Man's inner warrior

Some men are really just like that,” a good friend and fellow writer, Chichi, said in writing class. She was recounting her life in Venezuela with her husband, Patrick, and their adventures with particular Venezuelan male friends, a few of whom were garden variety Latino “macho” hombres.

She was telling the story about their friend who owned an airplane, which they flew to get to his beach house on weekends. On one of the flights back to the city, this friend told Patrick, “Watch your side of the plane there.” Just as Chichi and Patrick wondered why he had said that, another airplane buzzed their left flank, followed by several others on either side — way too close — for Chichi’s comfort. She said to him, “I hope we get back in one piece. These planes are flying dangerously close.” To which the friend replied, “Don’t worry, all the pilots in Venezuela are good. The bad ones are all dead.” 

According to Chichi, this same friend had a habit of flying to destinations with only half a tank-full of aviation fuel. “Why? Because he likes the excitement of living on the edge certain that, of course, we will make it — or maybe not quite.” She shrugged and added, “Macho.”

Another time, on a commercial flight to some island also in Venezuela, the pilot announced that they were approaching some well-known waterfall, so passengers scampered to that side of the plane (yes, they actually stood up and crowded around the windows for a glimpse of the falls). Chichi continued, “That was when I noticed that one side of the plane was too darn close to the rocky protrusions of some mountain range — I mean really close, like if I reached out it seemed that I could touch it. I thought to myself, what is this pilot doing? And then I saw that straight ahead and coming at us quickly was another flattop mountain range and if the pilot didn’t pull up in the next breath, we would crash into it. Of course he waited until the final minute to do so. But was he done after that? Not yet. He maneuvered the plane around again (performing the equivalent of a car’s u-turn) and flew it as close to the side of the mountain range — again — just as he had done earlier.” Chichi shrugged again. I thought: macho. 

I mused about Chichi’s adventures on my way home and realized I do have male friends of similar constitution. Back home in Davao when I was in my 20s, I had a friend, Sonny, who was a windsurfing aficionado. There is this channel between Davao Insular Hotel and Samal Island, which is a tributary to the Davao Gulf. It’s probably just a few kilometers across and perhaps just 60 or so feet deep — who knows? Sonny loved to windsurf from the shores of the Insular Hotel over to Samal and back on his surfboard — get this — without a life vest and with nothing on but his purple Speedos. I had mentioned this to a male childhood friend as we watched Sonny hose down his board after one such channel crossing and he said, “He’s macho.”

Another childhood friend, also in Davao was a motocross rider. One afternoon I walked him to his trail bike parked outside my house and bade him goodbye. A few minutes later he rang the doorbell and I met him at the driveway after he was let in. He was holding on to the underside of his right forearm and said, “I took a spill.” When he let go of it, I saw a good chunk of flesh dangling from it all bloody and weepy. “Put it back on!” I screamed at him. So he unflinchingly held it back in place with his left hand all the way to the emergency room where I took him. This time it was the ER nurse who said it with a hint of sarcasm. “Ang macho kasi.”

Another man, who fits right into the “macho” mold is avid hunter and marksman Itos, another friend who likes roughing it up in jungles with nothing but his gun and survival knives to hunt deer — think Rambo or Crocodile Dundee. He disappears for days on end, totally cut off from the world, only to resurface with his bounty of tapang usa or rabbit stew or whatever his catch of the week was.   

Itos is the type of man anybody would feel safe with. I remember back in the ‘90s, during the halcyon days of Euphoria and Faces (attention: midlifers, you know what I’m talking about), average people like me would bolt as fast as our legs could take us, away from fight scenes, whenever any commotion started. In one such incident, Itos literally hoisted me against his left hip and our other girl friend on his right, deposited us outside the discotheque and promptly rushed back in to get into the middle of things. There were other times he would step in between brawling men or women to bodily stop fights. What can I say? Macho again.

What exactly makes men like this? Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist, who founded analytical psychology, developed concepts of human personality and the psyche. He developed the theory of the archetypes believing that individuals have predestinations manifested in these archetypes. According to the website, the archetypalconnection, Jung claimed “these archetypes are common to all humanity and are the foundations from which each individual builds his own experience of life, developing a unique array of individual characteristics.” 

Jung outlined five main archetypes: Self, the regulating center of the psyche; Shadow, the opposite of the ego image; Anima, the feminine image in man’s psyche; Animus,

 the masculine image in woman’s psyche; and Persona, the image we present to the world. Jung further classifies archetypes into more specific characters using the gods of Greek mythology as embodiments. There is the Zeus (father/leader) archetype; the Hera (devoted wife) archetype and so on. 

What we speak of here is the Ares archetype. Ares in Greek mythology is the god of war, the champion figure who lives for conquest. He is the ur-warrior. As a protector, he is fearless and never backs down. He will place himself in harm’s way to protect the innocent without second thought. He exists to fulfill this duty and will not be weighed down with details. Ares is the embodiment of a man who lives completely in his body and his strength rather than his heart or mind.   

What drives the Ares archetype is raw masculine impulse. Thinking doesn’t suit this figure unless it pertains to strategy, focusing on conquest and victory. Ares archetypes are passionate men who do not practice moderation. They are purely instinctive, mostly operating on the “fight or flight” frame of mind — mostly fight. They run purely on adrenalin charge.

To illustrate further, firemen who charge burning homes or buildings to rescue victims trapped inside are perfect examples of the Ares archetype. Members of SWAT teams, Navy Seals, Green Berets are Ares archetypes — they feed on danger and they live to serve, protect and fight.

In recent years, this Jungian concept of the Ares archetype has been validated scientifically by biological research. In 2007, a student from the California Polytechnic State University named Eric Peabody wrote about the Extreme Gene. He claimed, “Many extreme sports athletes have a trait called the High Sensation Seeking Trait (HSS). People with this trait are genetically predisposed for the need to experience varied, novel and complex sensations and have a willingness to take risks to obtain such sensations. Recent research has yielded a clear definition of this trait and has traced the manifestation of it through an advanced biological theory into the social realm.”

Your typical adrenalin junkie scores high in the HSS scale. Frank Farley, a researcher on sensation seeking, classifies HSS people as “type-T positive physical.” This means that someone who is a sensation seeker manifests his needs via socially acceptable physical activities like extreme sports or extreme activities. Without this type of outlet, sensation seekers may be lured into delinquency.

“The reason this type of people are willing to take such risks has to do with their concept of risk and rewards,” Peabody claimed. “As one approaches the physical limits of skill, a heightened level of brain activity kicks in and there is entrance into a state of exceptional problem solving skill. Many HSS people claim that they feel most vibrantly alive when straddling the line between safety and danger. These people have heightened mental and physical capacities.”

To put it in perspective, HSS people require extremely arousing activities to get the same pleasure that the average Joe — you and me — would get from good wine and conversation over dinner. The same average Joe — again, you and me — would have a difficult time understanding the need for intense sensation. We are quick to label this sort of person as having a death wish or being mentally unstable; in other words, crazy. 

As it happens, they are not, as Jung and Peabody have theorized. These people are not crazy; they are just macho.

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.