Blood & Ink: Thursday

“The Warrior Archetype is not the be-all and end-all of life. It is only one identity, one stage on the path to maturity. But it is the greatest stage—and the most powerful. It is the foundation upon which all succeeding stages are laid.” 

— Steven Pressfield, The Warrior Ethos

Something in the Warrior archetype, and its modern revitalization, beckons me…

But I find myself challenged quite often… is this all just a LARP?

Who am I to talk about the Warrior? I’ve never seen military combat. I’m only a white belt in jiu-jitsu (green belt in karate in earlier years!). I’m still building strength and endurance. 

In counterbalance, I’ve dropped hundreds of hours into study, created (& completed!) an intense 100-day initiation into the archetype, and have poured thousands of hours since then into physical training, discipline, martial arts, and the cultivation of virtue.

The pursuit of the Warrior archetype is the most persistent and present energy inside of me. 

But integrity is a fundamental virtue of the Warrior, and my positive interpretation is that I’m just trying to stay in total integrity with this.

The Warrior is the foundation. 

Without the virtue, discipline, and integrity of the Warrior, pursuits into the other archetypes will fall short, or be corrupted. 

The Warrior is both the literal foundation for a culture: providing protection and a way of being for the civilian to aspire toward; it is also the psycho-spiritual foundation for an individual: it is the healthy evolution of the Hero (child) archetype, and the primal energy that enables all the others to come online.

And too—perhaps most as a reminder to myself—everything begins with a vision. Maybe I don’t fully measure up to it yet, and that’s okay. 

The path is the practice.

Onward,
Eric Brown.