To be vulnerable is to show the cracks that have manifested themselves in your psyche to others, in an attempt for chosen people to heal those cracks. But, in the process of doing so– we give them a glass-breaker, one that’ll shatter the cracked glass that is our psyche.
These cracks are inflicted by life and it is the choice of those we trust, to heal these cracks or to widen them further.
From what I have observed about myself and by extension others, we usually project a strong mental image onto ourselves and oftentimes deny any signs of weakness, acting as if they never existed.
When I speak of softness, I refer to a nature that is yielding and flexible– a nature that leans towards harmony. When I speak of hardness, I refer to a nature that is rigid and overbearing– a nature that leans towards domination. In more simple terms, treat them as types of power, with softness being soft power– influence and connections; Hardness being hard power– brute force and power.
This mental image that we often conjure is a rigid one, a mental image incapable of bending. So it is more likely for us to break than for us to bend. If we do not allow ourselves to become soft, we only hasten our ruin.
However, extremes only serve to derail the balance we have in life. To be excessively soft is to survive by a never-ending effort to bend, to lose your strength and replace your convictions with indecisiveness.
If we take any concept to an extreme, it becomes a concept that opposes itself. When we break ourselves for being too rigid, our act of breaking is one that makes us soft as we yield- one born of weakness, not of flexibility nor harmony.
When we become soft to the point of us no longer being able to maintain our shape, our acts of indecisiveness are cemented into hardness– a hardness born of weakness, not of strength nor convictions.
This paradox is brought to light with the famous quote “you’ve become the very thing you swore to destroy”. The result of this will lead to you contradicting everything that you stood for, leaving you stuck in a limbo between your past and future.
So it’s better to balance those two sides than to just fully lean into one side, enjoining them will allow you to benefit without having to deal with the drawbacks. However, it is up to you to find that balance, to find a way for you to let yourself heal.
It can be something as simple as letting your emotions flow more or to drop the facade that you’ve been maintaining from day 1. You could find a hobby that gives you more freedom to express yourself, like my hobby of writing. There’s no set path, after all each human is both similar and unique– allowing us to understand each other and to remain separate at the same time.
For me, my writing is more akin to being a mirror of myself, with my softer side ironically being more dominant here– thus acting to counteract my more rigid side in real life. However, that doesn’t mean that all of my writing is soft. If anything, I would say that my writing has both sides in it.
It’s akin to the saying “There is no shadow without light”. These forces may be opposed to each other, but their existence is a shared one. You will find some words of mine to be sharp, directed for both myself and for others.
Other times, you may find me being sentimental, feeling the universal loneliness that makes us seek companionship. The language that I use sometimes contradicts those sentiments since I’m more accustomed to being rigid.
An example of this would be the piece “Life of vertical ethics”. If you line up the first letter of each word, it becomes “love”. Originally, I mentioned this fact in the afterword of that piece, but then backtracked before publishing it. Why did I do such a thing? I didn’t want to be so direct as I am shy by nature. But, if I can’t write such a title directly– I’ll just layer it.
In this case, I can say that “Life of vertical ethics” is a representation of my rigid side and that real title hidden within it acts as a representation of my soft side.
So, let yourselves be human. Your attempts to deny your fragility will only prolong your suffering and recovery phase. To admit to your faults is not an act of weakness, but an act of strength. However, to continue this charade is an act of foolishness, one that truly shows the weakness of your mind.
There is a reason why we have tears. To give ourselves an outlet to release our frustrations and welled-up emotions. It is an innate trait of our body that shouldn’t be suppressed. You lose nothing by crying and can only gain from doing so. Your body releases chemicals that help you cope with your emotions. Tears are to be used to release your emotional inhibitions, not to subject others with manipulation.
Let those tears mend these cracks– ones that court death. Each crack left open becomes a beacon, summoning death.
Death. An end that used to strike fear to the hearts of men who lay in inscribed tomes. A word whose utterance was no different than committing an act of treason. Tell me, when did the concept of death become tarnished by our words? When did we become so indifferent to the loss of lives no different from our own?
I may be a hypocrite who chides himself with the thought of death, but the graveness of death has already imprinted itself. We treat death like it is a concept far from us– forgetting that death does not care about age. Did those that now lay in tombs not bleed the same blood as you? Do you really think that the only death you’ll face will be one from a long age? Then why do we joke about our own deaths, acting as if we are not already destined to die?
Death is not a subject to be taken lightly– whether it stakes a claim on you or another. It is an act that mocks the sanctity of life itself. We may have changed, but death is a fixed concept– a concept preserved by time.
I speak to those of you who have studied death yet never felt its touch. I do not blame you for your callous attitude, for ignorance is not a sin in this context. If you wish to mock death and to joke about it, you must become more familiar with death and have your own experiences with it. I’ve nearly died several times and have had to make sure that my momentary stupidity doesn’t get me killed.
The difference between you and I is this:
Your attitudes dilute the seriousness of death— treating it as a mere number or statistic. Remember that death is the most equal of us and that yours is unknown. You joke out of ignorance with a hardened heart.
I jest out of experience with a heart that attended the funerals of strangers. I have already accepted my inevitable death, be it today, tomorrow, a year from now, or perhaps 20 years later.
Will you accept your death or will you attempt to deny it– to break yourself over a fate you hold no control over?
Afterword:
This concept of hard and softness ties back into an eastern philosophy known as Taoism. It’s a philosophy that pursues harmony and is akin to water in its metaphorical traits. It adopts a “go with the flow” approach in life and for us to follow the natural order of life.
I learnt about it initially from webnovels and from there have engaged in surface-level research to explain about the origin of my words. There are multiple philosophies that are connected to this concept with their own interpretations, but Taoism is the one that I connected with this first.
I write with reflections gleaned from water, not of despair. For me to hold this knowledge, a sufficient mental strength is required. So, I assure you guys, my sanity remains intact and does not qualify for an intervention.
As always, congratulations for reaching the end of this piece.
I’m not done with death. I softened my words a bit since I didn’t want it to become too intense.
Yesterday my content views suddenly blew up. Since their growth was abnormal, I’m pretty sure that someone shared my content which is good. If it was you, then thanks. I can’t tell honestly since Instagram’s data is sketchy.