Questionnaire for men on critical moments in your life....

 As men, we have all faced critical moments, when we felt and experienced a turning point, when we decided to do, or to withdraw, or to engage, or to fight, or to commit to some adventure. And, while we might not have been conscious of the voices, stories, epithets, adages, proverbs, or even the penetrating lines from a parent, a coach, a clergy or a mentor that seemed to take on a prominence in our decision-making, nevertheless, on reflection, such voices were active in our imaginations, in our mind’s eye, and in our bodies, if we experienced them physically.

Not all of our decisions turned out as we expected; indeed, some likely turned out far worse than we had imagined, while others turned out far better than we could have imagined. As Kierkegaard reminds us,

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

In the interest of attempting to collect, curate, interpret, apply and make sense of many of the decisions/turning points and their guiding voices men have made, this is an opportunity for as many as feel moved to tell your story, (in fewer than 100 words) to begin some anecdotal research-gathering, as part of the further investigation of Hillman’s Archetypal Psychology in real lives.

Some examples of such voices:

“Men of my generation did not leave their spouse, believing that such an act was immoral.”

“I simply did not believe that the situation was ever going to change.”

“We had completely different ideas about what a ………(carrier, marriage, divorce, promotion, geographic move, significant purchase, parenting strategy, etc. should, could, must be.”

“I believed that my vocation justified my complete involvement, even if it meant my family had to sacrifice.”

She followed “Apollo” while I was more comfortable with “Dionysos”

(Apollo, god of divine distance, who made men aware of their own guilt and purified them of it. Dionysos was god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy.)

“The voice of Venus/Aphrodite (goddess of love, beauty, prosperity, fertility and victory) was in tension with the voice of Hera, goddess of marriage, a deep and high-minded commitment to the civilization in my marriage.”

Ares, the god of manliness and manly qualities: men are fighters, most of a man’s emotions should not be public, a man is responsible for and to others seemed to be in tension/friction/conflict with the was always present in my mind, to the exclusion of other voices, including those of the goddess of women, marriage and profound and mutual love.

Respectfully, we ask that, after some thought, and without using your name or location (your age and gender would be very helpful), you consider responding to the following inquiry, the results of which will be gathered and reported back to readers of this space.

This is not a site for therapy, for coaching, for mentoring or for any form of professional counsel. It is a blog that seeks to explore masculinities, and to reflect on how those masculinities came to be, what implications they have generated and whether or not a different perspective of and by men, of their/our masculinity is either feasible or warranted.

The message space at the bottom of this page will provide adequate space for your considered responses.

 

Looking backwards at my life, I believe that I made this decision:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

while hearing and paying attention to the voices/ideas/words/example/mentorship of________________________________________________________________.

In a similar situation today, I would make a different decision, _________________________________________________________________

For the following reason(s)___________________________________________________________