Rite of Passage

In my teenage years I went through the whole “what is the meaning of life” thing.  I still recall something I wrote at the time.  “Have you ever watched a lonely man, thinking alone all that he can.” Que a dog howling at the moon at night.
There is a good chance most go through that.  Whatever conclusion we reach we go on.  Some don’t, which to me is a pity.  It is almost like a rite of passage.  It is the transition from youth to adult.
In some societies there is a ceremony.  In Israel they declare someone a man at 13 in their Bar Mitzvah.  There are rites of passage for many things including birth, marriage retirement and death.  Each has at its core a separation.  I cannot speak what I don’t know about, but I do know that Christianity has at its heart a separation also.
I was amazed to learn that the cutting of the hair, when one joins the armed forces, is a rite of passage.  The cutting of the hair symbolizes the leaving of the civilian life.  It helps identify.
The phrase was first coined by a French studier of people’s and cultures, Arnold Van Gennap in a book he wrote called “The rites of passage.”  The term is now widespread in our culture and language.
Apparently there are three phases to it – separation, threshold and incorporation.  I can see all three stages, in what I choose to do.
It may be that I want to join a stamp collecting or photography group.  To do so I need to separate myself to some extent from what I have been doing. In other words I decide that doing something necessitates me giving up something to do it.  At the moment Merril goes to something I would like to attend.  I play table tennis that night.  I have decided to forgo one for the other.  It is a separation.
When I join any group there is a sussing out of me.  Who is this strange being in our midst?  Is he an alien?  He sure looks like one.  Hopefully I am eventually seen as legit and accepted.  This to me is the threshold stage.  I have left one thing to join another, but I am not incorporated yet.  That takes time.
In my experience the final stage is always incorporation.  I am accepted into the group whatever it may be.  It may even be that I am seen to have a role to play if I want it.
Group sounds really clique.  However I have no desire to join any group that excludes.  I appreciate they will have their own rules I need to adhere to, but if the rules preclude acceptance I do not want any part of it.
Whatever I choose to do seems to contain a rite of passage.  It may not be a formal thing, but it seems to involve the stages of separation, threshold and incorporation.