Impeccable Adventurers

Archetypes #4: Warrior Boys

The warrior, standing on a hillside with his spear, his assegai, keeping the community safe: nobody will pass this boundary unless they are equally committed. Such is the noble image, quite literally: the nobility were the warrior caste. The Kshatriyas: men of action who might rise to become warlords. We all know the tropes: vigilance, high alertness, the kind of ability to manage stress under pressure, lean and mean for the cause or the family. And the shadows. War itself being the ultimate one, a kind of deranged crumbling away from the peacekeeper. Strong, silent, stoical, in my own ancestors' case through keeping that infamous stiff upper lip, even though they were more from the carthorse peasant class in general.

The warrior before he acts is the bow pulled back; taut, muscular, ready to flex and fight like a good male kangaroo. Vigilance means observation: awareness of the landscape and its attributes. The warrior arose out of the hunter: the tracker, sniffing the landscape, engaging reverently in the chase. Relying on multiple observations and his own gut instinct, several sixth senses in an environment he was part of. Much later came those overweight aristos, whose warrior self-image was celebrated in classical symphonies that began to import the hunting calls. Setting their dogs on the fox like they would set dispensable generations of young men on each other. With the aid of Ordnance Survey maps that had already scanned the new territory on behalf of the weapons carriers. (Still, those who genuinely knew the land often had the upper hand, as the sun-never-setting Empire found out against a bunch of Afrikaner farmers.

There's considerable evidence that ancient African and other paleolithic societies didn't generally engage in war; only a pathological few groups did, and yet somehow testosterone-driven carnage has become acceptable and considered natural, in the hands of our ghastly modern leaders and certainly in the stories we tell. In Europe, the medieval French chansons de geste were classic macho hymns to intolerance, spread by minstrels who knew what their noble public wanted. The Song of Roland is all about the noble act of attacking Muslims and no doubt its repetition helped set off those ghastly crusades from whose impact the modern world continues to reel. And of course all this emerges from a tradition that already had epic ten year battles in the Iliad. To the east the contemporary Mahabharata in India is also an epic about wars, particularly the great battlefield of Kurukshetra. Further north, Odin and Thor send war heroes to heaven. Yet all the logic of war is ultimately nonsense, so we have to look deeper into what war brings men (in particular), in order to understand why it's been so attractive that we've warped our stories into sanctifying it. And I think much of it has to do with challenge in action.

Warriors prepare. Super slow, like the dancing dragon Tai Chi moves that I once practised regularly - Kung Fu at a snail's pace. But alert: and then when the moment comes, it's a thrill ride, a loss of all the selfish thoughts in the adrenaline of the response and the passion of the feelings. Choices needing to be made intuitively, instantly, with, ideally, a bigger picture at hand, the group goal. As an actor I've felt it too though: the anticipation, then the need to keep passing the ball, keep catching the thrown lines, warmed up because in that altered state of alertness the body gives you more than you would have believed possible. The warrior, ultimately, is just playing a game, even if it's potentially an incredibly dangerous one, as mountain-climbing adrenaline junkies can attest, or indeed rugby players with broken backs; the stakes may be worth it in terms of winning recognition or, more selflessly, protecting a community, but they are often, in today's world, about mercenary glory, however much the goal is dressed up as righteous by corrupt stakeholders.

Women and girls have a warrior side too, more developed in some than others. When I was a primary school parent I remember standing on the sidelines of some 8-year olds’ rough and tumble, a kind of mini-Asterix's-village punch-up affair. One mom standing with me said "boys will be boys!" so I had to point out my own daughter was giving it her best shot in the middle of the pile. For our grown women ancestors, the supreme warrior moment was probably childbirth. The challenges of bringing in the next generation and not dying in the process has been its own kind of unsung epic, a hugely alert and altered state of consciousness in a moment of challenge, danger, and potential ecstasy, intense enough to go through now, but clearly much more so in those places and times most mothers lived through: without the modern possibility of emergency - but safe - Caesareans. No need to create mythical Amazons when you really look head on at what childbirth entails. Still, I don't think seeking danger is just an evolutionary attempt by boys to find an equivalent challenge for themselves to that most noble of tasks. It usually comes very early on, if so. There's a drive to feel boundaries and take risks we all felt, these days channeled way too much into video screens rather than the days at the dump of my youth (though I enjoyed the occasional shoot-em-up arcade game as much as the next eighties boy). Of course, it's all clouded by culture too, as women and men have colluded for a long time in ensuring boys particularly know they need to be competitive and to win: a "warrior" piece that's led to the mistrust and isolation most men feel with other men, except in mythical and violent bands of brothers. One Australian veteran interviewed about why he went off to World War One was candid about why: girls would come up to guys that wouldn't go to war and "gift" them with white feathers to represent their cowardice.

And so we have the situation we all still grow up in as men: far more likely to die violently than women, particularly if we're young, and even in an age (particularly in South Africa) when gender-based violence is rife, and almost always at the hands of other men. Protection comes in the globs of teenage boys we called gangs, which every boy hanging out on the street has been part of. The teenage gangs I belonged to were full of put-downs and pecking orders; groups and nations built on shared colours like the numbers of Cape Flats prison tattoos. At times I've loved playing that game of belonging, like the hit-and-miss moments of supporting a middling soccer team, cheering on from the crowd, or nighttime graffiti tagging: for some reason our tag was "Lenin", capturing that teenage desire to break shit, inspired by revolution. I remember the joy of smashing glass.

Violent Vikings chanted their poetry as a way into battle, as ferocious as any Maori Haka. Creative passion is undoubtedly the piece that the Warrior brings us that we shouldn't lose sight of; without him I know my own life can become worthy but insipid. With him it can be raucous and inspiring. Taut, sinewy, sexy, upright. Electrified.

My head-banging teenager from the mosh pit was also engaged in something primal; Warrior-driven, a little dangerous (I went through a period of having a cream for neckache by my side for the morning after), never needing to reach as far as the madness of war though totally up for angry marches through the streets. And I recall using my lungs and finding to my surprise that I had unleashed something that made someone afraid; a force in me I didn't know was there. Music, as ever, is a key way to stir us towards the emotions we need; and it mustn't be underestimated. Hitler's Wagner rallies were deliberately chosen to bring unity in fervour, like the socialist war cries of my youthful street marches; but if we're awake we can change the tune, keep abreast of the trance they're calling us to.

The Warrior story points us towards passion and adventure, and we can play with it. Respectfully and with a jujitsu bow to the opponent; when I'm on the dancefloor these days, warrior moments can include wild non contact clashes, exhilarating for both sides. But beyond passion, that preparedness is also important. The Warrior on the free dancefloor also knows his steps. He's done his crab and his headstand. In the chess game he's tested himself against better opponents. He's honed his skill against other men, further along the path. Jazz musicians went into midnight duels to forge the new music; striving to poke their heads and their horns above the giants that came before them. Giant Steps, as Coltrane said.

It took me a long time to recognize and accept the value of hanging out with men and learning from them; the tedious stereotypes of war have withered us. Excessive left hemisphere thinking too: designed to see polarities everywhere, others that are not us; it is the way that part of the mind works, but its use is over-sanctified. The sword slices the world off into something that is not us. Fascinating, though, to realize that two great characters emerged out of the medieval warrior world. Parzival, warrior-fool-lover finally jousts with the Other that is another piece of himself. Michael, the angel conquering the dragon, is a call for us to find the true courage: the courage that looks inside and admits our weakness. By contrast, lying and cheating is the shadow soldier in action; unable to look at his follies, unable to truly respond responsibly.

In one of Castañeda's last works he declared (on behalf of something he was channeling in print) that our planet is unusual in the galaxy, and possibly the cosmos, for experimenting with having male power dominate for a while, and now we're wrestling to return things to balance while cosmic forces watch with interest. An intriguing notion, whatever its origin. Previously, the "true Warrior" Don Juan spoke of to him was more of a Peace-ior; doing the inner tracking, to access power that would be valuable for a more impeccable life. Though that required travel, into unknown dimensions; taking risks, heart beating fast, alive. Obsidian, that Mesoamerican rock, represents for me this Warrior impeccability; a willingness to insist on truth, a bravery to speak it. A bravery in that to stand above all for Love. Tribal Warriors stood as an outer circle protecting the Love within but also ventured off to new lands and experiences. We have to protect our Love within, and be brave enough to share it, to grow that circle of protection until it covers our "enemies" and Loves them, all the time observing the life all around us, Loving it too. Adventure is the medium that makes that possible, just as Parzival's adventures led him to that moment of being able to put down his sword and recognize his brother. And having done so, once more, Adventure awaits.