“It’s dark as Hell, and hard to find…”

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The drum I beat loudest, hardest and longest here is for men to learn who they are, embrace it and develop it.

 

But one thing that often becomes a stumbling block is where to begin.

 

Sure, there are myriad articles out there giving solid advice.

 

Start eating well.

 

Begin an exercise routine.

 

Or, the now popular “clean your room”.

 

Admittedly, all of those are excellent suggestions.

 

And I’ve no complaint about any of them.

 

However, I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t offer an alternative.

 

 

 

See, I’m of the mind that – should one find oneself lost and alone in the midst of a dark wood…

 

The first thing that should be done is to retrace one’s steps.

 

How far back?

 

As far as necessary.

 

 

 

No doubt, retreading these tangled thickets and gnarled copses of painful memory and traumatizing experience will induce flashbacks of all too familiar terror.

 

Which is, very likely, why so few self-reflect; choosing instead to simply (stubbornly) press onward.

 

While persistence and perseverance can certainly be admirable qualities, the culmination of such must be a worthwhile achievement.

 

Consider: that method (blithely pressing onward) is quite possibly the reason one crashed through bramble after bramble until firmly centered in the frightening, strange landscape currently occupied.

 

 

 

So, I say stop.

 

Look back.

 

To years or decade past, as needed.

 

Adolescence or boyhood.

 

Where did you lose yourself?

 

Seek and you’ll find.

 

Then walk again.

 

But this time with careful determination.

 

 

 “In a dark wood

 

where the straight road had been lost sight of.

 

How hard it is to say what it was like

 

in the thick of thickets, in a wood so dense

 

and gnarled

 

the very thought of it renews my panic.”

 

– Dante’s Inferno Canto I, Translated by Seamus Heaney

 

 

 

 

 

 

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