In the (awesome) comments that followed “What ifs and might-have-beens” a question came up: Do troubled individuals gravitate toward strong partners, or do those partners become strong in the fire of hard relationships?
Well, a bit of both, I’m sure. But the question got me thinking about strength and what it means — way beyond the boundaries of relationships. I think strength is something like courage: you don’t know you have it until it’s called upon. And when you’re exercising it, you don’t necessarily feel like a tower of strength. On the contrary, you may feel terrified, filled with self-doubt, and as if you’re being a complete jerk.
But we have to find our strength and act on it because although you can be strong and not free, you can’t be free and not strong.
In “What ifs” I mentioned two people I knew who had died young, a friend who died in her 20s and an old love who only made it into middle age. When I first knew them both, I saw them as strong — much stronger than I. But ultimately that girlfriend never had the strength to pull herself out of her sorrows and go on to the great life her intelligence and talent might have earned her. (Not entirely her fault; she had some hard strikes against her.) And him? Well, he was strong in his determination to go on drinking.
I think I was about 40 before it finally dawned on me that I’m a strong person. And then I knew I’d had the potential all along. And in many ways had been acting on my strengths without consciously knowing I had them.
I want to go back to that thought above: You can be strong and not free, but you can’t be free without being strong. Being free means, first of all, knowing who you are, what you want, and what you will — and emphatically won’t — put up with. Being free means saying “yes” to forging your own path, even when family and friends cal you a fool or a failure or tell you you’re disloyal. And OMG, you know all too well it means saying “no” and “no” and “no” to a thousand demands, a thousand violations. If you don’t have a strong inner core, you’ll never do what’s needed and you’ll never be free in this unfree world.
Being strong also means having the strength of mind and character to know when to bend like the proverbial willow and when to stand like the proverbial oak. In either case, it means being “rooted” in your own kind of strength — whatever that is. It’s the strength of your individuality.
Just like the hero who is scared out of his wits the whole time he’s earning the Medal of Honor or saving the baby from the fire, strong people don’t always feel strong. Or look strong to others. They just DO strong.
Funny how so often we see strength where there really is none. The globe-topping ruler? He doesn’t feel safe until he imagines he’s controlling the actions of everybody else. That’s one funny kind of “strength.” The strongest guy in the world is probably writing poetry or building a log cabin somewhere, unheard-of and unheralded because he doesn’t need anybody feeding his ego.
The rest of us, somewhere in between, might like to believe that “being strong” would make us feel as muscular and amazing as Superman or Superwoman. Instead, as often as not, being strong feels unpleasant because we have to assert ourselves when we might rather hang back. It feels awkward because we have to say no to people who might be perfectly well-intentioned. It’s painful because we have to make painful sacrifices (even as we know they’re not sacrifices at all if they take us closer to our goals or make us better people). Being strong might feel harrowingly wrenching when it means we must, though our own will, pull ourselves out of bad (but needed) jobs, toxic (but habit-forming) relationships, and ultimately pull ourselves out of our nice, cozy safety zones so we can experience life large and true and get to the end of life knowing we’ve done our damnedest.
[…] Mind, Free Spirit by Beth Homicz — Leave a comment March 4, 2011 From Claire Wolfe, a good thoughtful read. Funny how so often we see strength where there really is none. The globe-topping ruler? He […]
You mentioned courage in the beginning, and then talked all around it in the blog. I think it is the strength of the person which gives one the courage to do the things that heroes do, to stand up to others and say No, to not allow the forces of society to direct (or misdirect) the course of one’s life.
Scratch the person with strength and you’ll find will power — that individual desire and determination to Be All That He Can Be from his own effort, because it feeds his sense of self and well-being. And, because it emanates from within, it coincides with and strengthens his value system — which in turn supports his will power when called upon to be strong and courageous.
A beautiful piece of writing, Claire. If we gave more thought to the subject, we might find the road to a free society.
“The globe-topping ruler? He doesn’t feel safe until he imagines he’s controlling the actions of everybody else”
Wherever he goes he also needs a bunch of people with guns around him. Now there’s such a thing as needing security, but if you need so much security, it would seem to point to being that you’re doing something majorly wrong that you’ve made so many people angry at you.
There’s little to add here-you covered the waterfront. The only things I might add is that genuinely strong people are usually a lot more interesting,and fun to be around. It also seems to me those in power-everyone from the bored clerk at the DMV to a bemadalled wacko dictator,are very seldom(if ever) truly strong. They just have some power to play with.
Good observations.
Scott, that’s a point I’d never have thought to make, but it’s a great one. You’re right. Genuinely strong people are less likely to be whiners, less likely to be prone to temper fits over nothing, less likely to have hidden agendas, and definitely aren’t clingy (hate clingy people) or wishy washy. Yeah. It’s a lot more fun to be around people who know who they are and let you know right up front who they are; and that takes strength.
Why would a truly strong person be attracted to a weak partner?
Attraction to broken partners is itself a sign of being broken.
I say that as a man who’s spent most of his life broken, and is now repairing himself.
At the risk of overloading the Comments, it strikes me – a beat too late – I should qualify that I’m speaking only of partners. Not friends.
If it weren’t for the efforts and perseverance of some less-broken friends, I wouldn’t have the chance to fix myself.
“Why would a truly strong person be attracted to a weak partner?”
Damn good question, Victor. And one of life’s great mysteries. 🙂
I know that a lot of potentially strong young women are attracted to “broken” men because a) the young women don’t have enough confidence to realize they’re strong, b) they’ve been taught that they need “love” to validate them so they latch onto the first guy who gives them the emotional thrill that they’ve learned to identify with “love” (and broken men are very good at evoking that thrill), and c) they think they can be of service by “healing” the guy’s imagined hurts. Movies and books play into this load-of-crap idea endlessly. I agree that all that implies that both partners are “broken” in their own ways. Oh, but the power of those fairy tales …
Never having been in a guy’s shoes, I can’t make a great guess at why strong men get involved with broken women. But I suspect the reasons are similar. And/or that a lot of broken women are good at hiding their brokenness until the man is already hooked. And/or that men aren’t always great at reading people.
And that we all don’t learn except by bitter experience.
But really … anybody who solves the mystery of why anybody ends up with anybody will be doing the human race a great favor. (Except, of course, that just about everybody will ignore the findings and go right on being stupid …)
my brain hurts….
Much mention lately of the strength required to extricate oneself from a bad relationship. A corollary to that might be the strength to stay in a good relationship that’s hit a rough patch. It’s very easy these days to just walk away when things get a bit tough, leaving much damage in one’s wake, to one’s self, one’s partner, and especially, terribly, the kids.
Makes me wonder if I’m strong or broken, or a combination. I’ve stayed in a bad “relationship” for 6 or so years now when I know in so many ways it would be easier to get out, but there would be consequences I am not willing to pay. On the other hand I have set limits that are not negotiable, while dealing with some things I’d rather not which are not as critical. I know the price I am paying, but at this time it is acceptable to me. Tomorrow… who knows? The scales could be tipped by some future happening without notice.
0Point — agreed. My musing in the “What ifs” piece about whether the relationship would have eventually become good had I stayed was aimed in that same direction. I’m biased toward leaving; others are biased toward staying. But which is the right thing to do in which circumstance? The real question is how do you recognize the difference between a relationship that can improve with work and patience and one that is just plain toxic? I don’t know.
And yes, children suffer horribly from the breakups of their parents’ relationship. But children can suffer just as much as victims of a loveless or chaotic marriage, or one where one parent is abusive and the other parent won’t either leave or find some other way to halt the cruelty.
I definitely agree, though, that sometimes it takes strength and wisdom to stay; and sometimes it takes strength and wisdom to leave.
I just….stayed. Part of it was being and believing in love, part of it was “in sickness and in health, ’till death do us part”. She was diagnosed bipolar and I ended up diagnosed with PTSD from the stress of the relationship and was put on Paxil. It enabled me to make some hard decisions and when the treatment ended I found myself more capable of handling the issues. Just as callouses develop on hard working hands, you develop hardness in other once-tender places as well. I think the only strength I have is the same strength a farmer has when he sees his crops fail but still strives for yet another season.
Hehe, ok, so far I just skimmed and need to come back and read word for word….But I totally agree with all Claire said, she nailed it so well……
And would add one of my favorite (and personally hard learned lessons) philosophy: You can lose your money, family members, pets, jobs, house, great love, security, things; all at once or some at a time – & that person can manage to plow on – lose your “self” & you’re done….
It takes certain uncomfortable experiences to find out just what your strengths and core really are, & alot faster than trying to sit down and just think about what they are…..
Strong people, both men and women, are the people who never lose themselves, their inner spirit/soul, in the process of dealing with any adversity…speaking in relationship situations, that is…..sometimes a person may not handle things right, or handle them as quickly as another, or even repeat the mistake a few times & discover many deja vu moments, it’s all part of the process of being/becoming strong……
This was hard to write. I’ve done the right thing more often than not, but then there are those other times. There’s no brag in this. There has been a lot of weakness in my life.
Strength, what is it? The one thing I’ve noticed in others and myself is that strength is mostly determined by how alone you are when you act. If everyone supports a painful decision it’s not all that difficult. Then there are the times when our moral fiber is tested to the limit because no one supports us. That’s when we know what true strength is.
The man who looks at his options and takes the least painful one for others can be said to have strength, but he will have support from those around him in doing that. That helps a lot. When no one supports your actions, particularly the ones you admire the most (in my case it was my father) and we stoically take all the slings and arrows from family, friends, children… that’s strength.
I stuck with my wife because of the children. That’s something but it still smacks of cowardice. Sleeping in a bed with anyone you’ve come to dislike and distrust is painful. However, leaving the devil we know isn’t so easy when it’s clearly going to be a decision taken with no support. And it was going to be unpopular, but I made a plan and stuck with it, knowingly losing everything in the process. There’s not a single regret and much pride.
Lots to ponder, thank you all for the great comments. My wife was raised by abusive & manipulative parents, a fact I didn’t realize until after we were married. We have worked toward her healing for the past 20 years, i.e., how to recognize attempts at manipulation, speaking the truth in love, breaking the cycles of codependency & family dysfunction. She has a strong spirit, in some ways it was broken but in other ways, not.
I have been blessed with Legendary Endurance, which I have been able to use by God’s grace to heal her, and also to teach her how to live without me so that when the time comes she will for certain be able to stand on her own two feet without falling into desperate measures.
I think it’s important to understand that power and strength are two different things, as Claire pointed out in her examples……and power isn’t always an admirable thing, but strength is…..
One of my favorite parts that Claire said was the knowing when and how important “bending” can be (also possibly compromising in a relationship, or the status of the situation)….sometimes the decision to stay and stick it out requires more strength than leaving (and ending things) quicker and I think both take equally big amounts of strength…..When I read the comments here, and tossed in Claire’s “The strongest guy in the world is probably writing poetry or building a log cabin somewhere, unheard-of and unheralded because he doesn’t need anybody feeding his ego.”, maybe it equals the fact that so many of our strengths remain unknown simply because some never actually EXPLAIN why they chose what they chose…..That’s not to say people are intentionally deceptive, or outright lying/faking anything, it means a possible communications issue….(I know it’s hard to reason with the unreasonable, and that does have to be taken into consideration)….
I have to ask the generally-directed-non-specifically-implied question about another of life’s great mysteries: Why do people shove themselves aside so easily?…My whole life has been to learn that black or white is really black AND white, that nothing in either direction is set in stone…..there are gray areas that everyone involved can still thrive and benefit from……and yet it so rarely ever goes that way, especially in relationship situations…..
I’d like to think there are more strong people, in all their individual ways, than weaker/broken people in the world….And since I’m still learning all this as it relates to living in America, I have hope that the stronger people are the ones who will eventually prevail in straightening out some of the messes we are dealing with right now…..Especially now since Claire connected strength with freedom….. Is it possible that the stronger people can make the choices that allow freedom for everyone in their relationships, including themselves? And can that expand outward into the world outside of relationships?
“Is it possible that the stronger people can make the choices that allow freedom for everyone in their relationships, including themselves? And can that expand outward into the world outside of relationships?”
Yes… I have to believe that this is so, else I’d give up right now. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, but there’s no reason it can’t be done.
Jefferson, Paine, Patrick Henry, James Otis, George Mason, Madison, Adams (both Sam and John), Franklin, Monroe were all strong people who made choices. They weren’t always right in their decisions, they did not always understand where their choices would lead, but they believed in themselves and in a free country, and had the will to carry out their convictions. AND, as individuals, they knew how to work together to achieve success.
The problem today seems to be two-fold: 1) we (as a nation) have been brainwashed to think that only the collective can accomplish anything; and 2) we (as individual freedom-lovers) have not yet learned how to work together for — dare I say it? — the greater good. While herding cats is not necessary, understanding how individual cats cooperate IS necessary before undertaking such a project.
The Founding Fathers were some smart cats. I don’t believe we are any less so today. But do we have the will?
I’d like to add this: The Founding Fathers were making it up as they went along; they had no precedent to guide them, no real assurance that this or that choice would work or not. A very few (such as Paine) were smart enough and radical enough to be suspicious of *any* compromise. Most were not.
We have the advantage of having read both federalist and anti-federalist viewpoints, of access to many books and articles available by current freedom writers (as well as those written years ago), and _the knowledge of where a compromised country can lead._ We also have the Internet which can and does extend knowledge beyond the academic.
As books were to the uneducated, so the Internet is to universal awareness. The Internet is capable of finding strong people who’re willing to think for themselves and work for freedom (which is why governments are so hell-bent on controlling the ‘Net). And “average” people can be made stronger by awareness. Just as we learn and grow through experience, so can anyone increase his “freedom strength” through reading say, Rand, Voltaire, Chodorov, Heinlein, Wolfe, Goldman, LaBoetie, etc.
The Word is out there for the taking. We have to learn how to put it together to establish a free society that works — a society which will not take from the uniqueness of the individual, but will point up the validity and success of freedom itself.
“we (as individual freedom-lovers) have not yet learned how to work together for — dare I say it? — the greater good.”
As you pointed out in the follow up, the internet is optimal for trying to do that……All I’d add to your points would be to mention that maybe the individual freedom lovers and people who have learned their people/strength skills from their personal relationships trust those skills enough to apply them “out there”…..
Speaking of being Strong and Free, there’s a new movement afoot.
Take me out to the Black, tell them I ain’t coming back!
http://blastr.com/2011/02/nathan-fillion-and-firefl.php
Although I don’t know how it’s going to work with the original crew. Morena Baccarin is busy being a B*tch Queen on V, and Adam Baldwin as Casey on Chuck. They’d have to go with a new crew.
Claire, this is a great start to a theme essay for your next book!
There you go, Jim. “Strong and Free: The self-help book for people who don’t need one.” 😉
Going back to courage, courage is not the same as fearlessness. Fearless people will endanger themselves and others, because they make no consideration of the possible consequences of their actions. Courageous people are by my definition afraid. But somehow they find a way to not let their fears paralyze them. Instead, they find a way to do what needs to be done in spite of their fears.
In the same way, gentleness is not weakness. Gentleness is strength kept under restraint. The weak cannot be gentle, because they cannot be strong enough to cause great harm. The more strength that is present, the more gentleness is shown in restraining it.
Gentleness and firmness are not mutually exclusive. Both can be the result of choosing not to use available strength or resources to initiate offensive damage.