The Making of a Warrior

What does it take to be a man?

Power? Ambition? Courage?

Since time immemorial, we have questioned the true characteristics of masculinity, but have more often than not wound up more confused than before. Psychologists of all stripes have filled up bookshelves with their opinions, but recently the conversation has drifted more towards “embracing your feminine side” than anything else.

Fortunately, the cream of the crop of these thinkers have some profound ideas that will impact the way you look at health, fitness, and wellness forever.

The Masculine Archetypes

One of the few “men’s studies” books that I would actually recommend to men is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. In this book, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette explain the four aspects of existence that humans experience: the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual.

Each of these four has a corresponding masculine archetype, or innate character “blueprint” that people automatically recognize: the Warrior, the Lover, the Magician, and the King, respectively.

The Timeless Manifestation of Physical Health

I’m not going to talk about the Lover, the Magician, or the King. But I do want to tell you about the Warrior, since this is the archetype that signifies physical health, and the reason why we want to lose fat and build muscle in the first place is to “fulfill” this part of our characters, whether consciously or not.

According to MROB:

“The Warrior is that part of the mature masculine who overcomes the physical challenges in life. He gives his best, does not quit, and often makes great personal sacrifices, subjugating his needs for the greater good. He is not afraid to die for what he believes in. He fights with honor, and never out of anger.”

One of men’s biggest drives is to build muscle. But do you know why this is? The purpose of muscle is to produce force and cause motion. Muscle doesn’t show that you can think or feel, it shows that you can take action. Muscle is an advertisement to the world that you are a doer, not a guy who sits around on his butt all day waiting for something to happen. And the doers of the world are the ones that people remember long after they are gone.

The Misplaced Warrior

As modern society has shifted focus more towards intellectual forms of masculinity, the physical forms have started to disappear. Instead of your status and sexual attractiveness being a measure of your hunting skills, it’s now a matter of how much money you make at your job.

Instead of being strong and sturdy, we have become weak and pudgy. We now earn our food by sitting in cubicles under fluorescent lights all day. Instead of stalking large game all day to feast on at night, we zone out on treadmills and come home to microwaved, boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

The Warrior is largely absent in our modern lives.

Yet Another Reason To Get Your Ass in Shape

Right now is your chance to unleash your Warrior upon the world. With such a dearth of them in this day and age, you will make quite an impact.

Yes, you can start by losing your belly flab by eating a fat-burning diet. And building muscle by doing compound functional movements. But why stop there?

My previous posts on making the most of your body language and voice tone are an excellent way to improve your masculine physicality as well. Going after what you want in life no matter what the cost is another example.

As you can see, becoming as healthy, fit, and well as you possibly can goes WAY deeper than just building rock hard abs.  Becoming strong, attractive, and healthy is a part of a timeless tradition of developing yourself into a man that makes things happen.

So get in touch with your inner samurai, dude!

Tagged as: archetypes, books, masculinity, psychology, warrior