By K.K. (Ken Kupstis), author of Rock Her World

My girlfriend was on the phone, in tears. One of her very close and dear relatives was in failing health, and about to pass on. Fiercely independent, brilliant and very emotionally strong, my girlfriend was living on her own several states away from her family. It was heartrending to hear her sobbing. She felt horrified, alone and powerless. I was glad she’d chosen me to reach out to, yet I didn’t know automatically what to say to console her…I don’t know if anyone truly does, in that chilling situation. So I listened more than I spoke. “It’s just, I miss my family, they’re so far away…and I’m just so tired of having to be strong all the time…” She gasped.

Barely even conscious of saying it…as if something was speaking through me, I said “This is a time not to be strong.” Something about the statement just felt right, somehow. “This is a time to open up, to feel things and roll with them…and to reach out. And I’m glad you reached out to me.” I did my best at playing lay-counselor, and gradually she felt better.

As modern Americans (or perhaps just human beings), we’re bombarded with messages of STRENGTH. You’re Strong? We’ll make you ARMY Strong. Dodge trucks are RAM TOUGH, while Fords are like a ROCK. Boxing’s for wusses; Ultimate Fighting is where it’s at. The new X-90 workout will have you shredded in 90 days. There are no earthquakes, it’s just Chuck Norris doing push-ups. My personal favorite MANOWAR song: “Kill With Power”. And we can’t simply kill bugs, we must kill them dead.

Make no mistake, strength in general—both physical and mental—is a genuine virtue and an asset. As I wrote in ROCK HER WORLD, “muscularity is a form of power, and it’s a form of power that virtually anyone can achieve…and muscularity will enable you to get your girlfriend out of a burning car faster than a lack of muscularity will.”

Having said that, there will be times in everyone’s existence when strength will be weakness.

Having to be continually, relentlessly strong in every situation eventually numbs the soul, turning us from the spiritual beings we were meant to be into mere automatons clothed in flesh. It robs us of the opportunity to truly feel painful or negative emotions, which we should otherwise use to learn and grow.

Men in particular are unfortunately shamed into being Strong, or at least projecting a damned good social façade of it. Tears are ‘the enemy’, and must be fought back wherever/whenever they arise…even though they’re the human body’s only true outlet for anguish. The German heavy metal band Accept has a song called “Man Enough To Cry”, and it wasn’t one of their greatest hits, although it was decently accurate (and that’s from Germans, possibly the most macho nations on Earth!) I can only recall my father crying once—most deservedly, as it was at my grandmother’s wake—and after my initial astonishment, I slid an arm around his shoulders, and was proud of him for doing it.

Other men tend to ‘bottle up’ their negative emotions: isolation, fear, rage, sorrow, jealousy, hatred, ad nauseum…all the while thinking they’re being Strong, or ‘real men’.

If there is a Devil, it must truly be drooling in anticipatory triumph as it watches—and urges—the pressure within these men to build, build, build, until it ultimately detonates and we read yet another headline of “Man kills wife, children, self” or “Crazed lone gunman opens fire at shopping mall; kills five, wounds eleven.”

Horrifying as they are, these stories are displays of Strength…misplaced Strength, evil Strength, despicably wrong Strength, yet Strength nonetheless. “I’ll show them! I’ll show them ALL! You can’t diss ME! DON’T YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE MESSING WITH?!?!” Might be the prevailing thoughts in that man’s wounded, alienated mind. Author Gavin DeBecker, in his most illuminating book THE GIFT OF FEAR, has a chapter entitled “Better To Be Wanted By The Police Than Not Wanted At All.” I’d paraphrase that into Latin: Leto Ergo Sum.

I Kill, Therefore I Am. I’m not some powerless, henpecked accountant anymore, I’m ‘somebody’. Unfortunately, that ‘somebody’ is an infamous killer.

That is when Strength is truly Weakness. ‘Snapping’ into violence is ironically the ultimate Weakness…you know there are people who have committed their lives to ‘defusing’ potentially dangerous, yet otherwise good members of society. Resources to help you may be rare, but they still exist. When we surrender to our baser urges, when we decide that some crazed show of force is somehow better than admitting we’re in pain, we need help, we need someone to listen to us…and men in general rarely do that.

True Strength is in admitting you have some issues that need reconciling; it might not be celebrated, but it’s an intellectual strength, an admission that you won’t let your emotions control YOU. As Oskar Schindler was quoted in the film Schindler’s List: “Real power, is when we can do something, and we don’t do it. True power is in saying “I pardon you.” The ‘lone wolf’ killers illuminated in the media right now would do well to remember that. Yes, you have the ability to kill, as does everyone. You do NOT have the RIGHT, unless someone is directly threatening you with deadly force. And the recognition you so desperately seek will pale in comparison to the agony of the electric chair…or the infamy that will be your only legacy.

This is not to say that men are the only ones caught in the trap of “You’ve gotta be STRONG!” Women, at least in Western civilization, have never been Stronger, at least in a political sense (they may be even stronger than they want to be!) Yet they may be ‘strengthening’ themselves straight out of any and all relationships. As I write this, Canada has a pending legislative bill (HR #1777) which will enable Canadian women—in any stage of a relationship—to have a man arrested, incarcerated, have a restraining order placed in effect, and have a large portion of the man’s income directly transferred to them, at the mere allegation of abuse. I wrote to the legislators who dreamed up bill 1777 and asked “Do you have enough shelters to accommodate the men who will otherwise freeze to death on your streets if Bill 1777 passes? Will your economy survive once men realize they cannot safely take a woman to a restaurant, movie, or sports game? Do you have enough law enforcement personnel to respond to actual crimes, knowing they themselves can be sold down the river with a mere phone call?”

It is political suicide for any American politician to question women’s rights at all. Sam “Because Of Me, No One Gets A Free Ride” Donaldson admitted he stopped asking any serious questions to Feminist leaders, after being heaped with scorn when he called a female Park Ranger a “Rangerette”. Afterwards he said “I’ll take on any (male) world leader at any time…but taking on half of the world is just too much.” Vice President of the Bush administration Dan Quayle was similarly targeted when he said “Television shows like ‘Murphy Brown’ aren’t the best role models for single mothers in America*”.
Overnight, thousands of single mothers were buying bumper stickers that read “Thank You, Murphy Brown…From a Single Mother.”

Thousands of single mothers were thanking a woman that did not exist.

You never saw an episode of Murphy Brown getting up at 3 am to change a dirty diaper. Instead, you saw Murphy Brown coolly engaging in corporate combat with the “Old Boys”, looking fly all the while, without a hair out of place.

But in reality, single mothers aren’t Murphy Brown. They do have to change the diapers at 3 am, and race their kids off to daycare at 7 am, in order to get to work at 8 am. They get out of work at 4 pm in order to pick up their kids at 5 pm. Then they make dinner, while fielding every question from “Why is the sky blue?” to “Why do gorillas have such big nostrils?**” And they get to do it again the next day, wondering why single guys their age don’t want to get with them…all the while remaining Strong.

That same Strength may be the reason that their Dad is not around to pick up the slack. Maybe he was abusive, maybe he was an alcoholic, maybe he was a type-A provider that gave you everything else but companionship while he worked 70 hours a week at the burn ward? Maybe—just maybe—he had some personality flaw that would enable you to stay together as parents, if you compromised, and/or sought counseling?

Maybe you quit your vows too early? Maybe you nagged him into the arms of another woman? Maybe you were just too Strong, when he didn’t want you to be? Maybe he wanted you to be Guinevere, so he could be Lancelot? Whatever the reason—they’re probably manifold—as a single mother, you’ll have to be Strong. For the rest of your life. Or until you find a man who’s cool with helping to raise another man’s child(ren). Or until you put your pride aside and reconcile with your children’s father. It could obviously seem like you’re weak, doing that. Trying to raise children on your own, without a father, might show that you’re Strong, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re right.

Sometimes, Strength is a weakness.

*-Paraphrased.

**-Because they have such big FINGERS, hahaha.