Soft or Shut down

It was surprising to watch an old Christmas Day video of myself, dejected and withdrawn. I was sitting on the couch surrounded by family and traditional holiday music, though I immediately spotted an isolated soul in my own demeanor. It isn’t abnormal, especially for teenage boys, to shut down. The walls of protection are built early - both to protect the softness but also to conceal its existence. And the softness begins to dry up because no nutrients can reach it. The young boy usually finds that no amount of machismo, alcohol, or false toughness erases the need for connection and compassion.

Vulnerability is essential for our liberation — not just personally, but as a collective humanity. It is not just young boys but humanity that longs to have its softness known. We are not liberated in the false confines of emotional concrete and psychological steel meant to shield us from others - we are liberated, instead, by the truth of our softness. In the way that soft soil welcomes seeds, vulnerability opens us up to one another.

Especially during a time when power and greed are seducing to protect us from our vulnerabilities, it is evermore the case that softness is not weakness. To soften the soil is not simply an interpersonal act of vulnerability but it is political resistance to a hyper-individualistic, hyper-capitalist system; a system that favors efficiency and dualism over human softness. To shut down is to dry up. To become boxed in. To separate ourselves from the natural nutrients we all need to live: concern, interest, connection, and love. To soften is to live.