A Bolt of a Man
Artful Prudence | February 3, 2022 | by Artful Prudence
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The other day, I was expecting a parcel, a work surface to station in
my newly unpacked room. A sleek top made of glass, with an adjustable
function that raises and lowers the table. I was rather pleased and
elevated by this piece of technology. As I was dispensing with the
boxes and separating the parts, I got about two handfuls of screws,
the surface, and its footing on either side. Navigating through the
manual in an attempt to figure out the whats and the wheres, I found
myself bolting screws and affixing the parts to bear aloft this
exquisite piece of furniture, in all its august appeal. To my
childlike wonder, but no so surprisingly, an imposing thought came to
me as I was screwing up – literally – with this thing. I thought
to myself, how emblematic can this painless bolting possibly be, in
all its manageability and apparent ease? How inescapably unerring, how
inexorably firm is the birth, and the end of everything justifiable.
Here I am tightening this petty little screw whilst mulling over the
signification; this screw twists and turns as I administer it, almost
effortlessly and with scarcely any strain, but it then suddenly comes
to a point where it must be strengthened by the tension of the tool,
to be thoroughly secured and stiffened, thereby fulfilling its
function. This is the point at which the screw is pursed and squeezed
in, breaking through the toughening until it at last meets the bottom
of the opening and is cemented in place. Once that screw is
strengthened, it is effectively in working order and could be depended
upon. Loosening a fortified screw is tough stuff, it doesn’t
unfasten itself so undemandingly, and on numerous occasions, it
continues to harden with time – the same way a solidified man is
more disposed to grow stronger rather than weaker in his unity and
robustness.

Discernibly, I recognised a correspondence between the two, for
man’s escapade through the barren lands and the holocausts of life
is characteristic, in some sense, of that swift reinforcement of the
screw. Allow me to flesh this out. Man, in his infancy, gets going
with an infallible peace and freedom from privation, hopefully guided
and overseen by a vigorous parenthood that warrants his nourishment
and endearment. Up to this time, that developing child doesn’t have
to contend with the ticklish responsibilities of the fully grown
sensible man. In other words, he is still merely surfing in the
heavens of youth. Others, such as his parents, are at the helm of his
upbringing, consoling his triviliaties, and showering him with desired
attention and warmth to embolden his tinges of character. This utopia
of sorts, however, does reach its eventual closure, and that soon to
be man is in due course instituted to a modish and altogether
dissimilar reality; one that’s more cataclysmic and less paradisal
than he intended in his creative fancy. Much like the screw, this
modernist reality calls for a nature firmly found in strength, natural
supremacy, and a manly barbarity, in addition to a worthy opposition
to grow vigorously in a world that mercilessly leverages feebleness.

Almost abruptly, that man, once wallowing in the naivety,
irreproachability and inquisitiveness of boyish youth, is thrusted in
a milieu that’s pervaded by unseeable darkness, and the
objectionable need to establish one’s liberty, among the myriad
other tasks that beat off the man who just retreated from a heavenly
immaturity. Everything that comes before that commencement into
manhood is often evocative of a kind of portable obligation that
doesn’t overtax a young man’s vigour, while mollifying the taste
of his youth, thus making it more vividly special in his eyes.
Besides, a boy in his youth is still largely resting on his family’s
welfare, his general sturdiness is subject to vigorous nurturing. Let
us not, furthermore, misplace the indispensable role of the father in
that little boy’s cultivation. Shadowed by the necessity to move a
heavier burden, that man’s tentative apparition of the world is
shattered at full tilt, and is left bathing in a shivering and
turbulent sea of actuality.

This is precisely the point where he ploughs rashly into the tip of
the iceberg. Moving towards revelation and mastery, he is put through
the paces by pain and catastrophe, moderately ushering him down the
course of reinforcing his power and smothering his weakness. If he
fails to materialize, exchange blows, and persevere in the spirit of
bravery, not only will he fail to fortify, but will find himself in a
position that can be analogized to the screw still interminably
fluttering around in disagreement – loosened, movable,
untrustworthy, insecure. If man, then, is to bolster up his might, if
he is to administer himself and tighten his screws to honour his
manliness and conform to his incentive – in much the same way the
screw suffices by reinforcement – then it stands to reason that man
ought to be _willing_, and further, be dense enough to stand his
ground against all possible odds, in spite of the discomfort, and the
irresistible hankering to succumb. There is nothing more aberrantly
hateful than a man who’s loosened his moral values and sullied his
passions. It disrupts his dependability, while provoking an
impassioned distrust in him toward people who may otherwise be
downright trusting and devoid of ill-will. It is a serious failing for
the man of modernity to disintegrate and slacken in this sense, while
doing his best to steer clear of his greater task.

Man can, if providence permits, keep fluttering for the rest of time,
in an attempt to guard his childlike and fanciful youth and undergo a
drawn out and wonderful ‘freedom’, but such extrication from
mature duty is no bolt for liberty, or happiness, or fulfilment, or
significance, if that’s what man sincerely stands in need of to
flourish. Man can benefit from freedom only when he has overcome
impetuous desires and learned to restrain himself, without plummeting
in the gloomy confines of servitude. Anyone who did it can tell you;
it’s a laborious task to deal with, and it entails something more
than tightening one’s screws. It demands adaptability,
single-mindedness, and an explicit course. I carry a discrete
conversancy with the effects of non-confinement, or shall I say, of
too much wiggle room. Too much of anything not only seduces, but
shrouds one’s sight, making a poor bastard of him. Perhaps, you’ve
been steered to believe that so-called _freedom_ will redeem you from
suffering, or lead the way to that paramount contentment, but this is
simply a fabrication that will dash your hopes when you ought to face
the unvarnished truth. Suffering, as a matter of fact, can – as it
often does – spring from immoderate liberty, which you have come to
believe you can endure and command without suffering any impairment
whatsoever. But, that’s the lunacy of the lie one sells himself, the
haughtiness of one’s guesses. Freedom, especially an undue portion
of it, corrupts the puny hand that has been graced with it. And
pleasure of any kind, however spotless and righteous, can be corroded
at a gallop through a lack of moderation.There are but so few who can
take pleasure in liberty without disfiguring themselves, even fewer
who can perpetuate it without fumbling.

Knowledge and understanding will disseminate the truth: when you have
few responsibilities, there is a lingering feeling of sprightly
stagnation. Further, a growing languidness befalls your spirit, your
vital force stifled by staticity. Such a fatigue is symptomatic of
carrying too weightless a burden. Its corollary is a touch of an
apparently sunken soul, leaving you in a state that could be compared
to aimless wandering. An unabating laziness subdues your functioning,
stripping you of your charge and turning you into a sufferer with a
loser’s disposition, a victim of your own inadequacy. Every living
being is degrading – this is sure to happen – but one ought to
especially launch himself at stinking forms of decay, doing everything
in his volition to preserve a degree of cleanliness and robustness,
rejecting all abominable forms of dissolution; these poison one’s
soul. In general, life is a process of disintegration, and this
happens to be one of those realities that is many a time liable to
ruffle one’s awareness, putting innumerable things to question,
while exciting in a person a sense of profound despondency and
prolonged dread, a kind of murkiness suggestive of attachment and at
that, desire. To see before you the comings and goings, the bitter
close, and the white dawn; the demise, and the renaissance. However
life-giving the birth, and however vital the departure, one can’t
dismiss the soreness of heart that likes to escort withering death. To
welcome your irremediable fate, and more prickly, to embrace the fate
of the ones you painfully love. Neither they nor I are undyingly at
hand, having to agonize forevermore – and thus we are all, in the
fullness of time, rescued by our final exit. In spite of the
transitory suffering that accompanies eternal rest, there is a latent
beauty in the tragic, and by the same token, a tragic detail in
beauty. It not only delivers, but gives life. And if one is accepting,
he ought to grasp the cyclical nature of things, and recognise the
spectacle in the transience of everything that happens to come about.
One’s flesh is decomposable, but encapsulated within it is a
consciousness that is impenetrable, unchanging, and eternal.

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