MAN-MAKING BLOG: December 2013

In the video below, you can see and learn about one absolutely amazing world men have created. The video does raise an interesting question for me:

What kind of world could men create
in support of young males,
if they were inclined?

The very short story is this amazing work of art and craftsmanship was created because two brothers in Germany went looking for a place to show their hobby. Soon they were joined by men from other 'Model Railroad Clubs' and other craftsmen. Some were electricians, model makers, carpenters, and computer programmers. Ten years and 500,000 working hours later, the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany is now the city's most popular tourist attraction with over a million visitors a year.

A TINY portion of the place!

Currently, the Miniatur Wunderland is comprised of 8 miniature worlds, it has 13 kilometers of track with 900 trains, and whole cities full of animated activities. There are subways, cruise ships, and the most recent addition, a fully functional airport with planes that look like they actually take off and land. You can see firetruck going to a fire, police cars stopping traffic, a game in the sports stadium, a rock concert, and there is even a chocolate factory that delivers a mini-chocolate bar to the viewers! The creativity in the details are extraordinary. You can watch a 24 hour day pass by in just under an hour, with all the locations, including the airport, lighting up for the night. You really do have to see this one to believe it.

After seeing it, I wonder if you'll be left with the same questions. What could engaged and motivated men create for young males if they were inclined? What could happen if men shared their hobbies and then invited men and young males to get involved? In addition to the shared guy energy, just imagine what the young males learn about construction, math, science, engineering, art, and working with others to create something wonderful. Just imagine what they could learn about men and manhood!

Do you know of a group of men and young males gathering around a common interest like Miniatur Wunderland? If so, share it with me and I'll run up a blog post about them.

Do you have an interest, talent, or hobby you might share with some of the men and young males in your community? I can assure you there are men and young males out there who would be interested. You never know what can happen when you just risk being open, available, and visible.

If this clip doesn't show up use this link.

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When it comes to young males, there is a good reason the word testosterone starts with the word test! Testosterone is that chemical that starts pumping through young male veins in early adolescence. It's THE man-making substance, and it causes all manner of chaos for the young guys, their families, and the community.

Both men and women produce testosterone, males just make more of it . . . a lot more. Out of our evolutionary history, it's the chemical that helped males to be successful in hunting and combat. If all that wild-boy energy is contained and directed, hunting and combat were very important roles in the life of the community.

Testosterone is known as the aggression drug and during puberty, young men experience 5-7 surges of the chemical per day. This drives all sorts of chaos in their bodies. Generally speaking, young guys will often experience an uncooperative voice, acne, spontaneous and embarrassing erections, hair growth, bigger muscles, major growth spurts in body and limbs, and general confusion about all the changes.

Along with the physical changes comes rolling emotions with mood swings between anger and frustration, sullenness, to a sense of confidence and strength, sexual energy, and feelings of god-like power.

They also have a drive to test themselves, either digitally or in the real world, and in this quest they are often competitive and even combative. Sadly, the flood of testosterone hits a young man at a time when he has less than a fully developed brain (pre-frontal cortex). That's the part that guides complex decision making and the future consequences of their choices. The result is one slightly foolish, physical, and potentially very dangerous creature on your hands. That's where ball courts come in to play.

On a recent trip to northern Arizona, I visited the ruins at the Wupatki National Monument. It has been a cultural crossroads and considered home to a variety of people over many thousands of years. About 800 years ago, it was home to 85-100 people, with several thousand more living within a day’s walk. What caught my attention was a structure I had seen in other parts of Arizona and even in southern Mexico. It was the ball court.

After a little Google research, I discovered there are remains of over 220 ball courts at sites like Wupatki all over the southwest and in other parts of the United States. In addition, there are more than 1,300 ball courts found in Mesoamerica, the region that extends from central Mexico all the way south to Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica.

The oldest known ball court is approximately 3,400 years old. Some form of the game is believed to have been played by the Olmec, Toltec, Maya, and Aztec. It appears that as soon as they invented rubber, a ball was created, and the game commenced to be part of what was then civilized life. We're still throwing balls through hoops and around fields today.

No one really knows when or where the game got started. There is also no agreement on why the game was played. I think it was testosterone. The book Lord of the Flies, by William Goulding, is about a plane carrying a group of young British boys that crashes on an island in the Pacific Ocean. They commence to create a boy-culture complete with their own clothing, art, language, laws, and young male aggression. We see the same thing happening today with street gangs.

If a culture wasn't at war, and that chemical was pumping the young males full of competitiveness and aggression, you had better find a way to help them burn it off or there will certainly be consequences.

The ancients have long known this fact of young male life and they developed cultural structures, rituals, and ordeals perfectly suited to a testosterone-filled young man. Ball courts and the competitions they inspired must have saved countless lives, channeled wild-boy energy, and gave the young men a ladder of achievement they could follow to be seen and honored by their community. I think the ball court played an important and boy-civilizing role in history.

We still have plenty of ball courts, and wherever there is even minimal equipment, the young guys are still called to them. What seems to be missing is a way to incorporate these places and the heroic young players into an honored place in our communities.

Where is the Young Male Place in your community?

In your world, where can young guys go to burn off energy, engage in friendly competitions, have that kind of fun, and not attract negative attention?

Where can the young guys in your world be seen and honored for their power, physical capacity, creativity, bravery, and willingness to take risks?

If we don't have places like that, what's a young man to do?

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MAN-MAKING BLOG

December 16, 2013

What Motivated Men Can Create!

December 5, 2013

Ancient Ball Courts - Young Males - Testosterone and Some Hard Questions