Good Will Hunting was recently on TV. The story is based around the life of Will Hunting (Matt Damon). Will is a natural genius whose knowledge comes from pouring through books in his one room rental unit in the slums of South Boston. Will is surrounded by his childhood friends who grew up in the same neighbourhood. And as I watched Will’s childhood gang go bar-hopping and street-fighting I was reminded of the masculine ability to form intimate tribes between the ages of 17 and 25. Towards the end of the movie Chuckie (Ben Affleck) confesses to Will that he hopes one day Will won’t answer the door when he comes to pick him up because he has used his knowledge to get out of south Boston. Through most of the movie Will rejects opportunities at love and work guarding himself and staying safe with his gang. At the end of the movie Will finally leaves his tribe for both love and career moving to the west coast to follow a job and Skylar (Minnie Driver). I can in many ways relate to leaving my tribe at around this age. In the first few years of college I formed a strong and intimate group of friends. In time life seemed to pull us apart. My hunch is that men (I cannot speak for women) become increasingly lonely after the age of 25. There may be a period from 25 to 30 where we are absorbed enough in our pursuits not to notice it too much but it eventually surfaces. Are the sorts of relationships portrayed in this movie only applicable to a certain stage of life? Does our culture of romantic love and powerful career sever these relationships unnecessarily? We believe that our faith can call us away from close ties but is that what happened to me? Is it possible to recover those sorts of primal and often viril relationships? If so, where and how? Anyway, I miss my old tribe.
And in case you forgot, here is a great scene from the movie where the boys from the hood check out a Harvard Bar.
(sorry a couple of unsavory words dropped here, parental advisory encouraged 
)
[Nov. 17, 2008: We can now embed YouTube and other videos. –Tim Miller Dyck, Editor/Publisher]
Thanks Tim!
I had just graduated from highschool when Good Will Hunting came out. And as a guy about to start tossing his Mary Tyler Moore hat in the world (you’re humming the song now, right?) did I love that movie.
I’ve got a group of friends who became close in high school and remained close after. And you’re right about the whole tribal thing. It’s always been a matter of having backup when you needed it, but unlike the movie ours has survived the distances involved in life.
So many people warned us that once we weren’t hanging out every day, the tribe would fall apart. But it hasn’t. True, most of us still live in Winnipeg, but I’ve gone to school in Ontario, travelled through Asia and lived in China for a couple of years. One of my buddies is in the UK getting a PhD. We’re all almost 30 and it’s not like anyone made us leave our buddies behind. People like to think they’re Matt Damon and are leaving their friends behind for something better, and maybe for a lot of people they are.
The tribe, if it’s a good one, grows with you, even when members make a poor choice in the spousal arena.
So yeah, maybe we’re a lucky exception but I don’t think society cuts these relationships off too soon, and I don’t think you only need friends like that for one part of your life.
And obviously I’m speaking about guys here. I have important friendships with girls, ones that I’d never give up in a million years, but they’re all a lot more one on one, even when everyone knows each other. I mean, I’m friends with A, B and C and they’re all friends with each other too and sometimes we all hang out together but the groupness isn’t at all the same. I don’t know why that is.