In a world of rough edges, with rough times and even rougher people – I’m staying soft.

*

*

Growing up thirty years ago,

But with origins well, well before my time –

For the men of the world,

The word ‘soft’, and being considered ‘soft’,

Was the ultimate insult.

It meant you were weak.

It meant you were lesser.

It meant that you weren’t a real man.

For decades, this one word has been used to take the wind out of a males sails,

And has been the ultimate weapon in emasculating one another.

***

Today the remnants of this word still remains.

On our streets,

And on our footy fields.

In our homes,

And in our heads.

‘Soft’.

The sheer power of the word,

And the fear that it can evoke.

Whether it’s how you’ve acted,

How you’ve played,

How much emotion you dared to show,

Or if you backed down.

To be soft, was to be weak,

It was to be a pushover,

A coward.

Soft was the opposite of everything we were told we should aspire to be as men.

Hard and Tough were the goals –

And anything less than this,

Anything softer than this,

Was simply unacceptable.

***

In the blur of demanding people ‘harden up’, and ‘act like a man’,

There was one goal,

One way of being;

‘The Man’.

The one who punches first,

And thinks later – if ever.

The ‘True Man’,

One who never exhibits any level of emotion higher or lower than the baseline five out of ten.

Nothing makes him too happy,

And even less will make him cry.

He works –

Hard.

He provides.

Physically, but never emotionally.

And like an emotion-based pyramid scheme,

This way of being is then passed down onto his children,

As he holds the males in his life to these same standards.

Using his hands and his words to keep them in line.

Abiding.

No boy of theirs is going to be Soft.

Chin up. Man up. Harden up.

***

So if Soft was bad,

What things made us…Hard?

What were we aiming to be?

What’s the goal here?

Is the absence of any emotions the more desirable trait?

Or is there a list of emotions we’re allowed to feel,

And others that are strictly forbidden?

In a world so quick to point out what others are doing wrong,

That relishes in seeing ourselves above another.

What was the right way of being when we adhere to this mindset?

If we’re constantly avoiding ‘soft’,

When, really, in the minds of these men, when picked apart, the word ‘soft’ simply refers to anything deemed remotely ‘feminine’,

And as emotions as something that no man should have nor show –

Are we forcing men to do away with any semblance of humanity within themselves?

And are we men robbing ourselves of the opportunity to be more?

More for our friends.

More for our families.

More for ourselves.

***

If Hard is keeping our heads down,

And weathering any storm – unaffected.

Are we a failure if our armour chinks,

Or worse – if we ever take a hit?

***

But like most words that begin as insults,

After enough time passes,

And we allow ourselves the opportunity to think deeper, and more critically,

The daunting nature of that word can often diminish.

And soon enough, the time comes where the fear and the pressure to live up to an expectation,

Or in this case, a label,

All comes crashing down –

And we are set free.

Where we come to realise that these words and labels that we were once so afraid of;

That forced our hand in how we presented,

And defined who and how we wanted to be and to be seen,

Had been weaponised into making us act a certain way.

Used to keep us boxed in, all in accordance with some unwritten ‘law’.

***

But when we spend enough time digging, and speaking to those around us,

Or if, worst of all, we see this blind adherence rip someone’s life apart,

These words eventually become things we no longer fear –

And instead, we begin questioning whether it was ever in our best interest to abide by them so dutifully in the first place.

***

As an ashamed, and then proud, ‘Softy’ of more than thirty years,

Soft is something that has always come naturally to me.

It’s always been a part of who I am.

I’m not the rough and tumble type,

Contact sports weren’t my thing,

Nor was I ever one for fisticuffs.

But ‘soft’ was a natural instinct that was hard to accept.

When life taught me that this softness wasn’t a desirable trait,

And was actually something that no boy should ever exhibit,

(And by softness, I mean the ability to feel and wear those feelings on my sleeve and have them impact my life)

I was humiliated by the levels my emotions could get to,

And my inability to contain them and push them deep, deep down inside of myself…like a real man should.

And so, I set about ridding myself of them,

Of all of my emotions.

I’d pretend that things wouldn’t affect me,

Both the good and the bad.

I didn’t allow myself to be visibly hurt,

Just as much as I wouldn’t allow myself to be ecstatic.

I sought to be heartless,

And emotionless.

Thinking that by doing this, I’d make ‘them proud’.

Who ‘they’ were, however, was never really made clear.

I was never really that good at it,

But still I tried.

Doing my best to deny these parts of who I was,

And acting chronically unaffected.

Even when doing all these things that I was supposed to do,

I was never living up to these ideals of masculinity.

I’d try and try,

But would watch it just slip through my fingers, time after time.

I was never the right type of masculine,

In the eyes of men around me,

Those that I knew, and more that I didn’t,

And so –

I began to shed them.

Shed these ideals,

And begin living in a way that felt right and true to me.

***

But the status-quo fights men who dare to change,

It shames them,

And seeks to belittle them,

As it battles to be reinstated.

Seeking to regain its power.

Boomers will say we’ve lost what it is to be a man,

That there are no ‘real men’ anymore.

Whilst the generations that have come up under them say that all these masculine attributes that they heralded and that were modelled to them,

Were really just alcohol-fuelled, violent, and damaging.

An Achilles heel, masquerading as a strength,

That lead them, willingly, to men’s own demise –

And irrevocably damaging those that they claimed to love.

It comes as no surprise then, that in a culture that has historically expected an absolutist form of strength from its men,

With no room for humanity, or ’softness’,

That the biggest killer of men between the ages of 15 and 44 is themselves;

Is suicide.

Suicide is at epidemic levels,

And it seems that we ourselves are both the cause and the cure.

***

Because when we expect men to abide by a strict set of rules,

Expecting them to act a certain way – purely based on their gender,

Cracks will appear.

They always will –

In everyone.

And by denying men the right to their full range of emotions,

By instead expecting them to force those feelings down deep inside,

And by reiterating the dated messaged that to feel is wrong rather than real,

This will continue to happen, again and again,

These numbers will continue to rise.

The dead will pile up.

Those emotions and feelings – pushed down and hidden away for so long –

Will always find their way out,

But now, in the most extreme of ways.

Causing harm to those who deny them,

And harm to those in these men’s orbits.

And we act shocked each time,

Twiddling our thumbs wondering why this happens,

Why are our fathers, brothers, and friends reach this point of no return,

When the idea of feeling this level of emotions is first and foremost seen as a weakness,

And the idea of reaching out, or offering comfort to someone else, is seen as a weakness too?

***

So when it comes to the battle between being porous; feeling every little thing, both good and bad,

Versus being a brick wall; a steel vault, one impenetrable and unfeeling –

I’ll take being a little soft.

Every single time.

I’ll take feeling.

Being moved by things.

Being passionate about things.

Feeling fear,

And feeling sadness.

The whole gamut of it all –

Rather than endeavouring to live a life unmoved;

One unfeeling.

I’ve seen the cost of men constantly seeking to prove ones toughness and masculinity in the eyes of others,

Of chasing those forever-moving goalposts of what it is to be Hard and Tough,

And the desperate clawing to be seen as the ‘manliest man’ in the room.

All in the hopes that once you get there –

If you get there –

That then you’ll be accepted by these faceless men whose opinions you seem to care about the most.

***

I’ve seen the idea that to be a man of merit, to be a man of esteem,

You need to be cold and unbreakable;

One who inflicts harm, and belittles others.

Elevating oneself, by walking over those around you.

The ‘ultimate man’ is the king of the castle,

With no-one held dear.

A lone soldier.

But the thing is,

Once the world inevitably serves you hit after hit,

It’s hard to maintain that unbreakable façade –

And the men you turn to for validation will only turn their backs on someone who dared break.

And when you’re breaking apart,

You see that in this pursuit of this ever-elusive masculinity,

You’ve sacrificed any form of a support system –

Lest you be seen as weak by ever wanting or needing one,

And so when you find yourself at your most vulnerable,

Those poor foundations are exposed,

And you lack the words and the abilities to emote safely,

And securely,

And it can all come crumbling down.

You can come all crumbling down.

***

When men are taught to exist alone within this pressure-cooker environment,

With no outlet or release to speak of;

Other than yelling at a TV, or drinking to numbing away emotion,

There will always come a tipping point,

A breaking point,

A moment when it bubbles up,

And over,

And then off a cliff.

Into one almighty explosion.

Where the weight of the world reaches its limit,

And the pillars that held up the man start to waver,

And then crumble completely.

And what are we left with?

Someone who, in their final act of stoicism,

In their last act of being The Man,

Believes they have no other option than to take their own life.

To end it all.

To remove themselves from feeling this pain, or facing the embarrassment.

***

So in the battle of being the ultimate man,

In the battle of forever hardening up –

Who’s winning here?

If this elusive ‘manhood’ we’re so desperately clinging to is something so delicate that it can be threatened or taken away by someone else,

Perhaps it’s not so real after all.

Because who really benefits from this?

Who are we trying to appease by denying ourselves what we know is only human?

And is all of this worth killing ourselves over?

Maybe, just maybe,

This is something that never really served us in the first place.

Maybe we need to make a change, and have our own backs,

And when we do,

We’ll find that we can have the backs of our mates too.

That we can reverse this trend,

And drive these numbers back down.

***

But as we seek to make these changes in our own lives,

We need to be just as sympathetic to those who believe they need to uphold these values,

As much as we are to those who wish to buck the trend.

Rigidity in who someone is,

Or who someone should be,

Is always going to lead to a trip up,

A crisis of character,

A ‘failure’.

Because we can’t have this strict, rigid view of how a man should act and be,

And then act aghast when we, and they, continue to die for not living up to it.

Not everyone needs to be an emotional lyricist,

Unfurling a poetic dialogue, or tears like a tidal wave, day after day, at the first hint of a feeling.

But we should allow expression and release in whatever ways people need and currently possess.

In whatever way feels most right to them,

And in the way that serves them most.

Allowing boys and men to grow and change,

To continuously evolve, and be better,

All in the hopes that they will be grow to be good, and fair, and strong,

Because Hard doesn’t mean strong,

Just as Soft doesn’t mean weak.

Something hard isn’t immune from breaking under the slightest hint of resistance or pressure,

And something soft and malleable isn’t always something fragile.

And surely there’s more strength to be found in the man that is unashamedly himself,

Who takes on who he is,

And goes out into the world, warts and all,

Bare and unflinching.

The men that know who they are;

Their strengths and their weaknesses,

Who is willing to grow,

And be better,

And uses that power to lift themselves and to lift others around them,

To be the best they can be.

That’s strength.

Especially when compared to someone who presents only a fabricated version of themselves,

Seeking to garner the respect and affection of those around them,

By hiding away the only true parts of themselves,

And elevating themselves through making others feel inferior.

Attempting to only ever present their ‘toughest’ version,

This stereotype of The Man,

Hand-crafted with the intention of intimidation and adoration,

By other men.

They live this lie,

And then demand the ones who come after them to do and act the same.

Continuing the cycle of bury, break, and hurt.

***

In a world of hard times,

With people endeavouring endlessly to be harder,

It’s time to be the reverse.

To be what was always taught to us as an insult.

After years of trying my best to be something I’m not,

To harden myself,

And shut myself off,

I want to be soft.

I choose to be soft.

I choose soft, and with that, I choose to take on all that comes with being soft.

I choose to be soft, and so,

I choose then to feel things deeply; both the good and the bad.

I choose to feel those things completely,

To have them reach my core.

And while that’s not always a pleasant feeling,

With the sticks and stones breaking my bones, so too, will words often hurt me,

But if I’m wanting to live a full life,

A true life.

To feel love, happiness and all gamut of the good emotions deeply,

I must then be strong enough to be open to feeling the pain, sadness and grief that comes just as deeply too.

Because after years of being numb,

Soft is exactly where I want to be,

Soft is exactly where I choose to be.

And I am stronger because of it.

I’ve found there’s no power that comes with being immune,

Cold. Unfeeling.

But by being soft,

By being human,

We can lead with our hearts,

And interact with others on a deeper, more meaningful, more real level,

And support and strengthen others when they need it –

And then have someone to pick us up when we inevitably fall too.

There’s nothing we can do to avoid the hard times in life,

The dips,

Where all can seem so lost and unending.

But what we can change,

What we can control,

Is how we act,

How we react,

And how we deal with these inevitabilities.

By using the strength in our hearts,

By being the man who helps himself,

And has the backs of other men,

The brotherhood will live on,

It will strengthen,

And it will survive.

Together.

***

We’ve tried the other way,

And the death toll is only rising.

It seems obvious,

But having a heart,

In our chests and in our actions,

Is what separates us from the beast, And makes us all unequivocally, and spectacularly, human.

******

Suicide Statistics: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-deaths/deaths-in-australia/contents/leading-causes-of-death