The Benefit of an Enemy

The other day I was in charge of 4 10-year-old boys for a beach adventure, so there was digging, planning, creating the world’s most intricate city of sand. A few times one boy chose more solitary pursuits while the others built and dug; he seamlessly joined and left the group to fly a kite, kick a ball, or head down to the water. The bossier of the bunch (mine) was forthright in ideas; he and another boy, who also has strong ideas about how things should be done, had, of course, ideas, and their grand plans sprang off one another’s, without much conflict, toward ever more grandiose plans.

Eventually, however, the emotional pushes and pulls grew and one boy set himself apart, sitting alone on a bench by for a short time. When I went to intervene, he told me, “I’ll just sit here by myself.”

It took a while to piece together the story, but eventually I learned he’d threatened and tried to destroy the sand creation the others were making. Aah, that’s why the others iced him out. And thus began a string of teachable moments. “People really don’t like others smooshing their creations,” and variations on that theme. I got this boy to start building his own creation out of driftwood, on a separate part of the beach. I then solicited the help of another boy to dig a hole for a wooden tower. Other teachable moments to the three diggers: "You can't ice out one of your friends," and "You must work as a team, solve your conflicts as a team," and variations on that theme.

We were making some slow progress on reuniting the group and soothing ruffled feathers. The diggers returned to the megalopolis in the sand, and the one boy continued his solitary driftwood creation. With the help of the boy who’d dug a hole for him, he’d raised a taller-than-him wooden pole (“it will be the corner for my fort”), and now was fortifying the base so it wouldn’t fall over. After being out of favor with the other boys, his unconscious understood that he needed to rebuild his masculine power to rejoin them, even though his conscious mind didn’t know how to make this happen.

After some refueling with lunch, sitting all together in the shadow of the driftwood phallus, the boys set out to build and dig again. Together. As if they’d unconsciously absorbed the invitation to healthy masculinity and teamwork. Their city became larger and much more elaborate, until they destroyed it - together - in the service of digging a hole.

And here’s where the universe sent some help, in the form of a group of younger kids, who copied the efforts of my group. My group turned them in to THE ENEMY. Nothing could have solidified my foursome quite like the imaginary and yet fully cultivated threat of this other tribe. My tribe came together in complete solidarity, as they shifted roles – some “protecting” their dig site, some scouting out the other site, turn-taking to keep building so that their site was indeed the best. They had become a four-headed machine, creating and digging and removing sand with a palpable sense of purpose. It was for the good-natured grown-ups on the beach to recall the “goodwill between men” philosophy and to marvel at the creativeness of kids left to their own. The boys were now intent on building the biggest, deepest hole ever seen on any beach, anywhere. Any conflicts or squabbles now were managed effectively by themselves, short-lived frustrations that didn’t have enough energy in them to last more than a few moments before they re-aligned themselves to the task.

As they shifted from a group of boys to a tribe, I shifted from Mom to Tribal Elder. It was my responsibility to guide and maintain a moderate level of intergroup communication and conflict, rather than squelch it, to feed the flames of creativity, energy, ambition and focus, so that both tribes were at their best. To avoid unnecessary escalation and scuffles, I peppered the interactions with instruction on how to interact when members of each tribe veered over to the other’s dig site. “Watch with respect!” and “Bodies to yourselves!” I offered, many times. These warnings might still be carried on the breeze over the water, heading whichever ways the wind will blow, perhaps even to today’s beachcombers and builders.

As Tribal Elder, it was also my responsibility to call an end to the excavation, when the adventure and independence of digging was matched by concern for the structure’s stability. My tribe thought we were leaving because the rain came, but Elders use whatever natural forces occur to guide their tribe.

When we'd packed up our gear, the hole was over four feet deep, with two antechambers. Members of the other tribe were able to offer compliments to mine, the equivalent of ball players shaking hands after a game, losers praising the skill of those who bested them. I can’t say my guys were as gracious, as they were awash in the glory of the victory and a mix of pride and amazement at their accomplishment.

But they’d done more than win.

Throughout this day, not a single one of the boys understood that “imitation is a form of flattery” and that the other group was never, in fact, a threat, but was an admiring audience that fed off their energy to do something they never would have thought of on their own. Somehow my guys sensed that their need to re-build the friendship and repair the before-lunch rupture was more powerful than any other urge or need, and in that service, they transformed the other kids’ energy of admiration into the energy of in-group/out-group conflict, pulling themselves together into an indestructible “us.” The walk back to the car was filled with “Next time, we should _______________” plans so that their future efforts will be even more amazing. Four boys built – a sand city, a driftwood tower, eventually a dig site – but mostly they constructed a stronger foundation for their friendship, which now includes life-long memories of coming together to dig the biggest hole ever dug on that beach.