On the Necessity to Cultivate Strength

The Wanderer Above the Sea Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

So much of today’s inclinations dive deep into the notion that people should be more congenial to their fellowmen, hence the ever so enticing sentiment “be nice, there is already so much hate in the world.” This too, however, holds a great amount of morality and compassion for those inflicted by suffering. If we have witnessed a random stranger being harassed by others, would we not tell the perpetrators to stop whatever they are doing? Fundamentally branching from the former sentiment. Or perhaps you may have seen a loving friend, a family member, a former lover utter the words “I just don’t want you to be hurt.”

However, to say that this perspective on human behavior is skin deep is an understatement; for if we wish there not to be any suffering for our fellowmen, do we also not wish for the withering of their beings? To desire a stress-free life is to also desire a rather dull and monotonous life. Seneca once said, “excellence withers without an adversary;” there exists a type of stress that is necessary for individuals to thrive, to cultivate the individual in order to make for a stronger man—both physically and mentally.

In the book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” authors Haidt and Lukainoff both bring forward the proposition that neither should people be fragile nor resilient; since fragility is the inevitable susceptibility for the fracturing of the soul, and resilience is as a fallen plastic cup—neither breaking nor benefitting from the fall. Instead, what individuals should then develop is the spirit of “Anti-Fragility;” “Many of the important systems in our economic and political life are like our immune systems: they require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing challenges them or pushes them to respond vigorously. He notes that muscles, bones, and children are antifragile:” (Haidt. J, Lukianoff, G. The Coddling of the American Mind).

Instead of embodying the archetypal devouring mother—keeping your loved ones safe from all possible harms while simultaneously denying them life’s call to adventure—let individuals explore the world with the necessary armory to confront the dragons of their lives. A much needed paradigm shift then befalls our laps: the desire for strength, not protection; to not be less afraid but rather to be braver. The world is radically unsafe and history has put forward this idea time and time again, therefore the solution must then be to willingly accept the burdens of existence and to courageously accept the pessimisms life has to offer. To take incremental steps towards the exposure to things ever so frightful, leading to the discovery that humans are much, much stronger than the adversaries that beset them.

To look at the devils that govern the world, to take the cross without fail and willingly walk up the hill, and perhaps through looking at that which man does not want to look at—then maybe shall he see that which his soul longs for. For if the solution to the world’s fruit of suffering and pessimism is not the cower in hiding and protection, then perhaps we might find the answer to be the cultivation of both physical and mental strength and antifragility.