What Makes Men

There is an ancient code to creating strong, resilient, honorable men. I explored the rules of code in my book This Will Make a Man of You. There are seven rules to this code, which are often referred to as rites of passage.

I: Chase an Ideal: This could be to become an Eagle Scout, or a black belt in a difficult martial art, or the ultimate ideal of any vocation. But it can’t just be theoretical; it must be an ideal you see personified in an individual. This does not mean this person is or needs to be perfect—that’s inhuman—but just that they represent the idea and so can lead you into the rite of passage and give me a human example you can understand and identify with.

No transformative rite of passage can begin until you see the archetype you want to be. Soon, you’ll find he is more than expected.

II: The Terror and Confusion: In my many runs with the bulls in Pamplona (explained in the previously mentioned book) fighting bulls were the rite’s terror and confusion. Whatever the rituals in a true rite of passage bring, they are there to rip away the walls around your ego and ready you for what’s next. Drill sergeants do this, as do other guards of any true rite of passage.

III: The Guides: My guide to running with the bulls was Juan Macho, a veteran bull runner and a Hemingway scholar. In any rite of passage a sensei, drill sergeant, coach, or teacher will confront you. If a guide isn’t apparent, one must be sought, as no rite of passage is real without enforcers and mythmakers. (Beware: a poor guide can ruin a grunt, student, or plebe.)

IV: The Gauntlets: Now came the trials. The gauntlets in a rite of passage can be as ghastly as gloves filled with bullet ants, as grueling as boot camp, or as heart pounding as running in a packed Spanish street with bulls, but whatever it requires, its challenges are there to prepare you for a metamorphosis that will only come if you endure the tests of mind, body, and spirit.

V: The Codes: All real rites of passage have moral codes as their foundations, because without them the change isn’t lasting. Perhaps this is why Hemingway was obsessed with his code.

VI: The Reckoning: As you struggle and endure you’ll get the first taste of being what you’ve been pursuing. If you accept this you’ll be forever changed, still yourself but purified in a manly role.

VII: The Way: If you pass the tests you will be accepted among men of honor in a unit, team, company, firehouse, dojo, or, in my case here, a pena. You are in a guarded society, a fraternity of men. But you also know the archetype you’re trying to live up to will abandon you if you break the code, that to be all you can be you must live up to something other than yourself. Of course it is much more than this, but that is why I wrote a book on it.