Hurt people hurt people. I first heard this adage in Gnarls Barkley’s song “Would Be Killer” and its something that I’ve periodically meditated upon without much intensity. But as my peers and I hurtle into what can only be described as “legitimate adulthood”, I still see remnants of immaturity that is nothing less than toxic to our fragile social framework. To exacerbate circumstances even further, the elder age brackets are often the one’s promulgating these terribly caustic philosophies.
Back to the statement: “hurt people hurt people”. Those that are broken, will directly contribute to the breaking of others. Why? Because no matter how much we try and elevate ourselves, misery does in fact love company. Furthermore, and the more insidious culprit is the principle of causality. Cause & effect in layman’s terms. Because a cycle of shameless self absorption and shortsightedness was initiated hundreds of years ago, each subsequent generation has found themselves steeped in an emotional mire which has grown exponentially.
Now with the advent of technology we have an entire globe of people, especially young people, trading theories from severely damaged emotional centers.
As I was reading my Twitter timeline I came across a tweet from a very popular account. The tweet broke my heart. “Never get too attached to anyone because attachments leads to expectations & expectations leads to disappointments.” This post perfectly captures the emotional state of mainstream culture, at least from my perspective. An existence marked by shallowness & fear. One where duplicity is standard because no one wants to get hurt. An existence that is #1 culprit in our dismal dating arena.
Just take a second to think about the implications. This clearly hurt person is advising other people to avoid hurt by avoiding intimacy. I don’t mean intimacy in terms of sexuality, but intimacy as far as deep connections between two beings. In order to avoid what they clear see as inevitable disappointment, they are counseling people to avoid everyone. The statement isn’t: “be judicious about your associations” or “be careful who you give your heart to”, but “never get close to anybody.
Fear is our kryptonite. It is the human condition’s Achilles’ heel. Although all sin’s originate from insecurity and inferiority, fear is often the wings on which they are borne. Fear of intimacy is what is clearly being described. That close, intimate interpersonal connections will begat disappointment. Disappointment is the most pointless of all human emotional experiences. It negates so many of life’s lessons because the person is so caught up in what didn’t happen. But the fact of the matter is, what did happen was something to be enlightened by, even in all of its discomfort.
In my recent post “Love Fearlessly”, I said that the only way to find love is to love harder. I am promulgating that belief once again. Our world is comprised of emotional pussies (pardon my French). People who are so damn terrified of pain. To add insult to metaphysical injury, we are also in a generation of pathological liars. The “I don’t give a fuck” mentality is peddled interminably, but we are some of the most sensitive humans in recorded history. That fact that so many of us have clammed up is a testament to our sensitivity, yet instead of facing the world unafraid, we don shields of pseudo arrogance and apathy and proclaim how much we don’t “give a fuck”.
Young people generally fall into 2 categories: emotional survivalists & emotional dreamers. Survivalists are those who have been hurt and exhibit all the behaviors I’ve described in this post. The truth is, survivalists permeate the older age brackets as well, it is their counsel and demeanor which have led to survivalism be so prevalent in their progeny. Dreamers are those who are foolishly optimistic about matters of the heart, yet have not formulated a plan as to how their fantasies can be secured. Once hurt, dreamers inexorably become survivalists, carrying out the bare minimum, avoiding vulnerable intimacy, and proclaiming their impractical gospel of pain to the masses.
Okay Bryce as usual you’ve described a problem, well what do you posit as a solution? In all honesty, people need to wake the fuck up. If the masses are all experiencing the same problem, within the same population, then the solution lies within the group described. We have all the tools to combat emotional frivolity and create an environment salubrious to healthy intimacy. We must first abandon — no burn — the ideas that detachment, superficiality, and paranoia are conducive to human evolution. This is nothing but fear rearing its ugly head. We must realize that pain is temporary but fulfillment is forever. The fear of abandonment or rejection is understandable, but it is also the stumbling block of emotional health. You MUST love your partner, family, friend, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend as if it is your last day together. That if they chose to walk out the door tomorrow, you would be satisfied regardless. It is that love that breeds 50 year marriages and forges inseparable bonds. It is that emotional fortitude that combats the abject condition we have allowed our emotional perspectives to deteriorate to.
Love takes courage, while fear requires nothing but insecurity. Not many of us are brave but everyone has a measure of insecurity. If you allow that measure to act unchecked, fear will consume you. It will make the illogical, logical. It will tell you that you can experience satisfying love from behind the walls of detachment. Or it will tell you that love doesn’t matter. Fear will take God’s blessings and replace them with the world’s content and you’ll completely miss some of the most beautiful things in life. Fear will steal your joy and capture your hope.
The goal for every thriving human being should be balance. Balance physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. The emotionally balanced person is not a survivor nor a dreamer, but an emotional warrior: fearless. The warrior goes into battle willing to give his or her life for the cause. Willing to die for what they believe….
How many of us are willing to take an arrow for love? Lose an arm for intimacy? Die for attachment? Not many. We are much more comfortable walled up in our supposedly impregnable fortresses, swearing its the safest option.
I’d rather die fulfilled than live fearful, so I plan on loving each person I find myself attached to like I’ll never see them again.
bryce
bryce's labyrinth 