“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.” –Rumi
Rumi talks about an energy that is familiar to a young man. Some of our masculinity is learned and some of it is hard-wired.
When the sign in front of the curve says 30MPH, we lean in and take it at 45MPH. This is an innate masculine trait, and it sometimes leads us to trouble.
As a young man matures, he needs mentorship that stewards that “mad” energy and helps the boy develop into his full humanness. A Sufi dance is a movement that opens them to a place of presence and intention.
Rumi doesn’t ask us to be imprudent in our outer life. He is asking us to let go of the formality of societal chains and be “mad” enough to explore the ocean of the self.
Masculine initiation introduces this heightened emotional intelligence.
In a world that increasingly asks young men to be more brutal, more dominant, more powerful and more controlling…a boy who is discovering his power needs to ask the question, “What is the end game here?”
Brute force does not solve problems. It might help if the goal is to loosen a bolt, but if a man is managing others in a group as a leader, it will end in disaster.
The end game is to learn what our bodies are telling us. The deeper the young man goes in terms of his own discovery is commensurate with how well he emerges as a leader in his culture and his society.
For men, living in our heads is the “comfort” of which Rumi speaks. When he encourages us to “Be notorious,” he is asking us to take that long journey from our heads to our hearts and to become clear about our emotional life. The journey ‘from comfort’ can at times be quite scary.
He is asking us to follow the words of Epictetus, when he says, "Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly." Or, as Zeno says, “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.”
It takes a conscious young man to eschew the onslaught of information coming at him daily that begs for him to show outer strength, power and to dominate others. This is a false view of masculinity, and it creates sociopathic thinking.
True leadership comes from a deep understanding of the inner plane of the self. This is the world in which Rumi wants us to go mad. In this, he tells us, “Don’t wait any longer. Dive in the ocean. Leave and let the sea be you.” He asks us to be empaths.
When a man takes this path, into his true power, he develops strong character and has ability to lead others. Fr. Richard Rohr wrote about this recently saying, “Only very gradually does human consciousness come to a selfless use of power, the sharing of power, or even a benevolent use of power—in church, politics, or families.”
The selfless use of power comes from the man who has developed empathy and the ability to recognize and respect the feelings in his body. Mad, sad, glad, afraid…numb. Process these in real time to clarify what Spirit is asking.
From this place of self-knowledge, he acts from selfless power. He acts from his center, from his King. He is a true leader.
King energy is from where all other energies flow. This allows the young man to remain at his center and remain immovable to outer and superficial events. He brings order to chaos. He becomes Alpha.
The Alpha King is in command of his inner world, He has EQ. He is Closer to the Heart.