We Need Softer Hearts, Not Softer Minds

My weak-minded younger self was easily upset and quick to anger. The world, in my opinion, was misinterpreting me; I had felt wronged, but I hadn’t realised I was misinterpreting myself and my own actions, as we do when we are not fully aware.

The me I didn't see was mean, thoughtless, disingenuous, an unreliable narrator of his own story, and a complete ass at times. My mind, weak, was not strong enough to admit any of this. The external world was the issue. People were my problem. I'd justify and rationalise my own actions, while being slighted by others' perceptions of myself.

My hard heart dismissed others' pain and suffering, as my soft mind coddled my own ineptitude as a human, stroking my ego to feel strong and in control.

We can see the traps humans fall into and learn to understand how we and others tick to varying degrees as we grow, perhaps through having good role models, or being lucky enough to see ourselves, our minds, and others through useful frameworks like psychology, philosophy, and sometimes religion,

Through this process, we become more understanding of our own flawed minds, nature, and humanity, become a little more real with ourselves, and a little more compassionate towards others in the same boat.

The difficult mother or father is now seen through the understanding of being a flawed human rather than through a filter of simply being mean, cold, heartless, selfish, nasty, bad, or even evil. Friends, family, rivals, and role models are now seen through a framework that recognises our human nature.

Around fourteen, I had a conversation with my mother that threw me for six; these moments were common enough to make me feel misunderstood, which caused me pain. I told her that I had lost my friend group at school, and that I had felt lonely. Her response was, "But Ricky, you've never had any friends." Before walking away.

I don't know what was going on in her head at the time, but looking back, she often saw me through a lens of my worst qualities and failed to see the more redeemable attributes that I could see in myself. Perhaps I failed to see my worst qualities as a reactive mechanism to my mother's reactions to me and my ways.

Thirty-six years later, I have a good relationship with my mother and see her and dad most weeks. While still being triggered by them from time to time, I see their humanity, their struggles, and their love.

We can learn to see ourselves more clearly, in a more nuanced fashion, as opposed to looking at ourselves through the lens of the ideal self, ignoring, justifying, and rationalising all our shitty behaviour as just, true, righteous, and deserved.

As we become more aware of our nature, we become more honest with ourselves while also becoming more caring and compassionate. Our worth is no longer tied to the untruths we tell ourselves to feel strong. Our strength comes from a realistic viewpoint, while having higher expectations of ourselves, with realistic expectations of others and where they are at on their own journey.

This makes us less judgemental, more forgiving, understanding, and more knowledgeable about our own heart and mind and those of others.

We can see our positive and negative attributes without overidentifying with them. We recognise our folly for what it is, without collapsing into a heap, because we understand that that is the nature of man, and only through this recognition can we hope to overcome it in some way.

We no longer align with our idealised self; through this we gain greater insight into our own flawed, sinful nature and connect that to being human rather than being fundamentally wrong, inadequate, defective, evil, or a tainted spirit in a realm of purer souls. 

We see everything as broken, and we are part of that brokenness. We become aware that we are all universally troubled, misguided, biased, compulsive, driven by dangerous impulses, and emotions as human beings.

Through that insight, we can better take hold of these inequities and stand a little freer from them through awareness, restraint, self-care, and kindness.

Others’ opinions of us, whether good or bad, no longer inflate us or shrink us because we have a clearer picture of who we are through that hard-earned insight.

Our minds must be strong enough and wise enough to see our own folly, and to minimise the folly we produce, while our hearts must remain gentle enough not to dehumanise ourselves or those we share life with.

It is not that we no longer judge. We all judge. But that judgement comes with an awareness of the nature of humanity, people's circumstances and attributes, and a critical understanding of our own judgements and the realisation that they are inevitably misguided.

We begin to see the other person through the understanding of being another flawed human with the same need for love, compassion, understanding, kindness, and care.

I see men my age around me reaching 50, still believing in the mantra of 'go hard or go home,' still trying to present as strong because the fragility of their minds causes them to project an image of manliness and strength.

Men who still believe apologising makes them weak. They would rather explain, justify, blame, or become silent than admit they hurt someone. They call it strength, but often it is just a frightened ego protecting itself from the humiliation of being wrong.

Their hearts are hard towards others as they judge the world through an overly critical lens, when, in reality, they are fragile because they themselves cannot truly live up to their own idealised self.