Boyhood Part1.

Boyhood.
In the army 'Basic Training' is the official nomaclature for that ball-breaking, spirit-crushing, bone-shattering, personality-erasing, psychological abyss of approx 6 weeks into which new recruits are cast down from the airy mountaintop of their hereto normal civilian existence.
If you accept that a grown man is basically a warrior maneuvering through an essentially unfriendly, nay hostile world, then boyhood is Basic Training.
Once you get that - then everything else makes sense.
The military process is a 'wake-up' call wherein the bright, shiny, freshly scrubbed recruits, hope in their hearts, and eyes brimming with visions of hollywood-style military heroics, are taken (not always metaphorically) by the scruff of the neck and are forced headfirst into the bloody sewage strewn evil of warfare while being buttfucked repeatedly by sadomasochistic Sargeant-Major called McKwolski and then having to shout 'Sir-Yes Sir!' when asked if they are a worthless piece of excreta not fit to wear the (rather shabby and dated) uniform.
Think of that image.... hold it there in your mind.
Now transfer it to that tiny, bright, shiny, freshly scrubbed sweet baby boy. He is warm, content, fussed over, loved, cosseted, bathed in fragrant waters, wrapped in warm blankets, allowed to sleep away his days and is fed on demand by two plump boobs each one bigger than his whole head. To quote legendary gangster Henry Hill "These were the good times".
Nature, mother nature, evolution or (if your that way inclined) God, looks at this helpless pink soft blob of a child and, when patience runs out he rubs his hands together in glee says, 'party's over little chap - time to toughen up'.
Yes indeed - boyhood is the wake-up call, and quite rightly too. Life, even with all its myriad pleasures, is a sharp, hard pointy thing that cuts, bumps and scratches. The small fluffy pink newt that is the baby boy is not going to survive the world in that state unless stored in a plastic bubble or he happens across a willing carer who is happy to still be changing his diapers when he's in middle age. (That almost never happens)
In contemporary western society life may often be a sharp cutting thing, but it is as nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in comparison to what every little boys' million antecedent fathers have had to face.
When, aeons ago, the earth cooled, the first representative of humankind dragged itself from the primeval slime and, dusting off the debris from its emaciated form, looked nervously about at the lush new world and contemplated "I wonder if it's safe?"
A second later, as the thought still hung in the air, a rock hit humankind in the side of the head, then a snake bit into its leg, then two bears, a sabre-tooth tiger and a pack of very hungry hyenas piled in to finish off the job. When they were all done, some manky vultures cleaned the bones and then ants did a final polish before carrying them down to the primeval swamp and chucking them back with a contempteous snort of 'You'll have to do better than that.'
The gauntlet had been thrown down. Nature took another look at its creation and thought, 'well its good - but it needs to a fucking sight tougher if it's going to survive'.
This was basically a case of going back to the design studio and having to have a bit of a head to head with the prima-donnas there who believed in style over all other considerations.

Now (if you're still interested or even awake) look at the post called "the Creation of Man: Nature's Design Studio".