What It Means To Be Strong

 In my twenty-two years of life nothing has stung more than the realization that there are many ways to be strong; and that each is an endless depth unto itself. I do not know why it took me so long to see it. It should have been obvious. Confucius says, "to take what is close at hand as an analogy for what is far" and you will not stray too far. I know that when I was a young boy I wanted to be strong more than anything;  judging from my interactions with them, I think most young boys do. This is what is close at hand. So what is far? I would say that when I was a young boy the farthest thing imaginable was a young girl. In some ways I still find young women hard to comprehend... but that just goes to show I need to do a better job listening. Confucius says, "to take what is close at hand as an analogy for what is far." The young boy in my past is close at hand and girls were and are still far. If I, as a young boy, wanted to be strong more than anything, I am going to assume that young girls do too. It is from this assumption that I can clearly see that strength is multi-facted.
    Young boys are (not unanimously, but predictably, at least in our culture) obsessed with fighting and their muscles. Why, because we see this as what makes a person strong, and we want to be strong. Young girls, (not unanimously, but predictably, at least in our culture) are obsessed with their beauty and grace. Is this not also because they see this as what makes a person strong? Beauty gives you power over others just as physical dominance does, but in a different way. Then you begin to think about it, and you realize that someone who is beautiful or muscular can still be psychologically weak. So there is strength over others and there is strength over yourself; and within each of these categories there is a wide variety of methods for obtaining said strength. Strength is a plurality.
     But as a young boy (and perhaps a young girl too) you want to be able to say that your strength is the supreme strength. The strength that stands on top of all others. But you can't; and it is hard to accept, the promiscuity of what is strong.
     Harder still, is accepting the fact that your strength, the world you live and breathe in, is just as unknowable as strength in the broader more absolute sense. If you are a thinker, a runner, a drawer, a breather,  and you are concerned with being strong, you cannot imagine the ends of your world. To love an art (all those just listed and more) is to chase it to infinity knowing full well that it is a place we will never be able to go. I am such a man that loves strength, and so I love the Don Quixotes of the world. the men and women who follow that star all the time knowing just how far a star is from where they are. To me that is what it means to be strong. That is what it means to be beautiful.
    But it is hard. More so than you could ever possible imagine. I do not know if it is the culture that I was raised in or if it is should be attributed to a facet of the human condition, but I find myself incredibly prone to floating. There is a quote, I apologize that I do not know if I am quoting it properly, or who it should be attributed to, but it goes something like, "the enemy of great is not bad, it is good." Once we reach some level of proficiency we are satiated at a remarkable speed. And this applies for every single thing a person does. We learn to think, we learn a couple interesting facts or tricks, we give up on there being another way. We learn to walk and never once think that we could differently and that it would be better. To some extent I suppose this is necessary. If we meticulously went over every minute piece of existence we would never get anywhere. But I think we are at a point that is of the opposite extreme. Where even with the things we love and care about we have lost all sense of humility, all sense of passion, or curiosity and have assumed our own superiority self-evident. In all fairness, I am a step beyond this where I vocalize said arrogance, but I do not think it is that big of a step. And I do think that the majority of people are not that far from me. Perhaps they keep it to themselves, perhaps they do not actively try to change people, but the are every bit as stagnant with their methods of loving, problem-solving, thinking, living.

    Confucius says that in a hamlet of 20 homes you would find people as smarter than him or more courageous, but that no one excels him in his love of learning. To love learning, truly love learning, is to constantly be plumbing the depths of the world you have chosen to reside in (By world here I am referring to a body of knowledge that comprises a way of life that you believe to be strong/good/right and have chosen to partake in).

  I'll accept it if you think you know how to tie your shoes and brush your teeth, but anything beyond that level I cannot.