Big Boys Don't Cry

When I pay attention I realize that I am (or have mostly been) trying to be tough. By tough I mean brave, fearless, courageous, gutsy, intrepid. Ringing in my ears are the commands to childhood: Big boy’s don’t cry, don’t be a scaredy-cat, don’t be a pussy, a wimp,. a spineless hon-yocker, yellow bellied coward, a gutless yahoo.

These orders come not just from adults, but from peers. Other boys take up the chant when there are no grown up men around. A skinned knee will cause your best friend in second grade to yell into your face, “don’t be a pussy!” or “Grow up, cry baby,” or “what’s the matter with you, you forkin’ faggot” or the more honest challenges: “Man-up,” “grow up,” “take it like a man.”

So, when I was very young, I figured out that it is vital for young boys to fake fearlessness. I did figure out how to be a fake. One key to fearlessness is the phrase, “keep a stiff upper lip.” You tighten your jaw, and tense up your lips. That will keep the lips from quivering. Stick your chest out and tighten the muscles in your neck, shoulder, and pectorals, along with the muscles around your eyes. If you can look fierce enough the tears near enough to the brim of your eyelids, can look like the steely gaze of a psychopathic killing machine. That Charles Manson glare looks menacing, but, at least in my case, it was a mask made out of my own face that hides my true, weak, cowardly nature. Next, you must clench your fists. This will make your observers think you are ready to fight, while hiding the fact that your fingers are trembling.

Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.

~Franklin P. Jones

Bravery and toughness must be practiced. That is why you are dared to walk through a graveyard alone at midnight, sneaking into an abandoned and rumored haunted house. Sometimes the practice involves real risk. You can be dared to jump off a cliff into the river, or to swim across a lake, or to trespass on a rival gang’s territory, or to steal a car, or inject the brown liquid from a dirty spoon.

The Jackass videos are proof positive that men are insanely committed to showing the world that they are not afraid. The fact that some of our peers die taking stupid risks is necessary for these fearlessness practice sessions to work.

Unless these practice acts are known to be real risks then these un-risky risks prove nothing. Remember the scene in the now classic movie THE CHRISTMAS STORY where one kid is dared to stick his tongue to the freezing flagpole. As long as it was just a dare the boy being taunted still has an out, but once his is “double dog dared,” well, there is nothing left to do but stick your tongue out and lean toward the flagpole. These “double-dog dare you” acts, if they don’t kill you, teach you to act like you are brave.

In Tim O”Brien’s autobiographical novel, The Things They Carried there is a section where he writes about getting his draft notice. He contemplates fleeing to Canada. He is in a fishing boat, within a few yards of the Canadian boarder, and he wants to go, he wants to flee, but he doesn’t. He then states that he didn’t go to Vietnam because he was brave, but because he was too cowardly to go to Canada. He went to Vietnam because his cowardice prevented him from making the moral choice of not going off to a war he felt was immoral, unwarranted, and an unforgivable waste of American lives.

Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.

~Thomas Fuller

The thing about practicing fearlessness is that eventually, over time, you can fool yourself into believing that you are actually NOT afraid of anything, even stuff that is illogical not to fear. Far too many men have paid a heavy price for standing up to our fears, and from viewing ourselves as actually, or at least potential heroes.

We become calloused to our own emotions. When I was 15 years old I taught myself to play the guitar. My guitar was cheap and the steel strings and the neck of the guitar were uncomfortably far apart. To make the chords required me to press hard and the wire cut into my finger tips and it didn’t take long before my fingertips were raw and eventually they were bleeding. Over time however, I developed calluses. The skin on my fingertips grew hard and thick, and the strings could no longer cut into my flesh, because my fingertips were as tough as shoe leather. My body’s ability to callus over where needed did eliminate my pain, but it also made it hard for me to pick up dimes. By not feeling pain, I gave up feeling anything at all. There is a similar gain and loss in pretending to be brave. By killing the body’s ability to react to fear, we end up losing our ability to react to all emotions.

I am a father, and the purest most unconditional love in my life is for my son Ryan. There is no one on this earth that I care more about than my grown up son, and yet, when he calls I find it almost impossible to talk to him. I grow tongue tied. I think so much that I have trouble sleeping, but when he calls, I can’t think what to say to him. I’m grunting answers to his questions and asking the most inane questions, and in my head I hear my own voice yelling at me, “Talk to him, stoop-o!” “Enjoy this chance to hear his voice.!” Gather every word he says and enjoy them now and revel in them later.”

After he has hung up, I sit around demanding an answer: What is wrong with me?

Answer? I have protected myself from pain and fear by stifling my own emotional life, and now, it’s like being forced to converse in Spanish when I have never learned Spanish. I don’t have the words of emotion, I don’t understand the rules of emotion, I have a thousand things to say to Ryan, and not one clue how to say anything.

I’m afraid I don’t like the consequences of my manly efforts. Macho, to my mind, is not Much-o.