The Last Frontier

 

Tired but restless, Paul gobbled down a banana and hustled up to Mandela Square. Because of the time difference, Harry would have had a chance to respond to his email overnight. The shops weren’t open yet, but he was pleased to see that the Internet café was. He stepped in and logged on.

            To his delight, the message from Harry was there, at the top of the list of seemingly endless entries of junk.

 

            “Dear Paul,

                        “Great to hear from you. Glad the trip is going well. Got to run to a meeting in a half hour but thought I would give you a little something to chew on — knowing you, you’ll check your email at your first opportunity.

            “Anyway, as you know, I am no great sage, but I will give your question a try. In my experience, every male, especially those of us in Western society, carries a deep wound of some kind. That wound has all sorts of manifestations, due to the many different circumstances we all grow up in, but it seems pretty inevitable. You see, we are born into a world that our souls implicitly know is fundamentally dangerous, yet we have no choice to be here. Life is all about choice, really, except the choice as to whether we wanted to be here in the first place.

“Moreover, as males, we are expected by society to embrace this inherently dangerous world as warriors, always willing to do battle against the many challenges we face to our sense of integrity, justice, security, and probably many others as well. Of course, we fail. We can never measure up to all the expectations of our parents (who inevitably seek to live some of their unfilled dreams through us, unconsciously of course, but that is another story), all the demands we make of ourselves, or all the demands that life makes of us. And thus we become wounded. That is probably what you are experiencing most acutely, now that your dream of being an Olympian (talk about the ultimate warrior image!) escaped into history. Your warrior soul was denied an opportunity to present itself. But it won’t be the only chance you get to exercise that warrior soul. Keep on the path. You will find more opportunities. Life offers endless opportunities for redemption of the soul and the healing of our wounds.

            “So here is what I suggest you think about for a while, especially if you are going into Soweto today. Compared to the folks there, your problem looks quite redeemable. So instead of asking yourself, or God (actually, I am not sure I know much about your faith, so that may be a whole other discussion we could have), why your Olympic dreams went so wrong, ask yourself what it is that you need to learn, about your woundedness, and what you need to start letting go of in your self-image. We tend to create aspects of our self-image that help cover up our wounds, so we don’t have to feel them, but you have reached the stage in life where your woundedness demands your attention, and if you choose to heed the call, you will have to deal with some adjustments to your self-image.

            “You might want to think about why you feel ’cheated’, as you describe it. Whenever I hear someone say, ’it’s not supposed to be that way’, I know he or she grew up with, and inculcated into his being, a set of expectations, rules, and boundaries, perhaps from parents who sought to instill discipline and order above all else. Life is never ’supposed’ to work out any given way — at least not any one aspect of life — and trust me, that was a hard lesson for me to learn too. My father taught me that if you follow the rules, try your hardest, keep your nose clean, everything will work out. It was the worst kind of propaganda I ever bought into — not that he meant it as propaganda — and it was pretty painful to reorient myself. I discovered that I needed to live my own life, not someone else’s. No more following someone else’s rules, especially a ’rule’ that says life works out for those who work hard and are decent people. Hopefully, there is a fair measure of that, but it’s hardly axiomatic. So that is my advice to you, Paul. Live your own life. Fulfill the person you are. Forget what other people think. And if you do, be prepared for a life that is not always easy. The easy lives are led by those who follow the rules.

            “Be gentle with yourself. And keep me posted. Gotta run.

“Take care, Harry.”