A Call for Mastery and Men's Ability to Court

When we grow into adulthood without a guide that can lead us to mastery of a skill that enhances our community, speaks to our hearts, and promotes the healthiest aspects of our culture...

We feel the Void this leaves behind. Then, how do we respond to the pull of this Void?

In this episode of The Sober Shaman Podcast, we take a look at exactly what happens here, the damage that is caused as a result - and what we can do about it.

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This is a big subject - and one that can be approached from many directions. So today, we enter into it from our current culture's relationship to beauty, courting, and the dance of Yin Yang and male female.

As always, please hit the Like & Subscribe buttons, and send me any comments or questions you have.

With blessings,

Randal

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Takeaways:

• The Sober Shaman Podcast delves into the intersection of spirituality and practical recovery methods for addiction.
• Understanding the societal and cultural roots of addiction can help illuminate personal struggles and pathways to healing.
• Mastery and the ability to create beauty are essential components that can fill the existential void in individuals, particularly men.
• The lack of guidance and mentorship in young men's lives contributes significantly to their feelings of emptiness and subsequent addiction issues.
• A clear transition from adolescence into adulthood, facilitated by mentorship, is crucial for developing skills necessary for mastery and personal fulfillment.
• The podcast emphasizes the importance of expressing and appreciating beauty as a fundamental human experience essential for recovery and growth.

Links referenced in this episode:

• randallyons.com

Welcome to the Sober Shaman Podcast, where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical and apply these medicines to the recovery from addiction and trauma.

Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Sober Shaman Podcast.

Today is number 50, a little bit of a milestone for me.

I've learned a lot talking into this microphone with and without other people.

It's been a couple of years now, and I'm enjoying it.

I'm enjoying learning and as always, enjoying learning from you and your comments to me.

I appreciate it.

Today we've got one particular subject that goes in a lot of directions and again, I do look forward to hearing your feedback on this.

And we're going to take one of the root causes of addiction and look at it from this, for lack of a better term, existential dilemma.

And it has societal components, it has personal components, it has cultural components.

So it's going to go in a lot of directions and I'm going to do my best to articulate exactly how it happens, why this leads to addiction, and what I've found as the complaints, or I shouldn't even say complaints.

I should say the, the reports of my clients who find themselves struggling decades into either addiction and or recovery on this issue.

And the title of this, I'm playing around, but it's basically possessing beauty versus making beauty.

And we're going to look at it from the standpoint of a plea.

It's, it's my call for men's ability to court, for men's ability to long for mastery, to move forward in their life for mastery.

Let me start there.

What do I mean by mastery?

Well, in, in the olden days, as it's said, when a boy.

And again, I'm going to use the term male, female, masculine, feminine in very stereotypical ideals.

And of course, we all possess male traits and female traits.

And especially from an Oriental medicine point of view, this idea of yin yang, male, female, masculine, feminine.

And I'm looking at it also through traditional roles.

Now, whether or not you agree with the roles for this day and age, that's not my point.

Whether the man should do the masculine role and the female should do the feminine role.

That's not what I'm trying to say here.

So I'm not going to say every time that I, that I say male or female.

I just mean these stereotypical traditional roles.

And especially as in, in indigenous societies, there has always been in many of them and I could think of all of them off the top of my head.

Maybe there's exceptions, right where they've accepted I live In Thailand, the idea of one being born in one sex and then living your life as another, it goes back to as far as people can remember.

So that said, the idea of the man's ability for mastery, starting with when they turn, when.

When a young man turns into adolescence and starts showing both the signs of competency, being able to do something, and also puberty, showing signs of interest in females, usually these things go together.

So generally speaking, again at this time, what would happen is, is this young man would be placed into the care of, of an expert, into the care of the guiding father, a guild.

This is the.

When the master shows up, this is that idea of Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi and the martial arts, the dojo.

When you leave the realm of the father and you enter into the realm of the master, the master is going to teach you a skill that then it is yours to become proficient in, to be, to master for yourself.

And you learn life through this ongoing progression of mastery.

And depending upon which path you take, there is more.

If you become a metalsmith there, you may look at that on the surface and well, you know, you're just doing a job.

But in those days, if you studied with an expert, a master who also was bringing in magic, alchemy, the shamanic, it completely weaves together females learning the skill, the same thing.

This idea of mastery, again, I'm being stereotypical and traditionalist and saying, okay, well, weaving clothing and making clothing.

There are practical applications of course, for wearing clothing, but there is also the example of beauty.

How beautiful is the clothing?

How beautiful is the object that this young man is making in his guild?

The ideas that mastery and the ability to produce beauty, express beauty, they go together.

And in our present day society, it's kind of gone the way of penmanship, right?

This society is much better at thumb texting into a phone than they are writing cursive.

We are losing skills.

Now, whether you see this as good or bad, one skill dropping off the face of the planet to the next, these are also cultural phenomenons.

They are quote unquote progress phenomenons.

But in the course of progress, in my role of helping people deal with addictions, deal with these existential questions, this void that causes all kinds of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical disharmony lies this idea.

Lies this real inability for mastery lies this inability to create beauty.

Lies this inability to express beauty.

This is a big problem when I deal with people.

I'm just going to use 20s, 40s and 60s.

Let's just use that.

When again, I'm going to stay with the men.

And when I deal with young men in their 20s, I recognize that subconscious knowing, but they can't articulate it of I have no guide.

This, this goes into that whole talk that down a side road, I'm not going to go now.

But the idea of feral versus wild, it's like we want to be wild, we want to be free and we want a very clear guide.

It's through that structure that we find freedom.

It's through this discipline which usually has to be imposed in our 20s, right.

That we find this level of mastery and freedom.

And then the expression the 20 year olds inherently know that they have a void.

They didn't get a guide, they weren't put into a guild at the age of 14.

School did not do it for them, college did not do it for them, Instagram does not do it for them.

They're lacking, they're lacking in a human skill that used to be taught through the culture of how to achieve mastery not only in a profession and in producing something of tangible products and things of use that we all need to be an integral part of the community, very important, fills that void very nicely.

Also what that comes from is the inability to court.

So by not having, not being taught, not having a container of society that teaches guides through mastery and respect, but instead downloads porn as the alternative, as the norm, of course a young man is not going to learn the ability to court.

This is big.

This is an inability that young men at the age, in their twenties inherently know in their heart, soul and bones that they are missing that forms a void that then of course we try to fill.

So moving on, what do we fill it with?

Well, yes, of course, fill in your blank with your drug of choice and, or well, let me fill it with mastery in my profession that this culture and society does recognize money.

So if I am successful in mastering the legal profession, plumbing, it doesn't.

I don't want to pick on one or any.

And all that does is teach me to be a winner, teach me to be a winner at competing in a men's game.

In other words, the number in my bank account, the kind of car I drive, the suits, the watch I wear, this competition.

Competition in the masculine.

Right.

And of course again, it has its equal with females for sure.

But let me just stay here with the men.

So what happens between the ages of 20 and 40?

Well, maybe the, the drug of choice manifests and maybe we talk about it as an obvious addiction or, and it manifests as this idea of money.

In the bank account competition through, against with other men in this masculine realm to fill the void.

That doesn't teach us how to court.

What does that teach us to do what?

What has.

If we follow that avenue of this societies of Western cultures idea of what's important in this context, which is money and competition.

If I win at that, that in and of itself does not make me any better at courting.

As a matter of fact, I've probably been working against, against burying my ability to court because I've filled the void that I know I have with stuff.

And then what does that do?

Well, guess what?

I got a lot of stuff.

And I win because look at the car I drive, right?

Look at my bank account.

I win.

So in their 40s, when I speak to, to clients who are now there and have dealt with this particular issue of the inability to court, the inability to be.

To create beauty through their mastery and instead have created a bank account that temporarily fills the void, they still have this existential angst.

They still are dealing with this void.

They're still going round and round the cycle because this kind of filling is temporary.

It's not an ability that courts or creates beauty.

This is a big deal.

So if it doesn't court or create beauty, well, what does it get me?

Well, the big bank account winning in this culture gets me a partner who also wants to win in this culture and this society through these rules.

And chances are their void in their own way is equal and opposite to the one I have.

Hey, perfect, let's get together.

And you think, I'm going to help you fill your void with my money and you're going to fill my void by my lack of beauty?

Boom.

That's a very generalistic take on what happens then from the 20s to the 40s.

And we both in their 40s, male and female, think we deserve that what the other one has, because we're bringing what we bring to the table, which is a form of winning in this culture and in this society.

But neither partner in this scenario has learned how to properly court beauty, has learned how to properly express beauty through mastery.

So living here in Thailand, I have plenty of examples of where this ends up.

In their 60s and what does it look like?

Well, I think you can guess.

But the men come over here or are already here to buy themselves a wife because now they've definitely won at this game.

Probably have had 1, 2, 3 wives already back there in the west.

And damn it, I never got what I wanted or I got what I wanted for A little while in their form of beauty, but for some reason it didn't last.

Kind of sounds like addiction, doesn't it?

And pop over here to Thailand.

And there is the open agreement, much more open agreement of seeing a man 20, 30, 40 years older than, than the Thai woman who is with them.

They're buying the beauty.

And then you can go on Reddit or YouTube and see and read about how.

I can't believe I. I was taken.

She took my money and left me.

Yeah.

And that was from the Thai woman's perspective in this scenario.

How they win at this game.

Now I'm not trashing on capitalism and how we mix love and is.

Should we separate?

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is at the core of addiction is a void.

And this void can manifest itself in many ways.

This void comes about in many ways.

One of them of the ways it comes about is not getting that guide again.

I'll use the mail.

When it was time to leave the father's house and enter into the house of the master.

That is a normal threshold.

That is a normal progression that we do not have as a clear threshold a three, a clear delineation, a clear initiation from one phase of life to the next.

And in order to get to that next phase of life, in order to pass through that threshold, in this case, we need someone at the other side to receive us who is a master, who knows what they're doing so that we can learn how to court properly, how to become a master of a craft properly.

And when I say a craft, I mean something that is of service to our culture and our society.

Is tech a craft that is part of this culture and society?

Well, sure, yeah, I guess you could say that.

And you could also say, is the reason for learning it to fill the void so that you can compete and win the game?

Or is it a tool that you are being guided in so that you can use it to promote life, Promote the creation of beauty, which a big subject, right?

What is beautiful?

Don't want to go down those is.

It's all subjective.

No, beauty that I'm talking about here is something that promotes life that says yes to life.

That.

And.

And by saying yes to life, I don't mean avoiding death.

I mean says yes to all this life and accepts these thresholds that we all must pass through.

So the technology of let me create something so that we'd never have to die.

That, that would be an extreme example of no.

That's a natural threshold that in my opinion, in this time right now, it would be wiser to accept and accept the advice of someone who understands these things that can help us move through that threshold to the other side, just like any of the other thresholds.

So that was a tangent into tech, but bringing it back here to this existential dilemma of addiction, of mental angst at the core of anxieties, at the core of depressions.

For many people lies this exact void from their 20s, knowing that they haven't received that kind of guidance and mastery and have truly walked through a threshold and been received at the other side, which carries over and up into their 40s, manifesting it the way that we do in this kind of competition and manipulation of the other, the manipulation of beauty and then onward and still not getting it.

What does that look like?

Well, that example I gave you of the men who come out here to Thailand and it's just what's the.

I. I can't say the David Lee Roth quote at the end of Everybody wants some, but if you, if you know, you know, I'll just buy it will, will be the way that I say it in the G rated version.

That's not the answer.

And there always is time to pick up exactly where you are, whether it's 20s, 40s, 60s and beyond.

And court beauty, create beauty, recognize beauty, receive beauty, listen for to beauty, the kind that promotes life.

As Martin pray tell says, that helps life jump up and live again.

That'll end this edition of the Sober Shaman Podcast.

Please send me any comments you have on this idea, whether you are have struggled with it, if you have a different take on it.

Of course, when I talk to people from different traditions, when I speak to people who do psychedelics from indigenous cultures, from psychotherapy, from mainstream psychiatry, we all have our own languages and I love crossing languages and finding places of resonance.

So by all means, I invite you to reach out, write the comments and wherever you're hearing this below watching, I don't think I'll put this on YouTube.

And also send me any emails, questions, comments you have.

As always, till next time, blessings.

Thanks for listening to the Sober Shaman podcast where we explore ways to make the spiritual practical.

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Check out the website randallions.com I look forward to hearing from you.

Until next time, blessings.