Rite of Passage



I've been hooked on this idea for some time now. My folks and friends all say I'm going to wind up dead. When I share it with people they look at me like I'm crazy. And frankly, maybe they're all right, but I don't think I am going to let that stop me this time.

What I've been dreaming about doing for the last year or so is to pack my bag, hit the road, and hitchhike out of the southwest suburbs of Chicago and make my way over to Oregon. I'm pretty set on doing this. I spent the last Summer working hard, earning money and buying up some gear that I'll likely need along the way, and probably in May of 2014 I'll make my way over to the on-ramp of some highway and stick out this thumb of mine and wait.

It really doesn't matter if I make it to Oregon or not. I love Oregon, in fact I'm infatuated with the idea of having West Coast beaches and mountains in the same place. I'm in love with the Painted Hills, I want to see Crater Lake, and if I don't see Haystack Rock at least once in person, I'll be pretty upset, and probably feel a bit of regret at some point. But more than anything, this idea of hitchhiking out of my home of 20 years -Chicago, IL- is like a modern day rite of passage in my mind.

"Rite of passage." There's a phrase we don't hear all that much within the context of our American culture. It comes off as something archaic and brutish. Someone, somewhere is probably being told to leave the tribe he's lived in his entire life with a bunch of other boys his age so that they may live in a forest for two months, fending entirely for themselves so that they may come back to earn their title of "man". Meanwhile, the "defining" moment of manhood in my life comes mostly from when I bought a couple of floor lamps for my dorm room, because now I was buying furniture for my dwelling like a man.

 Within our culture we really don't have a defined moment of transition into manhood. Some people say it happens when "you get your first real job", "when you buy a car", "when you graduate college" or "when you lose your virginity." There doesn't seem to be any true defining moment, and I think the result of that is a great increase of boys who are living in a man's body. There are so many guys out there stuck awkwardly somewhere in the limbo between boyhood and manhood. You don't have to look too far to see the kinds of guys I'm talking about.

Divorce rates are skyrocketing, and I think it's partly because boys have never learned to man up and take responsibility for their actions, and when something's broken, it's their job to fix it, not give up.

Grown adults throw fits of agitation towards minimum wage employees because their barista gave them a venti mocha latte with hazelnut, but they wanted a venti mocha latte with toffee-nut. 

We don't have any cultural rites of passage it seems, but why not create our own? Sociologist have identified three phases of a proper rite of passage: separation, transition and re-incorporation.

Separation: In this phase the initiate is detached in some way from his/her former life. Simply put, we go somewhere (whether literally or figuratively) that we have never been before.

Transition: This is the phase where the initiate is no longer connected to his/her formal life, but also is not yet connected to the new life to come. This is a phase of learning and reflection on how what it means to be a member of the life that is to come. It is a phase of trial, where one's life is refined, and the remnants of any impurity from the old way of life are burned away in the trials.

Re-incorporation: Here the initiate has passed the trials, has transitioned into the character of the new life, and is now welcomed back as a full-fledged member.

I think this is why the whole hitchhiking thing has got me excited. For maybe the first authentic time, I'll be forced to be entirely apart from my current way of life. I'm guessing on the road there is no Wi-Fi, no promises, plenty of hardship and very little certainty. That's pretty different than living the middle-class white American dream I'm in right now. I'll be forced to rely on others, to trust that there are way more good people out there than bad people, and enter into the intricacies of all sorts of different people's lives while we go from point A to point B. If I hold onto my shyness while trying to thumb my way over to the West Coast, I'm sure to fail. Maybe it's a slight form of extreme character development, but I'm more than willing to take on some hardship and pain if it means I'll be able to fully experience some of the most beautiful aspects of the world, and more importantly, grow in that. I want to see the world, I want to meet weird people, and I want to be truly alive. I've heard it said that it's important for everyone not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong. To measure up at least once in their lives. I'm not sure if we can ever measure up if we don't put ourselves out there at least once and embrace uncertainty.



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