The Constant Dilemma of Men

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Emotions are a funny, fickle thing. Evolution has gifted us with the ability to connect in a meaningful way to the world around us. We are more than just cogs in a giant ecological system. We interact with and change it. How amazing is that?

They can also be a curse. Some of us spend our lives running from them, building walls and massive labyrinths that those who want to know us must navigate and scale. And when they get close, when they get within our perceived danger zone, we change the rules. The walls higher, the guardians more monstrous, and the traps more perilous.

Sometimes, despite our safeguards and defenses, they get through. And for a while, we allow it. We revel in the closeness and the connection. But we remain wary. We stay vigilant. Like soldiers in a war zone, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of peace. Eventually, we destroy that which gives us the most pleasure. And our walls get higher.

Rarely, if ever, do we meet someone able to slice through our defenses and leave us grateful for their presence. Those people, when they come into our lives, are a gift. They defeat our monsters, leave our Minotaur in a slumber and our most terrible beasts simply let them pass.

These people connect with us in ways we never thought imaginable and they bring us a peace most welcome and unexpected. It can leave us feeling at once grateful and afraid. That vulnerability isn’t altogether unwelcome but it is uncomfortable. Once the realization hits, we’re likely to push those people, those gifts of life, away like so many others.

But we shouldn’t. We should hold tightly to that connection, to the fear and peace and acceptance. Even when we feel like it may not last and the pain at parting may leave us a weeping, crumbled ghost, still we should grasp them tightly.

Why? Why welcome such vulnerability, tenderness, and potential pain? Because to refuse that connection is to refuse life, to refuse to breathe. Turning away from that kind of bond is to accept loneliness and solitude that will slowly strangle the joy from our lives. Without it, what was the point? We may as well have stayed a simple cog.

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