Tips for Young Men - An unfinished post from February

I am a young man, I live with a young man, there are often young men in and out of my home. We are incredibly fortunate to have a lot of older men who keep an eye on us an help us grow- Mike, Brother Jon, Eric, Allen, George. All of us serve as both students and teachers of music and life in the course of our relationships with each other.

2023 is a difficult time to grow into a man. There no longer exists the obvious or prescribed path to manhood that most cultures had until just a short time ago- there was a time when a boy would be ceremoniously sent into the wilderness alone and he would return a man. Even until the last generation, “being a man” carried a pretty well understood set of traits and roles, for better or worse. Now, it’s kind of up to each man to decide for himself- that not necessarily a good or bad thing, it’s just our culture.

Social media further confuses the ideas of achievement and growth by portraying a totally unrealistic and ultra-successful version of everyone’s lives. I was fortunate to go through my teens as social media was being first developed, the generation beneath me assumes it to be a natural way of life and socializing. They constantly see each of their peer’s little personal newspaper, highlighting only their best moments and greatest achievements, and they compare themselves against that. Most young people suffer from serious insecurities, while this has probably always been more or less true, it’s obvious to me that social media isn’t helping. Social media does not resemble reality.

Manhood has always been about facing reality.

The lack of a concrete path to manhood coupled with the petty competition and constant insecurity that arises from social media leaves a lot of young men feeling lonely, unfulfilled, and unsure of their place in the world. Furthermore, the time spent alone on the internet makes it harder for these men to find their tribe. Without finding your tribe, it’s most likely that one of two things will happen:

You will feel more and more depressed over time and gradually withdraw from society.

or

You will overcompensate with ego and demand that others accept you, which almost always has the opposite result in relationships.

Either of these conditions may eventually be overcome through trial and error, but that takes a good amount of self-awareness. They can also create a vicious cycle of denial. The tribe is key to healthy growth- you need to find guides and mentors who you can trust. Music helped me to meet my people.

A good tribe is multi-generational and involves a variety of personality types and skill sets. There are tribes for all purposes, but for the sake of learning to be a man, it’s important that the tribe be comprised of men and boys. This tribe is called brotherhood. Women have valuable outside perspectives and insights on what makes a good man, but they do not have any experience or ability to relate to the feeling of being a man, so they will not be the primary mentors.

The tribe gives you honest feedback because they want the best for you. The tribe will be the first ones to tell you you’re being a damned idiot and also the last ones to leave your side. The tribe doesn’t shelter you from reality because the tribe can see your true potential. Brotherhood is all about caring, but brothers care by being real, not by affirming lies. Though times have changed, men are still expected (at least among each other) to live in and deal with reality.

The tribe helps young men to stay humble in the face of reality, but also to feel confident in their ability to cope. It’s the classic blunder of young men to try to overcome reality with ego, usually to disastrous results. We need our older brothers to temper us with their wisdom, gained through years of being foolish young men.

The tribe helps young men feel less alone and isolated when they are met with rejection and feelings of worthlessness. The wiser brother will be there for his friend, but won’t merely affirm his value or placate him. He will remind the young brother of his potential, remind him of his power, and encourage him to develop himself, grow, and earn what he desires. The wise brother knows from experience that every man must grow into and build his role in the world, that there isn’t one simply waiting for him.
The tribe tempers the unreality of media with the true stories of life. Just surviving is often a challenge. Everyone has hit their lowest point. Success is a long and often painful road. Men are made when they crawl back up and rebuild themselves from their most broken states