Fathers

You’re not your own man, until your father dies.

—African Saying

Biologically speaking, a child is fifty per cent their father. XY chromosome, the Y is the father. The child is the genetic successor of the father. So the second it is birthed it is next in line, by default. No effort, no control. Not even wanting it. This is the way the wheel turns. But if it’s born a boy doesn’t mean it will be a man. 

A male is not a man. Even though being male is the primary condition for being a man. The question now arises: 

What then does it mean to be a man, much less your own man? 

Anthropologically, and culturally speaking, the father is the man of the house. On a microcosm. If of proper prestige and position, man of the village, of the fiefdom, on a larger scale, the kingdom, depending how said culture is ordained and ruled. This is on a macrocosm. In history, the man was always at the head of this ordening and ruling. Once the father passes, the child is the prestigious successor. However here worthiness already enters into the mix. It is not uncommon to skip the first born and choose the second son to succeed the throne if the first is not worthy enough. Or the next borns. 

Now we get a bit closer to what it means to be a man. It is a trial, of sorts. A trial first, long ago, looking back, and or deep, and or inward, initiated by the universe, the cosmos, the Creator, Creation. Gods, pantheistically, or God, monotheistically. But leaving religion, spirituality, and other forms of truths, perceived truths or narrative aside for a bit, just looking at the case at hand, brutally and minimalistically. Following Darwinism, there was a trial at the first atavistic cave, the son on stand, the father the judge. Cavemen around a campfire in the dark.

As long as the father is alive he judges the son’s actions. Until he is worthy. Without a father, there is no judge, who then deems if the boy is worthy? Who will vouch for him? Who will see to it that he is ready, for all that life is to bring? But when the father dies, the boy steps off the stand. He’s no longer on the defense. The boy has been judged. It is now up to him, to judge himself. What does it mean to be a man? Your own man? What does it mean to become a father one day? And how will I judge my own children, if not sons? Of course, this self judgement can begin much earlier, but there’s nothing like the clear signal by life of the passing of the father that it is now entirely up to the boy to start judging his own actions, choices, and integrity and values in life.   

So, if a father is a king, the son is a prince. If a father is a ruler, the son is one who is ruled. Father is a leader, the son is one who is led. These types of guidance only persist as long as the father is still alive. The physical presence of guidance, excluding the intangible type where a good strong father would’ve left a lasting helpful impression, with proper wisdom and lessons accordingly, with which the son would, eventually, hopefully, become his own man. Now assuming that was not the case and a positive presence of the father was not felt, early on during the upbringing of the boy, for the multitude of reasons. Either the father passed away early, or left, or was dealing with his own demons and couldn’t play the role of father. For whatever issue and reason, the boy was left to its own device. Now then, is this not the ideal situation, the chance for a boy to become a man of its own accord? There’s no backup. No mentor. No leader. No king. No general. No judge. Nothing. Just chaos, and aimlessness. In this muck there’s a chance, to make something of oneself. 

So the fatherless boy has been given this opportunity to ascend his selfmade throne early on, but what about the boy with the father? On one hand he is at an advantage. He does not have to forge a throne, alone, from scratch. The father always has some kind of resource to offer to the boy. If he was a bad father the resource takes on the form of a lesson of how not to be. A resource, nonetheless, compared to the fatherless boy to whom nothing was passed down. 

There persists one question, Can one not become own’s one man, while the father is alive? Self rule, self guide, self mentor, self judge, can all that not happen? Of course it can. But few go the distance. Few. Deep in the woods, or roads unpaved (by their father or predecessors), or seas unsailed. A boy needs a trial to become a man. Usually they are given, somehow, either by a person, the father or a father figure or a role model, or by life itself. Sometimes it happens that the boy keeps on waiting for a war that never comes. He, then, must go to war himself. To seek it out. To seek out his trial by fire. If the trial doesn’t exist, he must create it himself. If the dragon doesn’t come to him, he must go to it. How can a boy become a man if he’s never tested himself to be worthy? And how can he know, deep down, deep in his heart, his soul, that he is worthy, if he’s never been tested, by men, by his father, by his ancestors, by the Gods, by life? 

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Find out the things your father didn’t do, make a list of them, and you do them. This leads to accelerating your self-actualization on an insane level. As stated before we always tend to walk in our fathers’ shadow. It is our duty to step out of it. How better to best him, to be your own man, while he’s still amongst us? How better than with action, with deed, he would never dream of doing himself? 

It’s stepping outside his perimeter, stepping outside the pale that has been genetically decided. It is a man’s responsibility to become a better man than his father ever was and to teach his son to do the exact same. What is a man but the sum of his actions? The list can go completely bonkers, the most adventurous, with travels, and danger, and near death. Perhaps intoxications, or debauchery, or near degeneracy, coming to the brink of self-destruction, only to come up from the self-made abyss.

We are all mimetic creatures (imitation), without us even realizing, subconsciously, we do the things other people do. But more scarily, we want the things other people want. That’s fucked up. And imagine you wanting exactly what your father wanted. Well this is why the list is so nifty, you’re gonna go outside his imaginative sphere of desire, gonna step outside his systems (of mimetics) and this is how you become a new person.  

Do you even know what you want, deep down? What is your mission? Is it really yours? Are any of your desires really yours? (Or are they just imitations, memes, copied?) How does one know ..

This is a scary conjecture, surely, but with these things, with one’s one life — one’s damn destiny — one can never be too sure. Iteration, iteration, iteration is needed. Experimentation. Going into the fire, seeking trial by fire, by death, by explosion, by mayhem and havoc. Burn yourself to an utter crisp, and rise from the ashes newly born like a phoenix, dusting yourself off all that garbage programming. You can never be too damn sure.

Brothers

“Family doesn’t start in blood, and it doesn’t end there either.”

This applies heavily to brotherhood. Brothers can be born, can be made. And just because someone shares the same blood with you does not mean they are your family. And just because someone doesn’t have your blood doesn’t mean they won’t be your family. The former might seem more common, and common sense, not so much an exception as the latter. However it is a spectrum. You have people who are born as brothers, grow up, and stay a family, in whatever capacity that is, or that they’re capable of. This might be the average, the mean, the normal. And the aforementioned examples perhaps dangle on the outside.

A man needs brothers in this life. There’s zero question about that. The lone wolf can only go so far. If you go alone you can go fast, but not far, they say. Go together with a wolfpack, and you can go very, very far. Choose your inner circles, wisely, for they will cover your weaknesses, and amplify your natural born strengths, some of which you didn’t even know you had, laying dormant, just waiting to be unleashed in the presence of those worthy.

A man cannot be weak. He can show weakness, or make mistakes, have faults, be human, and ere. But he can never be weak. Therefore brothers are necessitated. They pick him up, build him up, make him more of a man, more of a brother. They serve as anchors. If a father did not leave an impression strong enough, brothers serve as role models. Every boy needs one. Someone to look up to, imitate, translate their finest values and virtues and habits, make them their own. Only for one day to outgrow them (Ancient Greek principles: imitatio, translatio, aemulatio).

Together they are strength. Nothing is more daunting than a band of brothers.

“For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” (Shakespeare)

But few, few are happy enough to obtain such privileges in this morally decaying postmodern (or rather post post-modern?). This Kali Yuga. The second coming of a Dark Age. The streets may be more clean than the middle ages but the hearts and minds and souls are polluted, perhaps more, who knows, no proper knight code of conduct governing man. No fiefdoms, no feudal system as a cushion, who knows.

Looking at the skeleton underneath the skin of society. The cracks reverberating underneath civilization. Something is amiss. And we know it to be true. There is ample space to go into full detail on such matters, but solution driven thinking is always key. And it’s apparent no one man can make much a dent into the sick machinations of what is going on, what is stressing us out, pressuring us (into doing things we don’t want), leaving our spirits depleted, leaving us hollow. But together, united, a difference might be made. Together as brethren. That is what’s needed. Like Minded people who have the skills, and can cover each other’s flanks and weaknesses. Who together can resonate, and soar to heights they would’ve never gone to before!

The whole phenomenon of brothers isnt so much about family, the small nucleus, but more about the micro in the macrocosm that is the whole society. That’s what’s important right now, and will be. That’s what counts, and is gonna make the difference. Who can stand in unison together, against evil? Who will these cats be? And from where do they come, and with which reason, and why do they bond, and for what, and can they do it? That’s what counts, these days. It’s something outside of them, a mission, a purpose, put upon them, or rather, thrusted upon them, without them ever really wanting anything to do with it. But nonetheless. They are chosen. This is their path, and the moment they were born, they were on a crash collision, critical, and violent, and of the utmost importance. Not just to fulfill their own destiny, but of those that surround them. Not just for their brothers, but for those that surround them. Life is all about circles, the circles around us. And it was clear from the jump that the difference was gonna be made in those tight, impactful, powerful circles. The new form of kin.

Thank you for reading, the above is derived from the Fury Essay Bundle, so if you want to read more of that and or support check this out.