“If you can keep your head when those about you are losing theirs, then you’ll be a man my son.” – Rudyard Kipling

A bunch of dudes go into the woods. There’s not much to see here, to the casual observer at least.

It’s just a parade of young men who look different but talk in the same patterns, with the same cadence. All with their adopted names for each other and everything else. Meat and Muck, Banger and Huss. They come here, a paradise shimmering with blue and green, mostly to swing sticks and slam beer. At least that’s what it looks like.

But don’t be fooled. This is a tale as old as time. It’s about triumph and defeat, heroes and villains, and all the stuff you get in between.

For this, this is a mental game. And no one will be spared from the nerve-wracking intensity, the blood boiling through your body and into your fingertips as you pray to hit it true, as you fight to prove yourself worthy of putting on a jacket that perfectly matches the leafy backdrop.

It isn’t for the faint of heart. Those who do dare to dream, though, are given the chance to be etched into immortality. To go up with the gods.

In the end, bread will be broken, trespasses will be forgiven and bonds will be forged. Because when you go to the end of the earth and back with someone, there’s nowhere else to go but forward.

A bunch of dudes go into the woods. They come back, eventually. But they never really leave either.