When the Wild Things Have Gone

Where should a young man go for adventure?

This is a guest post by C.B. Huckabee. He is a writer for Man’s World Magazine, a special programs veteran, and a psychology graduate student exploring personality, sex differences, and masculinity. Most importantly, he’s a father to two sons. This meditation dovetails nicely with some things I’ve written about, like how to raise dangerous sons. May it inspire you.

My son bellows defiance at the sea. I watch green glass waters shatter over him and melt into a rumbling foam floor that pulls him along. He rolls like a rag doll, caught in the spin cycle of some great oceanic washing machine. Then he’s back on his feet again, yelling even louder than before as the waves hiss defeat. I’m unsure if he knows that they’ve only gone for a moment, sliding out just long enough to gather reinforcements and pummel the beach yet again—and him with it.

I’m not sure he would care if he did.

This is the arrogance of young and wild men. It’s raw, and it’s primal, and, above all, it is a thing of beauty. It has led to its fair share of war and pain—of hardships and the brokenhearted—but it is the thing that sets sail across unknown seas. It ropes horizons and saddle-breaks the cruel, hard frontiers that give rise to towns and cities and states. It’s what shot men into the blackness of space, where it left behind flags and footprints on the powdery skins of space rocks.

And it will do so again.

Go West, young man. The mountains are calling. There’s gold in them thar hills. Seek, and ye shall find.

The call to adventure is an archaic thing—a force that rattles young men to their bones—and some hear it louder than others. They are the ones who grow itchy and restless when the world around them grows too familiar. They’re the ones that, once all the world’s maps have been charted—each inky line long since dried—venture into the depths or the heavens or the microcosms in between. It’s through them that existence cries out for an expansiveness that pushes beyond the metal fleets of asthmatic engines as commuters dance to the tune of automatic lights. Caves turned to huts, and villages became glass-towered monstrosities, and yet—amid all the progress—somehow, the world grew small. It is this that these young men rage against.

Where do the wild ones go in a world hell-bent on homogeneity, that demands domesticity? Go inward, go outward, go upward, but—for God’s sake, man—whatever you do, don’t stand still. Don’t let yourself be glued to the freeways, virtual or otherwise, and don’t become complacent and content in your comfort.

Live hard. Live fast, but once you’ve thrown yourself against the world to your satisfaction—once you’ve adventured yourself a proper adventure—set up a place to call home and give rise to the next batch of wandering ones. When they are yours to guide, don’t tamp out their wildness. Don’t file their teeth and trim their claws—that’s not your place. That’s the job of the unknown.

I watch another wave crash atop my boy, and something inside wriggles its way out. I look at the people around me, scrolling their phones and tapping glass screens, and I close the curled pages of the book I brought with me. Then, I’m up—tearing my shirt off as if it’s on fire and running before it can even hit the ground. The water laps at my ankles—my knees—my waist—and I arrive just as the ocean’s calvary arrives, bearing down on me and my son with a heart full of vengeance. His eyes are wild as I lift him up, and the water crashes over me, but I stand wide against its weight.

The sea swallows me hungrily and completely, but not him. Him, I hold high, high enough that his eyes can latch onto the farthest horizon that he has yet to explore, and, once the water begins its temporary retreat, I hear the unknown calling out again, but this time it’s different. This time, it’s no longer calling to me. My son yells defiance at the fleeting waves, but his eyes are fixed far off into the distance, and I know that he hears it, too.

Where do the wild ones go when all the wild things are gone? They go on. They find the next place, the next frontier, the next adventure—even when the rest of us can’t see it.