Since I turned eighty-one years old in December 2024, I have been reflecting on what I’ve learned about being a man. As a sensitive and introverted child raised by a single mom I had no idea what it meant to be a man. I was clear about what a man should do–Get educated so I could catch an attractive woman, marry her, have kids, and become rich and famous.

                By the time I was thirty-five, I had graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a master’s degree in social work, had met and married my college sweetheart, was the proud father of a son and daughter, was earning good money, and was imagining the next steps to fame and fortune. I was also stressed, depressed, angry, and on the verge of divorce. I felt confused, lost, and discouraged.

                When I was at my lowest point, having intermittent thoughts of ending my life, I chanced to see a poster on a bulletin board that offered a tiny glimpse of hope.

“Men, come and share a day with other men and hear psychologist Herb Goldberg, author of The Hazards of Being Male.”

                Fifteen guys met on April 21, 1979 and heard Dr. Goldberg tell us that,

“The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power. He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose is destroying himself—emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”

                For the first time in my life I felt I was hearing the truth about the path I was on. By the end of the day one of the organizers, a tall handsome, teddy-bear of a man named Tom Sipes, invited those interested in continuing the group to meet at his house the following Wednesday. Ten guys came and agreed to begin meeting weekly. The group soon was reduced to seven and those seven guys have continued to meet for the last forty-six years.

                There were three guys younger than me and three guys older. We came from different backgrounds and experiences, but the thing we all had in common was this: We longed to be men, not the boymen we were pretending to be. We wanted a different direction than the one we were following and we knew that having a band of brothers could help us find our way.

                We met weekly, talked deeply, took risks to be vulnerable and real with our feelings and having the courage to share them with each other. I was encouraged to write my first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man, which was published in 1983 right up to my seventeenth, Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity.

                We attended men’s gatherings with Robert Bly and others and read books including King, Warrior, Magician, Love: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette in which they contrast archetypes of “Boy Psychology” from “Man Psychology.”

                In their book King, Warrior, Magician, Love: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, they offer these examples of boy psychology: 

• The ducking and diving political leader.
• The wife beater.
• The company “yes man.”
• The “holier than thou” minister.
• The gang member.
• The father who can never find the time to attend his daughter’s school program.
• The therapist who unconsciously attacks a clients’ “shining” and seeks a kind of gray normalcy for them.

“All these men have something in common,” say Moore and Gillette. “They are all boys pretending to be men. They got that way honestly, because nobody showed them what a mature man is like. Their kind of ‘manhood’ is a pretense to manhood that goes largely undetected as such by most of us. We are continually mistaking this man’s controlling, threatening, and hostile behavior for strength. In reality, he is showing an underlying extreme vulnerability and weakness, the vulnerability of the wounded boy.”

                I have recently written a series of articles, In Search of Mature Masculinity in a World of Wounded BoyMen that describes the world of “boys pretending to be men” and the kind of mature masculinity we all need in our lives.

The Two Archetypes of  Wounded Boys Pretending to Be Men

                Reflecting on my experiences in my own life, what I see with the thousands of boys and men I have counseled over the years, and what is reflected in our current government in the U.S., I see two dominant archetypes that underlie the behavior of Wounded Boys Pretending to Be Men:

                First is what Moore and Gillette describe as The Highchair Tyrant.

“The Highchair Tyrant,” say Moore and Gillette, “is epitomized by the image of Little Lord Fauntleroy sitting in his highchair, banging on the tray, and screaming for his mother to feed him, kiss him, and attend to him.”

                As an only child being raised by a single mom, I developed a lot of these tendencies in my own childhood. They also extended into my adult life in  my relationships with women and contributed to my two failed marriages. I was fortunate to get support to heal and grow up and have now been joyfully married to my wife, Carlin, for forty-five years.

“The Highchair Tyrant,” says Moore and Gillette, “hurts himself with his grandiosity—the limitlessness of his demands—because he rejects the very things that he needs for life: food and love.”

                Moore and Gillette summarize the following characteristics of The Highchair Tyrant:

• Arrogance (what the Greeks called hubris, or overwhelming pride).

• Childishness (in the negative sense).

• Irresponsibility, even to himself as a mortal being who has to meet his biological and psychological needs.

• The Highchair tyrant needs to learn that he is not the center of the universe and that the universe does not exist to fulfill his every need, or better put, his limitless needs, his pretentions to godhood.

                I suspect we can all recognize many of these characteristics in boys and men we know–from the centers of power in government to business leaders and males in our own families and communities.

                The second archetype of boy psychology described by Moore and Gillette is The Weakling Prince.

“The boy (and later the man) who is possessed by the Weakling Prince needs to be coddled, who dictates to those around him by his silent or his whining and complaining helplessness.”

                As adults, those possessed by the Weakling Prince archetype often become “Mr. Nice Guys.” Dr. Robert Glover, author of the book No More Mr. Nice Guy says,

“A Nice Guy is a man who believes he is not okay, just as he is. Due to both societal and familial conditioning, the Nice Guy is convinced he must become what he thinks others want him to be in order to be liked, loved, and get his needs met. He also believes that he must hide anything about himself that might trigger a negative response in others.”

He goes on to say, “This inauthentic and chameleon-like approach to life causes Nice Guys to feel frustrated, confused, and resentful. Subsequently, these men are often anything but nice. In fact, Nice Guys are generally dishonest, secretive, manipulative, controlling, self-centered, and passive-aggressive.”

                The historian, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, describes political leaders driven by boy psychology in her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.

“For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power.”

The Compassionate Warrior: The Power of Mature Man Psychology

                I first heard the words  “compassionate” and “warrior” combined from Sean Harvey, author of the book Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men.

“When we combine the concepts of warrior and compassion, an energetic shift happens,”

says Harvey. He goes on to say,

“Compassion is most easily defined as the feeling or emotion when a person is moved by suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve the suffering. Taking a step further, to be compassionate to others, we must begin by learning to become compassionate to ourselves.”

                Harvey describes the strength of the warrior spirit this way:

“The warrior archetype represents strength, courage, and the relentless pursuit of justice and honor. It embodies discipline, resilience, and unwavering determination to protect and defend what is most valued.”

                I shared a similar perspective in my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, that was published in 1994. I drew on my experiences practicing Aikido and from books including Aikido and the New Warrior by one of my Aikido instructors, Richard Strozzi-Heckler.

                Chögyam Trungpa was a Tibetan Buddhist master and scholar. I quote his understanding of compassionate warriorship in my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home.

“Warriorship here,” said Trungpa, “does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution.” He goes on to say, “Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan pawo which literally means ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness. Warriorship is not being afraid of who you are.”

                For me, this captures the essence of The Compassionate Warrior and learning to become that kind of man is what we need to find in ourselves, in those we choose to lead us, and in a world dominated by angry, wounded boys, pretending to be men. If given a choice boys and men will choose this more powerful, caring, and compassionate way of being.

                Our organization, Moonshot for Mankind, brings together organizations that are dedicated to teaching, training, and guiding boys and men to achieve the qualities of mature masculinity, including how to become compassionate warriors.

                If you would like to learn more about my own work, please visit me at MenAlive.com.