BOLDNESS LOOKS LIKE THIS

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

A determined bold man walking the boldness journey / Photo Courtesy / David McEaclan

Lonely Road

Are you sure. You would like to know what boldness looks like? You do. Okay. This is what boldness looks like. It looks like a lonely road. Only people with courage can walk that road. Challenging social norms, which advance falseness requires courage. It is easy to tell someone don’t do this or that. Limiting other people is easy. However, breaking free from those limitations is not easy. It requires adulting up. Knowing your worth. And refusing to settle. Systems tell people that they cannot do some things. The purpose of such falsehoods is to prevent people from becoming what they were meant to become. Harsh practices want those whom they are silencing to accept average. Systems prefer conformity. Sameness. Mediocrity, and aborted dreams. Societies that advance false narratives aim to silence a certain group of people by instilling fear.

Women in particular, have borne the brunt of several misrepresentations, falsehoods, and erasures. For example, the Victorian society prevented women from accessing education. And defined for them a very narrow path of who they should be. A boredom kind of path. That only put women on track for ignorance, domestic violence, and depression. Whereas, men were free to do and become anything. Women were limited. They could only become housewives. They were not even allowed to think for themselves. Because according to the Victorian society. A woman was incapable of being a rational thinker. Women and children were put in the same category. For them to do the right thing. They needed to be chaperoned. By a man who knew very little about their needs.

There was no real love in most families. Most women were forced into being wives. A 14 year-old is not ready. A 14-year-old is a child who still needs care and protection. However, a whole society forced this child to become something she did not choose. Because a few insecure men somewhere. Confused limitation with innovation. There is absolutely nothing good that comes from being restricted. Even those who find themselves in such circumstances, and conform. Do not end up living their best lives. Something is always missing. There is no satisfaction in limitations. There is no quality life in forced living. Someone who has been bullied into accepting something he or she does not want has no joy. Life does not make sense. Those people feel robbed. Mostly of their inherent human dignity.

Where Does Courage Come from?

A focused young man finding courage / Photo / Juan M. Cameron

Life transitions from being an experience of learning, discovery, and evolution into punishment. People become punished for being a certain gender or being from a certain environment. In these hopeless situations. Courage is needed. The oppressed need to wake up. And put up a ferocious fight against being silenced. Boldness is needed to help stop bad practices. But when a generation has been battered. Disrespected. And thrown into a pit of hopelessness. Where should such a generation find strength to fight? If this is how things have been since the beginning. How can a new generation challenge those evil practices? Where does courage come from? Where does boldness come from? When a society intentionally make others lag behind by denying them an education. When a whole society prevents a child from dreaming.

What kind of future is it usually designing for this child? And what kind of brain is usually at work during such moments? Why should a whole society be guided by someone who has failed to bridge his own challenges? People who are only interested in controlling others. Have their own psychological challenges. Challenges that trace back to their own childhoods. And the experiences that they went through as children. Why should a few people control a narrative? Because they suffered. And other people should suffer too? Since, they remained five-year-olds in their minds. Other people should remain children too? Do you see now, how boldness is a lonely road? Confronting these heavy psychological conundrums that trapped the inventors of harsh cultural practices is difficult. Those limits were created out of pain.

Men were suffering. They did not know any better. They were passing a long what was taught to them. By mostly people who did not have discernment or wisdom. The past generation that taught these men limitation, did not know love. Their definition of love was convoluted. Love was defined using a single-sided, misleading perspective. Everything began and ended with a man. A man had to be satisfied. A man did not need permission. A man could have anything he wanted. But that is not how a normal society functions. That is not even how a normal person functions. Life is made up of steps. You must complete one course before you begin the other. Life is a discipline. It has its rules and regulations. And to that end. Bullies must be stopped. It is not about what they want. It is about human dignity. It has always been about human dignity.

Cost of Boldness

Systems need to see people as deserving human beings. And as deserving human beings. They are entitled to their rights and freedoms. The right to life is irrefutable. People have to be alive for them to become anything. And boldness being a lonely road means the various oppositions that people who defy face. It takes courage to be beaten down 100 times. And still rise and speak about the same thing that initiated the first beating. We just don’t have many people who are willing to fail 100 times. And still keep the same rigor, energy, and mental posture to come back tomorrow. And face the same oppressors. It is only very few people who can walk that path. Look at the price that Sula paid for daring to be different in Toni Morrison’s work. She had to endure isolation from an entire community. Some people cannot stand being isolated.

A corporate leader making a bold decision / Photo / David McEaclan 

But that is the cost of boldness. If you must win against a harsh regime. Then, brace yourself to insurmountable opposition. Sorrow, pain, abuse, and disrespect will be the order of your everyday business. Just ask yourself if you got the muscle to shoulder all these sufferings. Is suffering even worth it? What if what you are fighting for fails to materialize? What if new opposition keeps emerging every month? Will you still keep fighting? Change is difficult. Converting a negative into a positive is hard. You need to be the right person. The bold person. One that will keep coming even when it gets harder. One that will keep walking even when nothing promising is ahead. So you need the right attitude before you declare yourself as being bold. Define the problem first. If you know that there is something wrong.

That knowledge alone, will keep you coming. The knowledge will become your strength and motivation. That is what courage is all about. You must know the basis of a problem. You need to know what inspired the person who set the first limit to conclude that limiting other people was the right thing. Because according to that person. Control is the right thing. So get to the trauma first. Then start assembling the right arsenal from there. Don’t just defy for the sake of defying. And call that courage. Boldness comes from context. Have the real reasons why you want to challenge systems that your forefathers wanted nothing to do with. Boldness is guided by common sense not ignorance. Find the truth first. Then, that truth will set you free. Confront things that need to be confronted first. Before you start speaking.

Modern society is still looking for bold people. Those ones who are genuine. The ones who want to face the problems affecting modern society. The different challenges that modern society is currently facing began with one problem. So we need bold people to take us back to the initial problem. Because that is the mother of all these problems. If the future generation must avoid what is grappling their grandfathers and fathers. Then, someone must to speak the truth. Someone needs to point out the unpopular truth. One that almost everyone disdains. We need a modern day Sula. Someone who is not afraid to be called names. And be isolated by cowards. Do we have those bold people that modern society can count on now? Are you that person? Do you know anyone? Who wants to walk on this road?   

  

A smiling American author Toni Morrison /Photo Courtesy / Google

Sula is a 1973 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison.   

In summary, the book examines the tensions between white and black people in the United States. In the midst of such tensions, is the stereotypes. Stereotypes bind women to only one function. Women can only be housewives. A notion that Sula opposes. And as a result, she has to face the consequences of defying established societal norms. The problems that this community faces (The Bottom Community~ defined as a black neighborhood) do not differ significantly from modern society.

Look, I really would like to tell you everything about this incredible novel. However, the summary can suffice for now. However, if you are interested in getting deeper and looking at the novel from the literature lens. I have that too. You can request the analysis using the contact us page.