same distance away from the ditch. You are the person you should care the most about. The person you should watch out for the most. And when it comes to you as a person, there are three things that come to mind. Three things that you should ensure you maniacally protect. Your mind. Your body. And your time.
I am about to tell you to do something I know you are not going to listen to. And that something is this: before you go on a hero’s journey for someone else, make sure you’ve done it for yourself. And what that is going to look like for a lot of you is again something I know you probably won’t follow. It is going to be you putting your head down, for a couple of years, and working your ass off. You are going to eat shit, yes. Whether it’s with jobs, or money, or women. But if you get through it, the shit goes away. Dr. Anna Lembke says that when it comes to addiction, all you’ve got to do is survive the first 21 days. Sounds easy, but those who’ve fought addiction know that those 21 days will suck. They will be cold and dark. But on the 22nd day, the sun will rise. The sun will shine, young padawan. So, cowboy, five minutes of hell, for the rest of your life.