I was never emotional. Or should I say that I would never show emotion.
I would never share or talk about my emotions with anyone else, or tell someone about my feelings, or, at minimum, I would never dare to do this or expose my truths in fear that someone would tell about me or use this against me.
I never believed that it was safe to admit that I have feelings, which I do.
I have feelings.
We all do.
Everyone has feelings. We all have thoughts. We have desires. We have dreams and likes and needs and moments of weakness. This is all part of being human.
We have bouts with our own worries and self-doubt.
This is not just true. This is human.
At the same time, there is something brave about being human. There is something brave about being honest and open or humble and vulnerable.
I admire this trick. I admire the people who can do this despite the efforts of others who look to expose emotion as weakness. Hence, this is why so many people fail to tell their truths, or more, this is why so many people choose to suffer in silence.
This is why people who need help will fail to reach out for help in fear of stigma or that somehow, their weakness is either shameful or a burden to someone else.
I suppose this is why I was so cold. I refused emotion. I chose to be like a butcher to the slaughter or a fisherman to their catch, emotionless and business as usual.
I say that I was never emotional. At the same time, I can admit that this was never true. I was always emotional. I might not have expressed this outwardly. But yes.
I was afraid. I was a coward.
And I still am, sometimes.
I think that like a person with an unsightly physical mole or some other unsightly physical description; I assume that anyone who looks at me is looking right at my unsightliness, or that they can see my invisible scars.
I swear, this can be draining.
But anyway, draining or not, this is true.
Life comes with different twists and turns and so, we see things which cause us to fear that something about us is “wrong,’ or that something may go wrong—or essentially, something awful may happen and when this happens, we are afraid of the pain.
Or maybe this is subjective to me.
Maybe I was afraid of the thoughts which came like, say, the ideas of rejection or the foolishness which comes when someone you liked or trusted, screws you over, or when someone you thought was your friend, turned around and bad mouthed you behind your back—or what about the time you opened up, which was hard enough, and what about when our confidentiality was destroyed? What about the hurt and humiliation that was caused by a crooked smile and a laugh behind our backs.
I do not waste my time pretending that there is no such thing as betrayal. I do not waste my time and act as if I have never lied or cast a shadow on someone’s light.
I am no better and no, I do not deserve any praise,
at least not for this.
I can see my faults and my sins, to which I offer no excuse. However, I read them now, more like a road map to understand the who, what, why, when and the where of my wrongs.
If I want to improve.
But first, if I want to be better, or more importantly, if I want to free myself from the imprisonment of self and if I want to learn to move forward from my past or my past crimes or my mistakes, then I have to understand what holds me back.
I have to understand my fear-based triggers and my reactionary behaviors.
I have heard the word “selfish” before.
I have heard this word used to describe others as well as I’ve heard people tell me that I am selfish.
Is this true?
Am I selfish?
Are you?
Isn’t everybody selfish?
Perhaps we’re all selfish in some regards. However, there is an unfair sway when we talk about the symptoms of mental illnesses and depressive or anxious mentalities.
There is an unfair sway created by the insecure narratives in our head which lead us in a direction that is opposite of our best or personal self.
There is an unfair sway when we look at people with an unfair history, or a painful past, which is not to say that this is so with everyone; and more, this is not a justification or a cancelation of wrongs, or a plea to suspend or eliminate a just and deserved punishment.
This is nothing more than a road map of understanding.
That’s all.
Should someone like me or should any person choose to be brave enough to hold themselves accountable for their actions, this is also a guideline or chart.
This is a plan and a means or a way to navigate forward; therefore, to find freedom, one will have to understand the means and the willingness to pay the cost of freedom.
This can be easy or not.
The cost of freedom from self can be free in some regards. However, the actions and the means can be costly or taxing from an emotional standpoint.
But yes, scaling us down to the exact nature of our wrongs is helpful. This leads us to an honest answer as well as an honest exposure of why we act as we do. Then, we can make a connection and follow this through to either atone or amend for our mistakes or learning
I do not know if I ever knew what it meant to be a man. Perhaps, I was wrong for most of my life. Maybe I am still wrong. Maybe the terms of manhood are limitless and unending, and while life evolves, perhaps the ideas and definitions of manhood evolves as well.
I believe this is true.
I can say that my thoughts on this subject are different now from when I was only a child. I can say that my ideas of success and manhood are different now from when I was in my 20’s and also in my 30’s and 40’s.
There is a great disservice of self when it comes to the poor and grossly inaccurate versions of what it means to be a man. And as for being tough.
I dare to admit this. I dare to say this openly and as loudly and while timid inside, my fear has become outweighed by my will and my intent to find freedom from such rigid descriptions.
I am not tough.
Not at all.
Therefore, I have to reject what I was taught or what I believed. I have to reject the fear-based consumption or the paranoid ideas that say a man has to know what he is doing.
Always!
A man needs to stand tall and strong. Man needs to be tough. Man needs to be free from gullible episodes and unaffected by outside and emotional thievery.
Man cannot be a victim. Man cannot be fooled and should he be fooled, man cannot allow this to deter or destroy him. Otherwise, he is not a man at all.
Show no pain or in cases where this fits, show no mercy, take no prisoners, and at the moments when backs are to the wall, or when the threat of death or violence is real, or when shame is on the horizon, or in the case of battles when the internal and psychological destruction of emotional bankruptcy is both eminent and inevitable; man must stand, bleed, and show no movement nor can he even flinch at this, as if to be unmoved.
I told you about Mr. L. and his love for his wife.
I am not as strong as this man.
I can’t say that he appears to be stronger than a younger man or a physical man who can lift weights or a person who stands in a cage and fights for a living.
But Mr. L is stronger than them too.
Then again, I have known people of this caliber. I know people who own and posses a physical presence, yet in the face of life or death or in the face of loss, like the loss of a two-year-old son, brilliant as ever, even at two—no strength, no honor nor grit or grind can save a life when it comes to pediatric cancer.
What does it mean to be a man?
I suppose this means nothing more than to be who you are, as you are, and in the face of adversity, crimes, or sins; or in the face of guilt and shame, or when it comes to life as we know it—a man is who he is. What makes a man anything close to spectacular has nothing to do with the wealth in his pocket or the strength in his muscles.
It appears to me that manhood is a state of mind and the presence of self. I still agree that man should learn to rise when fallen. I agree that man has the right to improve and that despite the odds or statistics or even in the unlikelihood of success (or forgiveness), the subject of being a man or manhood is subjective and unique to us all.
I am not tough. I am afraid.
Wait no. I’m not afraid.
I am petrified. I am often intimidated and I often respond or become reactive to the toxic thoughts and the unfair voices that speak in my head — which is me.
Therefore, my terms and definition of manhood are opening and widening, and with a broader perspective, I own who I am.
I own my mistakes. I own my sense of false self and my fear-based, or selfish nonsense of insecure reactivity.
That’s childishness.
That’s the inner brat.
This is part of being human too.
These are the patterns and pathways that can either lead me back to unfair assumptions and unwanted thinking, or in response, I can make a change.
I can come to an idea and find myself at a moment of awareness. To be clear, I can have all the moments of clarity and times of great supplication. I can admit to my mistakes. I can openly discuss them, like I am now, and I can send this out to the universe, as if to make a plea, or as if to say, “Please, help me.”
Help me be better.
Help me get away from myself.
Let me escape this. Let me grow to understand the beauty and realization that success is just ahead, the roads are limitless, so is love, so are you, and so am I.
Let me be here.
I can ask for this. I can cry and weep. I can complain. But I can’t change unless I change.
And that’s part of being a man too:
– to know where you are wrong
– to stop the wheels from keeping those old motions from spinning me out of control
– to make changes whenever possible
– to accept the sentence and punishments or consequences that are just and on the way, and to see them as moments of correction, or opportunities to improve.
Life is meant to be lived.
Not endured.
I have certainly grown since the times when I thought real men drink beer or can pull a trick with a lighter and look cool when they light up a cigarette.
I have improved since the times when I believed that might makes right and that real men fight, and that’s it, and if you can’t win, fight back harder or dirtier until the fight is over and you won.
By any means . . .
I have grown enough to understand that real men cry, which I do, or which I am right now, as I write to you.
Yes, I’m crying.
It’s safe here. No one can hurt me where I am.
No one can make fun of me. No one can talk behind my back or cut me down at my knees to keep me from climbing ahead.
I can be me here, which is why I have built this place.
There are no villains here, or like crabs in the bucket, no one can pull me back down as I look to climb out to keep myself from death in a pressure cooker.
Am I a man?
I suppose.
Am I a good man?
I am imperfect.
Then again, so is everyone.
Am I free to have emotions now?
The truth is I was always free to have emotions.
But if this is so, then why avoid them?
It was my fear. It was my memories of times when I was hurt or exposed and humiliated.
It was my selfish need to keep from that feeling of vulnerability, only to be humiliated in the long run, by someone who pointed or accused, or led me to be the punchline in their joke.
I used to think that everyone was crooked.
No.
That’s not true,
I was. Therefore, I assumed that people would always look for the angles.
I assumed that there is always someone who looks to find someone easy, like a target or a mark, and they would use people like this, so that they can take their shots at them or keep someone else down, just so they can feel better about themselves.
But that’s not a man.
That’s not what manhood is about.
That’s just an example of another crook and their theft of services.
This is a primary example of how someone wants to keep themselves from the pressure cooker, or push someone else to their death, just so they can steal another moment of air. This way they can breathe before they meet their end which, in the end, this is where they see the light and realize their truths, which is something that they spent an entire lifetime trying to avoid.
I know people like this.
And so do you, by the way.
In fact, we call them COWARDS!
What a brave way to live, right?
The Written Addiction 