One upon a time and not so long ago men had a valued place as protectors of their communities. Men knew they were warriors and part of a community and could be called upon at any time. Individual men knew it and their communities knew it. The men strove to live up to the job. Boys had role models to look up to and expected to take their place with a job to do as a man. Old men remember this.
Young men have it in their DNA but seldom in their lived experience. Part of this is a deep loss of mutual respect between women and men in the social sphere, as I detail here. Related to that is the vast fatherlessness in the developed west that is causing such vast disconnection.
Today, as it was 40 years ago (but not 100 years ago) boys and men, starting from puberty, kill themselves at least four times more often than women.
I don’t mention this as part of a victim competition. It’s a flashing red sign. Pay attention! Behind the suicides is hurt and loss and suffering of boys and men and the women that love them. But you know that!
As I write this on June 15h it’s the anniversary of my friend Michel, who jumped to his death off Ottawa’s Interprovincial Bridge twenty-seven years ago today. Salut Michel! When I woke up this morning I wanted to remember him. I didn’t think this would be part of it.
Still the suffering of boys and men remains and remains invisible.
We’re also in a political-economic-social crisis that for many people is also invisible, or at least confusing and crazy-making.
Here’s how the boy crisis and it are are related.
Like the people in Germany before the second World War most of us don’t see what’s growing in our midst. The mass of men like the mass of people don’t register it. I think we don’t see it’s because it’s a propaganda war and don’t know it. This propaganda war doesn’t look like the war we’re used to and for which we reserve the word.
Global control of everything is the aim of this takeover. It’s a far more intrusive control than was possible 80 years ago. It’s not hidden. The Great Reset is openly declared and spoken for by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. Central Bank Digital Currencies tied to digital identity and compulsory behaviours are openly planned by global leaders and are the stated intention of many central banks.
It’s a propaganda war so the front line isn’t weapons. It’s suggestion and “mass formation.” (A helpful look at the modern psychology of propaganda is here.) The weapons of the would-be controllers are billions to buy the narrative and punishment for dissenting views. The weapons of those who do not comply are consciousness, personal courage and what we might call conscious voice – daring to speak personal truth.
We’re not used to speaking out. It’s got nothing to do with telling other people what they should do. It’s not about bringing them around to our view. The challenge of the conscious voice is to speak our truth without expecting or needing others to agree or respond positively. It’s to be willing name the unspeakable. It’s to be willing to be ignored, blamed, shunned or deplatformed if that’s what it takes. It’s a spiritual act of warriorship and good for elders too. It’s the opposite of giving up and being suicidal.
The cultivation of deliberate personal voice is what men’s health looks like. It’s the direction of the solution to the boy and man crisis. It’s restoring men to their part in the protecting community and the future.
If we don’t find a way to use our voice we default to those who, hiding behind vast institutional power and money, use theirs – our wannabe globalist controllers. Cultivating and using our personal voice is what spiritual work looks like today.
It’s also a best thing we can do for the men’s community and our own health.
