Introduction to the Male Archetypes - the sign post to who we are as men.

A lot of what I will write about here is tied to the concept of male archetypes, those innate aspects of men that just keep popping up over and over again. It is something that Carl Jung first touched upon as certain personality traits that imbedded within what he called the "collective unconscious." They are traits that are just there and tend to bubble to the surface for a particular person over and over again.

The concept of an archetype is akin to electricity. You don’t fully know how it works but you know that when you flick a light switch the light will go on. Similarly there is distinct masculine behavior that will get tapped into in a particular set of circumstances. This “default” behavior, for want of a better term is referred to as masculine archetypes. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette have done some ground breaking work in identifying four primary masculine archetypes that show up in literature and mythology thought the ages: the King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. For a more in depth, albeit slightly dryer examination of all this I highly recommend their book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

So here is my discertation on Archetypes 101

Each archetype has both
• a mature (or light) side, which is creative and generative and looks to strengthen the broader community and fulfill a higher purpose, and
• an immature (or dark/shadow) side, which is potentially destructive and focuses more on self preservation and satisfying the ego

We usually access the immature side of the archetypes when confronted with a sudden set of circumstances that we perceive to be life or ego threatening. Not surprisingly this comes up time and time again in childhood as young boys struggle to figure out how their bodies and ego will survive in a seemingly hostile world.

However, for most people we get to a place where survival is no longer an issue, or at least not a daily refrain. At that point, when life is good, we have the time to reflect on where we fit in the world and where we want to fit in. In other words we start to question our legacy and purpose. At these time we typically access the mature side of the archetypes


LOVER (and SLACKER)

The Lover feels.
• He savors feeling and embraces all the sensations and emotions of life, good or bad, joyful or painful
• He is at one with life because he lives fully in the moment with all his feelings
• His connection to the world is through his feelings and the passion that radiates out of him. He lives without boundaries and is not concerned with protocol or order.
• He understands that only by opening to the depth of his emotional experience can he become fully ALIVE and this is his purpose.
• He can access each of the five emotions: Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, and Shame and can empathize with them without drowning in any one of them.
• His ego is strong and healthy. It allows him to carry forth ideals and inspire others with his passion to strive to pursue those ideals.
• He can easily distill his personal experience into a universal concept.

The Slacker is the shadow of the Lover
• He expresses himself in each of us as the extremist or the glutton and the addict.
• The addict is enslaved by sensation and driven to excess to mask his pain.
• His emotions are so raw he needs something to dilute them because he rejects the depth of his true emotion.
• The extremist is actually numb to emotion and only feels alive when he’s overwhelmed by stimulation, not necessarily chemical so he may recklessly induce fear to precipitate an argument to force him to feel.

WARRIOR (and BULLY)

The Warrior acts.
• He has healthy self esteem and can easily see and honor the strength of others
• He is energetic, decisive, courageous, enduring, and loyal to some greater good beyond mere personal reward or acclaim.
• He is committed to something greater than himself. He will fight the good fight to make the world a better and more fulfilling place for this and future generations
• For a warrior to be in his power he must embrace a way of life and a specific spiritual path.
• The warrior embodies selfless service. His joy comes from losing himself in giving. A better world is his only need and greatest reward. He becomes what he gives; pure devotion to a higher purpose.
• The mantra of the warrior is “it is not about me.” He has no time for the stories of the past and no desire to place blame. He stands fully accountable for his every action.
• He accepts that he controls nothing but his own emotions.


The Bully is the shadow of the Warrior

The Bully is challenged by a sense of low self esteem and a feeling of not being in control of his life.
• He is either the Sadist some one who derives joy from someone else’s pain – to punctuate his illusion of superiority over others; or the masochist, someone who subjects himself to pain to prove to himself that he is truly “worthy” of power, status and preferment.
• He is the unhealed child; the wounded boy who fears and hates his perceived inner weakness. He is the energy of the Warrior turned inward against himself.
• He exudes self-judgment, self-hatred and self-punishment.
• He is the outer manifestation of a man’s unforgiving inner shame of self.




MAGICIAN (and TRICKSTER)

The Magician seeks.
• He has a healthy relationship with knowledge and the responsibilities it brings.
• He is the mystic and the visionary.
• He is the master of discernment, the great distiller.
• His gift is that of insight and intuition.
• Where the Lover feels and the Warrior acts, the Magician simply, yet profoundly “knows” and “is.”
• The Magician sees clearly into the depths and darkness of other men’s souls because he has done so within his own. He is fully cognizant of his own dark side.
• The Magician easily appreciates all that he doesn’t know and knows how to further a dialogue with the right question rather than posing the “answer”.

The Trickster is the shadow of the Magician

To the trickster knowledge equals power or responsibility
• He is either the liar or the innocent.
o The liar lies to mask his ignorance of the truth
o To shield himself from the responsibility of owning what he says or believes, he uses phrases like, “this is the way it has always been done” or “I was just following orders”.
o The innocent feigns ignorance to mask his grasp of truths he prefers to deny.
o He will quickly say “I don’t know, what do you think?” to avoid the responsibility of making hi own decision.



KING (and SPOILED BRAT)

The King Gives

He holds the energy of the mature and masterful man, the fully actualized human being
• He exudes an inner authority, bringing order to the world, creating and enforcing the code men choose to live by, and establishing guideposts within which men can earn and honor rank.
• He stands as an ego-less mirror that reflects for other men the possibilities of their own greatness, radiating a peace and stability that allows for growth.
• In the face of chaos and struggle, his decisions are clear, sharp and concise
• To fully realize the true energy of a King, he must master or at least be able to recognize all the qualities of the other mature archetypes that of an accomplished warrior, an integrated magician and a great lover.
• The King holds a healthy relationship with abundance. He doesn’t act out of a sense of obligation but from a place of long tem vision. He is willing to sacrifice in the short term to prosper in the long term.

The Spoiled Brat is the shadow of the King
• He brings chaos to the order of the community be either demanding more than he needs (the tyrant) or failing to shoulder his responsibility (the weakling)
• He is the little tyrant shouting out his needs, stamping his feet, angrily throwing away those things he rejects – he has an unhealthy relationship with abundance in that he seeks to horde all he can.
• Or, he is the weakling, the quiet, shy, pale child that you are convinced will shatter if you so much as sneeze – he has an unhealthy relationship with abundance in that he equates taking anything with taking on obligation to return the favor.

The Tao of Dino – Mastering the Art of Being the Man Behind the “Guy”.

Last entry I wrote about the importance of getting yourself into a Rat Pack, a group of men outside your normal circle that allows you to personally benefit from the diversity of the group. I also cautioned about being too quick to be the Pack’s Sinatra. Here’s my thinking:

Inevitably any time men form any entity there is this initial alpha male impulse to struggle for the seat at the head of the table. Avoid getting sucked into that black hole. I am not saying don’t aspire to be a leader. I am just cautioning against being the publicly acknowledged leader. Using the Rat Pack analogy helps here. If you think about it, it was always Sinatra and the Rat Pack. And while Frank’s career and ego certainly benefited from his holding the mantle of the “Man,” his personal life suffered. His relationships were tabloid fodder and every thing he did and said seemed to become a lightening rod for some reaction from someone, somewhere. His kids suffered from being caught in the glow of his spotlight to the point of being regular targets for wannabe kidnappers. But through all this there was another member of the Rat Pack who was inarguably successful in his own right, Dean Martin. For a few years, along with Jerry Lewis, he held the title of top box office draw in the movies. He had a ridiculously long running TV show driven by his public persona of the hard drinking womanizer. But his personal life he was not trapped by his public persona. Not many people know about his three marriages and seven kids and rumor has it the guy was home for dinner with the family almost every night.

Politically, history is rife with shadow dictators. The confidantes who had the ear of a president or dictator but usually avoided the fall out when the masses decided they had had enough. During the first term of the Bush administration, Dick Cheney got a free pass in his role of puppeteer until the media finally woke up. And of course if you turn to reality TV you can get a weekly lesson in the pitfalls of being pegged as the leader by watching Survivor. As soon as Jeff Probst outs the leader of the tribe it is just a matter of time before the rest of the tribe is scheming to get them booted off the “Island”.

So what’s an alpha male to do? Those who know me, know that I have been thrust into leadership roles quite often. They also know how much I hate it. Just to be clear, I don’t hate being a leader, I just hating being acknowledged as a leader. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. When I have been clearly recognized as the man in charge, I have come up against four reactions.

That of the Slacker – who thinks, “I don’t need to worry about anything, Spierer will do it”. And they just sit back and gladly ride my coattails,

The Spoiled Brat – who no matter what I suggest, takes a stand against it solely because it was not their idea.

The Bully – who will whisper in my ear and try to curry favor with me in the hopes that I will do their dirty work.

The Trickster – who will be forever scheming to undermine my goals because they want my job.

My experience has been that getting anything done when I occupy the title of “the Man” is a struggle. When I really get to accomplish things and have some influence though is after I step down. Then, when I speak everyone seems to listen. Things I said just a month earlier suddenly make sense and seem totally plausible. People just develop a different listening for me.

So there are two take aways from this. Now, when I am actually “in charge” I try to attain some marginal success in the job and then get out as quickly a possible. It is important to earn the cache of “been there done that” but it is even more important to take on the mantle of beloved elder before the glow of that success fades. After all, everyone is always looking for flaws in their leaders, not so with the man behind the curtain and definitely not with the beloved old patriarch.

The other thing I try to do is utilize the discipline of leading from the back of the room, even if I am the man in charge. By that, I mean I let someone else be my mouthpiece. I let someone else maintain the order in the room and I let some else garner the credit for a job well done. It ensures I sleep better at night and makes me less prone to getting picked off by a sniper.

Join A Rat Pack, Just Don't Be Sinatra

Since this is the first submission to the blog after my introduction. There is a part of me that wants to spoon out some cutting-edge concept that will make you step back and go “Wow! This son of a bitch is brilliant.” So I am going to do just the opposite. In part because I like patting myself on the back for not giving in to my ego but more because the subject of this blog is the one thing that will ensure that everything that comes afterwards will actually serve you.
On its face, the concept of ensuring that you have a strong circle of men in your life might seem basic and mundane. However, it is the nature and make up of that circle that is critical. Notice that I did not say get a strong circle of friends. I am not talking about friends and I am not talking about joining a support group. I am talking about stepping into a circle of men with whom you seem to have nothing in common but who you are confident you can trust to both watch your back and tell you all the things you really rather not hear.

If you think about it, most of your friends won’t really call you on your shit. If they do, they are opening the door for you to be honest with them. Most long term friendships have too much time invested to willingly risk the relationship at that level. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen but it is rare. The other problem is your friends probably share your interests and have a certain emotional investment in the dynamics of your life and shared relationship. So often times what you hear is really more about what is being triggered for them by the whole experience. You need to hear from a man who has nothing invested in your problem.

So why not a support group? First off, just the phrase makes me cringe. While support groups might be a great place to feel like you are not alone and get some honest feedback and an occasional slap in the face, rarely will the other members be willing to go out on a limb for you. And again if they do, it is because in saving you they are trying to save themselves. If anything, the relationship amongst the members is usually just one of talking rather than doing and the commitment is more to the process than the individual.

So, why a Rat Pack? The image of hanging around Vegas, smoking cigarettes and chasing after chorus girls is seductive but what allowed the “Rat Pack” to transcend the image of being the embodiment of the good life was in their diversity. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. A New Jersey crooner with ties to the mob, a black man who been street dancing since he was two, a Midwestern son of immigrants, a WASP and a Jew. On paper their bond didn’t make sense but their friendship was a brotherhood built on common experiences, not common religion, race or ethnicity.

A cousin of mine, an expert in group behavior, told me about a group of men he knew in Philadelphia who played basketball on the same court every Saturday for years. They included a brain surgeon, a handyman, a school teacher, a former professional ball player, and a businessman. Playing together was so important to them that some were known to have flown across a continent in order to make the game, even if it meant flying back the next day. I can relate because I had the same dynamic with a bunch of guys I played football with for years in Central Park on Sunday mornings. I was so committed to that game that I’d show up in the rain or with a killer hang over (often times heaving between downs). It was such a “regular” part of my week that when I was getting ready to move to Colorado I had second thoughts because I thought, “what about my Sunday game?” My real concern wasn’t about missing a ear of playing but wondering if it would be the same when I came back. Why? Well whether we like to acknowledge it or not, men are creatures of habit and we find comfort in the familiarity of ritual. For those men in Philly and me those weekly games became a sacred ritual. From the grunts of recognition to the post game slap on the back or for the deeply committed, post-game beer, it did not matter that for some of these men, I knew nothing more about them than their last name. (And for the record, after a year hiatus, I came back to New York. I got back into the games and was welcomed back but strangely the year off made it feel different and I didn’t feel as committed.

There is some truth to the old Cheers theme song about wanting to go somewhere “where everybody knows your name.” But as I got older, I realized that I needed more than the comfort of being “known” by name. I wanted to get to know me. To do that I needed to find an environment where men weren’t interested in either placating me or molding me into their image. I needed to find a bunch of men who on paper I had nothing in common with.
So right about now you might be asking why would I want to hang out with men with whom I have no shared interests? Well for me, I have found the joy in life not to be in striving to fit into someone else’s image of perfection. The joy is in marching to the rhythm of my own song. If it is mine, no one else can really tell me that I’ve got it all wrong. They may make suggestions on some of the moves but it is uniquely mine. The beauty of diversity in a men’s circle is if I’ve been dancing the two-step my whole life I might get smitten by watching someone else bump and grind. If someone else was trying to teach me the steps I might get self conscious and turn them off but in watching, I might be inspired to try. Which brings us back to the Rat Pack analogy. Sammy, Frank, Dean, Peter and Joey all were dancing to different rhythms but they let themselves dabble in each other’s world.

So why not be Sinatra? Well that’s the next blog. I just think that you never want to be the “guy”. I just never got the payoff in that. Anyone who ever watched the movie Animal House quickly came to appreciate that the guys having all the fun were not the tight assed Deltas striving to emulate the all-american male and certainly not Greg Marmalard, the president of the student body, but those guys at the end of the couch at the frat party who no one really expected anything out of. That is were the infinite possibility lies.

An introduction to my life's journey and why here and why now

In the last few years, I have spent a lot of time with men. All voluntary. It is not from time spent in jail or the military. I’m not a pro athlete and I am not gay. I have just come to embrace the notion that the best way to get a handle on who I am and what I want is to put myself in a circle with other men, the vast majority of whom are total strangers and who on the surface seem to have no shared interests with me.

Time and again, standing in such circles with men who I have come to refer to as “my boys” has allowed certain truths to bubble to the surface and resonate with me. I’d like to share some of those truths here. I have found that when I am not concerned with impressing anyone or looking good, and when I have no need to be right, I am more receptive to hearing and considering these truths and incorporating some of them into my life. The great thing about universal truth is it stands up fairly well against trendy fads and newly discovered secrets to happiness and success. The downside is that sometimes it is so blatantly obvious that I turn a blind eye to it. Kind of like that curb I step over every day on my way to work until I get distracted in the moment and trip and fall on my face.

So if these truths are so universal, are they guaranteed to work for everyone? Who knows? Will they work for you? They might, but that is not the thing. Think of the stuff that shows up here as being like tofu. Not everyone likes it, but eating a lot of it can’t hurt you a lick. And if truth be told, the more you eat, the healthier you are likely to be. Regardless of how you feel about the notion of considering someone else’s advice or embracing the collective wisdom of men, I can tell you that stepping into that process will challenge the way you have chosen to look at the world and your place in it. I know this because standing in a circle of men prepared me for a rather unexpected kick in the head.

Fourteen years ago I decided to go off for a weekend called the Sterling Men’s Weekend with a hundred or so men who I did not know a thing about. At the time it just seemed like a good idea. I was at the top of my game as a litigation attorney at one of the most prestigious law firms in America. I was well paid and although I worked hard, I found time to dabble in some creative writing and other things. In fact, the local ABC affiliate had featured me in a series they broadcast on avoiding professional burnout. Two of my plays had recently been produced Off-Broadway and a screenplay I co-written was garnering some interest in Hollywood. I owned a small weekly newspaper called Actors Resources that provided practical tips and casting notices for aspiring actors and I sat on the boards of a few not-for-profits dedicated to doing good in the world. A few years earlier I had provided counseling to a group of Long Island moms as they developed and grew Mother’s Voices into a national AIDS awareness organization that became the first such group to meet with President Clinton at the White House. I was in my fifth year of marriage to a wonderful woman, a professional in her own right. She kept things fresh by doing things like surprising me for my birthday with a live roast on cable TV and getting me backstage at the Democratic Convention where I got to hang out with the Secret Service guys and a slew of celebrities. We lived in a huge loft in Chelsea, knew lots of people and periodically threw huge parties. By any measure, life was good.


In truth though, something was missing. I had come to live a life bigger than myself and had gotten caught up in my own press. I was buying into my own bullshit and many of my friendships were tenuous at best. So when I ran into an actor, who had been in one of my plays and was now back to waiting tables, and he suggested to me that I do this thing that he described as something akin to “open heart surgery without the anesthesia,” the competitive, adventurous side of me bit. It was a good thing.

Fast forward four years. I am out in Boulder, Colorado participating in the annual National Institute of Trial Advocacy two-week intensive course -- a boot camp for trial lawyers. I was in my element. Playing lawyer during the day and drinking at night. On the weekends I went rock climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park and white water rafting on the Arkansas River. Towards the end of the two weeks, my body started to feel a little funky. I was getting weird stomach cramps and spells of vertigo. I initially put it off to too much tequila and stopped drinking. But things got worse. Within a week I had lost all feeling in my right leg and arm. I couldn’t stand and I was having excruciating headaches. It took a while for the doctors to figure out what was going on but I was eventually diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS is a neurological disease for which there is no cure. For most people it slowly strips away their nervous system wrecking havoc on their body. Things I took for granted like walking and going to the bathroom became adventures.

It wasn’t long before I was forced to re-examine a lot of what I had taken for granted. Jumping out of airplanes and white water rafting down Class V rivers didn’t seem like terribly rational endeavors to someone who was finding it a challenge to walk down the steps. I reluctantly gave up being an extremist and traded in the rush of putting myself at physical risk for the much more uncomfortable environment of getting to know myself and actually making an effort to get to know others. Of course the first reaction most people have when confronted by a challenge is to reject what you know. So, I began to move away from the concept of man as an emotionally challenged Neanderthal that had been drummed into my head at my Men’s Weekend and began to undertake a search to connect to my heart and discover my purpose. I dabbled a bit with some courses offered by Landmark Education and had a wonderful time playing their game but found that both the co-ed environment and emphasis on authenticity seemed strangely inauthentic to me and kept me from getting to the core of who I was. I participated in the New Warrior Adventure Weekend offered by the Mankind Project and while I was humbled by the effective ability of those men to cleanly delve into the wounds men had carried with them all their lives, I was a little taken aback to discover I wasn’t hurting and I wasn’t looking to heal anything. I also felt uneasy with how uneasy they seemed to feel about having a good testosterone laden fight every now and then. So I went back to my men and decided to begin listening a little bit differently to what they had been telling me.

Together we began to create our own organization, Men’s Divisions International. It borrowed a little bit from every discipline we had each been exposed to and wasn’t wedded to any one way of being or thinking. The organization was driven by a simple construct: provide men the inspiration and support to win in their lives. With some of these men, I have helped create a weekend experience for men called the Legacy Discovery and have led men attending many such weekends throughout North America. I have witnessed men embracing who they are; celebrating how they got there; and mapping out a future that will ensure that they leave behind a powerful and positive legacy. The process is not always pretty but they all leave with a smile and sense of peace that I just don’t think is as readily attainable elsewhere. I have come to believe that truly knowing oneself is a wonderful and empowering experience. That means really embracing what it is that you are passionate about. And really taking ownership of what it is that makes you great – for most men no small task-- as well as all not shying away from or ignoring those warts you’d prefer to gloss over. My hope is that this website will give you some insight into how to do all that.

A lot of what you read here may seem vaguely familiar. That is because good advice tends to stand the test of time. It becomes part and parcel of our culture. So why regurgitate it here? Throughout history mankind has transferred essential truths through story telling. Traditionally, wise men shared their knowledge through assemblies and through discussions of essential truths and in the moment those words and ideas were subject to challenge and confirmation by the broader circle. Today, the mass media is the principal source of those stories which teach us about our culture. Unfortunately, the stories as told obscure some very basic truths and fail to provide any forum for challenge or dialogue. When there is debate it often comes down to who can scream the loudest or with the most venom. As a result the concept of what it takes to be a man is relayed through images distorted in the service of fantasy that offers a shorthand for what it takes to overcome the challenges in life and simplifies the struggles involved, giving us a feeling of immediate enjoyment, but leaving little of lasting value.

In putting together this blog, my hope is to lay out thoughts about what it means to be a man in a way that you may have never really considered before. Some of what I have put out might make you nervous, even fearful. You might get pissed off at the way some ideas are presented. I hope so because I’d like to shake you out of your slumber as I was shaken myself. My purpose is to get you off the treadmill of life as you know it and to give you a taste of what it means to play in a bigger and cleaner game.

I’d like to take those notions of what you have come to accept as the definitions and burdens of manhood, bring them front and center and whack you upside the head with them. The notion that, “all men were created equal” is a laudatory thought but in truth that is not reality. We are not one size fits all. Some of us are macho, some are sensitive, and some are little bit of both. I don’t necessarily believe that you can learn to transition from one to another by flipping a switch or following some pre-determined regimen. For that reason I urge that you avoid doing something simply because you read it here. Do what makes sense to you. Not in your head but in your gut. And if you choose not to follow any of the advice that shows up here, you owe it to yourself to understand why. Simply, come to know yourself and the reasons for your choices.


So right about now, you are probably thinking, do I really need to read someone else's theory on how to tie my shoe? Only if you keep tripping over your own shoelaces. How many times do you pass the sign that says “Wet Paint” and find yourself touching it just to make sure?

Maybe you’re thinking, “My life is just fine. I don’t need fixing.” I am not looking to fix anybody. If anything I am looking to offer men a chance to celebrate in their success and sanity – even if they have trouble considering themselves successful or sane -- rather than shirking from that. I spent a long time feeling guilty about being happy and uneasy about being successful. There really is a way to dance without taunting. I’d like to share some of those dance steps.