The Strength in Men

Not so calm

The world serrated when he arrived. The very clouds touched the earth, and lightning kissed the moss on the tendrils of grass. A hue of deep blood red with the white lightning at its epicentre, where the lord of thunder stood calm, breathing into the storm. Redemption burned in that heart of steel of his. A forge that melted rocks itself. Fallen from grace, he lurks in the shadows and hunts for vengeance.

First rule of engagement: put it into words.

Loneliness is a cruel, quiet beast. I find myself envying those who can endure it with ease. I envy who I once was—someone who could survive on little. There’s a kind of sacred ignorance in emotional immaturity, one we often don’t appreciate until it’s gone. Because once you begin to truly see—to notice how people can be cold, sharp, indifferent, or simply drift away without notice—what creeps in is something bitter. A weight that doesn’t lift. Hopelessness, despair, sadness so thick it chokes—and alongside it, flashes of rage, helplessness, grief that winds itself into your very breath. Emotional pain doesn’t bruise where others can see, but it’s brutal all the same. To watch everything collapse, and still summon even a flicker of will to move forward—that is a test of spirit most can’t imagine.

Just like ignorance can shield you, emotional immaturity offers a strange kind of peace. Because the more you ask, why?, and find no answers, the more that wind of sorrow hits you. It’s cold and endless. You might turn your thoughts elsewhere, but it finds you again. Even when you’ve wrapped yourself in sincerity, care, and truth, the world can still tear through it, like wind flapping through the seams of a worn-out tent. The chill seeps in. And it hurts.

To open yourself, to put effort into mending something real, and receive silence in return—when you’re made to feel like you were never enough, and don’t even deserve honesty—it’s natural to fall apart. Shatter, really.

No comfort seems enough. The pain lingers. You may speak, shout, write it all down—but it often does little. Pain stays until it doesn’t. It will run its course. Until then, you endure. Everything feels far away. Work, ambition, even hope—out of reach. Maybe you crave a simple gesture—a hug, someone’s shoulder, anything warm. But in the silence, your bedsheet is the only embrace you have. And that’s a hard truth.

Still, you walk outside with a steady face. You keep your pain hidden. And if despite wanting to be seen, to be understood, you choose instead to carry it quietly, that—that—is strength. Quiet strength. Resilience.

It’s hard to believe right now that time heals. It feels like a cruel phrase. A hollow one. But even a fool’s hope is a kind of hope. Maybe the last thread, but still—something to hold. So you sit. Cry. Collapse. Then rise. Cry again. But then, you walk. Slowly. Weakly. But with courage. Faint, perhaps. Temporary, surely. But courage all the same. So walk.

There’s a particular kind of strength in speaking your truth and knowing it may change nothing. In walking away from what you once clung to. In choosing peace over pain. Because the longer you walk down the wrong path, the harder it is to find your way home. Recognize where you faltered. Try to do better. That too is a strength. Maybe it is the strength of the highest kind. Acknowledgement and efforts. It is truly bitter that your efforts go unnoticed. Find your solace in the fact, gradually but surely, that you worked. That is a capstone achievement.

Breaking ties and the irreplaceability of oneself

Rebuilding his strength, his forgotten strength. He who once was the heartthrob of a million people lies desolate amidst the grass. Even the vipers leave him be.

The understanding that no one is truly worth the weight of your efforts—that you, alone, are both the raw material and the machinery through which your being is forged—emerges slowly. Agonizingly so. The aching impulse to surrender, to bare yourself to another, marks a pivotal juncture in life. For it is only after yielding to that impulse, and witnessing the quiet wreckage it leaves behind, that one begins to grasp a brutal truth: no one truly cares. The only figure of lasting consequence in your story is you.

By my assumptions and presuppositions, it is near certain that this realization arrives only after the long search—for solace, for validation, for the gentle hand of kindness in others—has left you more fractured than before. Not only does the ruin, the debris of what you’ve long carried, lie scattered about your heart, but now a fresh assault, a newer, crueller arsenal, has laid waste to the remnants of the remnants of your belief.

Welcome home, now. Find yourself alone—and begin again. Rebuild, not because anyone asked you to, but because it is the only path forward. That is a strength. That is resilience. That is the quiet, tireless grit of your indomitable spirit. As much as your life is yours to shape or shatter, know this: people have their own urgencies, their own dreams. To truly occupy a place within someone’s innermost longings is a rare thing. And when you’re dislodged from that imagined pedestal—when you fall—that fall is ruinous. But it is also the beginning. That is when the search begins. That is when you finally place yourself where you always should have been—at the centre. Know this: that which wounds you once will likely wound you again. Those who choose to cast you aside have made a decision—and in doing so, they have exercised their agency, their dominion, over your presence in their life. That is their right. But it need not govern your worth. Do not mistake fleeting kindness or carefully chosen words for truth. Often, it is mere courtesy, the shallow grace of civility. Be grateful, if you must, and then move on. Understand deeply: your worth is not to be held ransom to the affections or whims of others. Your tears are finite. Let them fall if they must—but do not beg them back. Let them go, as others have let you go. There is profound strength in understanding another human being. Now that you’ve shown that strength, carry it like a torch. Feed the flame. Let it consume the soft, naive hope you once held. Ash, after all, is the richest soil for new growth. Build. Not just healing, but esteem. Not just survival, but stature. A little ego. A little fire. A presence that does not apologize for taking space. You are, whether you asked for it or not, the ‘chosen one’ in your life. So choose. And choose yourself.

A work in progress