“We draw blood like we’re performing an initiation rite, and then marvel quietly at our own wounds and the wounds of others. I once played street football with a kid who broke his collarbone but finished the game. He didn’t even cry. We talked about him with reverence for years afterward, the story of that day told and re-told with ever-expanding details of his feats of stoicism and strength. We were about ten years old. I haven’t seen or heard from him in decades, but I still think of him as possessing some kind of superpower, a small but beautiful mettle that elevated him above the rest of us. After fights, bruises, falls, skinned knees, the appropriate thing to do was to say little, and to keep company with others who said little about their own pain. This was how you gained fellowship. Where I grew up, admission into manhood was not earned by violence but, rather, through a learned immunity to it.” (more…)
