Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

"MYSTERY OF MID-LIFE"

I really don't regret that I have only one mid-life to give for my country. Although it was filled with new and dazzling insights into my masculine security system, it took a lot out of me. I just knew that my essential prowess was going to drain clean away unless I sported my open necked shirt and gold chain in public. A little voice was telling me weird stuff. Like I was about to get my last chance to go ape over that certain mystery woman. All she did was smile at me in the frozen foods section of the supermarket. Fortunately I was able to keep things on ice long enough to survive this foray into absolute lunacy. But it gave me an appreciation for the tumultuous times of the male menopause.

During the mid-life blackout period, men seem to lose contact with themselves. Some ancient ritual, long stored in the collective unconscious, floats up to the surface like a dead fish. Actions taken are not actions deliberated at a very high cortex level of gender intelligence. Instincts lead the way, akin to the rutting moose who falls over himself on the way to fantasy land. People get hurt in the name of destiny-type love. And this love is at least thirty degrees blinder than infatuation. I think it is because so much of the love focus is on one's self, and all the glorious feelings (which the guy thinks will never be within his grasp again, because he's getting old). People don't like to hear this, but this romantic flipping out is really not about the woman who is the object of the fond desires. A software program in the male brain has been set in motion; fireworks spin off. The outer world grows fuzzy and the earth tilts. The mid-life male goes into a trance, while the real purpose of all these risky behaviors is revealed: He must desperately take in affirmation or die before his time.

What can be done in the repair shop? My colleague, Mary Robins, thinks that, at this very crisis point, a man's Hero Journey begins. It is an inward journey with opportunity, she contends, to look deep into himself. And this scary trip is best assisted by a wise, experienced teacher or therapist. It's nice to know that a woman therapist believes that the man in jeopardy can survive the temporary blackout period even though he has to answer some basic questions: "Who am 1?" "What is the meaning of my life?" (It is the crisis of the middle of things, because it is the time to look back as well as look ahead. The enlightening answers become the new software program", and out of this emerges a true Hero- a more confident, peaceful, and multidimensional man.

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