The Importance of Being Honest
I don’t really know how to start this article. My thoughts on this subject are a torrent of something incomprehensible, and though I would like nothing more than to put them into words, if only to clear my head, every attempt so far has ended in failure. I’m hoping this time is different. To be frank, I wasn’t even going to publish this, but a friend of mine made me realize that I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t, so here goes nothing.
Going by the title, it would seem the point is straight-forward: don’t lie. But I wouldn’t be losing sleep over something that trivial. More important is mustering the courage to be honest with yourself. So many of us spend our days sculpting our thoughts and our voices for the benefit of others — so they won’t think we’re weird, so they’ll like us, so they don’t push us away. These days when I look in the mirror I’m not sure I recognize myself anymore and I’m tired of lying. Once you establish an image for yourself, consciously or unwittingly, any departure from that character will rarely be met with anything other than surprise, suspicion or derision. To my bitter amusement, it takes monumental effort to break out of a prison of your own creation.
For men, a lot of it is rooted in a socialization that begins at a tragically young age. We are taught to embrace anger and aggression, schooled in a toxic machismo and taught to despise weakness, vulnerability — never cry, never take a punch lying down, never run away from a fight. The absolute need to stand tall and maintain a firm jaw requires that we cloak ourselves with whatever mechanism works — a sarcastic wit, an iron grip on one’s temper, or cheap humor and all of it with a stony reserve or a dismissive countenance. Never let them know how you feel; bow to no one. Soon it becomes a trend — to be aloof is the height of cool and if you willfully cast aside that fragile facade, you can be just as easily cast out. These are the lessons that have been passed down from parent to child since time immemorial and even as I evaluate them, and clearly identify the flaws, deviating from them is unthinkable. To ignore these ancient traditions is emasculating, and few prospects are more horrifying.
This ill-fated, time-honored tradition makes it difficult to engage with, manage and express the emotions that threaten to strip away our well-worn cloaks. Remorse, humility, appreciation, gratitude, affection…love. All the emotions that, when expressed, can give someone the chance to hurt us. The only barrier? That we trust them not to, else we would never subordinate ourselves in that way. The great irony is that trust comes slowly, and yet love, in any one of its many forms, comes quickly. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve ever trusted completely and still have fingers to spare, ever since the first grade when a little girl saw fit to rock my world with the revelation that promises didn’t matter and I shouldn’t believe everything I’m told.
And yet love comes so easily to me. I love easily, fiercely and without reservation and once someone has earned that love (believe me, it’s not hard), I’ll go to the ends of the earth for them, and I’ll drop whatever it is I’m doing if they need me. The great triumph of love is the sacrifice, the selflessness, the serenity and the contentment that comes in sharing that type of bond with someone; in knowing that they won’t hurt you even though they can. But the ingrained impulse to remain distant, aloof, and unflappable taints it all.
The great tragedy of love lies in how easily it can be twisted; when we bare our souls and are spurned, the passion and the affection turn to rage and bitterness, even violence — how quick we are to reach for the cloaks when we feel exposed. As quickly as bonds have formed, they can be severed in a fit of pique. Our fear — the fear of pity, derision or dismissal, clouds everything. We take our precautions well in advance to stave off any potential of being hurt — we position our relationships so that the power dynamic shifts in our favor, we masquerade as authoritative figures and never embrace our bonds as fully as we could (and maybe should).
I’m always amused by how rational thought is humbled by affairs of the heart. I pride myself in my discipline above all else and yet I recognize these days that I remain a deeply emotional person. I worry though, that the mask, placed on me before I even knew what it was, the machismo that long ago pushed out the naïveté, might never come off. Sometimes it feels like it’s glued to my face even when I might desperately wish otherwise.
As I sit here on the brink of graduating, thinking about the man I used to be, the man I am now, and the man I want to become, I can’t help but reflect on the successes, the stumbles, the joy but most of all I can’t help but feel a twinge of regret: for the opportunities I’ve allowed to pass me by and all the things I’ve left unsaid; that I didn’t express myself as completely as I could have. But self-pity and angst serves no one and the defeatism inherent to these kinds of regrets leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All the same, I wish that after writing this I could say that it can all spontaneously change — but I’d be lying to myself and all of this would be for nothing. Even the fact that I’m writing this now, when I’m about to graduate and have little to lose, feels like a cop out.
The most precious lesson I’ve learned in my time here (and I wish I’d learned it far earlier) is that few things are out of reach if you’re willing to work for them. A friend of mine pointed out recently that I’d grown soft in my ‘old age’, and I couldn’t disagree, but maybe that’s just a sign that I’m finally moving in the right direction. Dealing with this kind of dissonance isn’t easy (and yes there are worse problems in the world), and it also isn’t unique to the young — most men struggle with this well into adulthood; some take it to their graves. I don’t want to be that kind of man anymore, and I hope this can be the first step in shedding these cloaks.
None of this is to say that there are no virtues — or that we shouldn’t comport ourselves with dignity, discipline and reserve. But I strongly caution against allowing it to obscure our personalities, dilute the quality of our relationships or inhibit our abilities to form new ones. An internal reckoning of this kind takes herculean fortitude, the courage to be honest with yourself and the refusal to be someone you know you’re not. It’s a rocky road with a hundred potential pitfalls along the way but I have a feeling it’s well worth going down.
