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The Broken Bough. Frederick Henry Henshaw. 1881. Wikimedia Commons

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!”

C. JoyBell C.

What is the emotional cost of being a hard person, a ‘tough guy?’ What does this even mean? Does it imply that we are psychologically tough and resilient, or will being hard, as the quote says, merely make us very brittle and easily ‘breakable?’

Image: Pixabay

“When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.”

Andrei Tarkovsky

Image: Pixabay

Hardness in humans may appear to be a protection, and indeed it may be, but at what cost? Most often, a hard ‘front’ implies that we have developed a mask, a cover for our more delicate and vulnerable feelings, a defensive way of being that can hide much pain, anxiety and  fear. Inside the hard person may be a soft centre, waiting to emerge and to be loved and nurtured, yet trapped inside a tough exterior.

• What is emotional hardness?

“Marked by a virulent notion of hardness and aggressive masculinity, a culture of violence has become commonplace in a society in which pain, humiliation and abuse are condensed into digestible spectacles endlessly circulated through extreme sports, reality TV, video games, YouTube postings, and proliferating forms of the new and old media.”

Henry Giroux

An inflexible, tough outer shell is often seen as something to be lauded, admired and rewarded in our current society. Many people act in an intimidating way, in order to hide their own vulnerability. Such glorification of being hard is often a reaction to painful experiences in life, where toughening up in the face of pain can seem to be the only option.

Developing a thick skin, keeping a stiff upper lip, hiding emotions and never being ‘weak’ or ‘soft’ are frequently seen as ways to cope with the world and its challenges.

Hardness and emotional toughness are characterised by an apparent lack of feeling and empathy for others; people who are regarded as hard can come over as manipulative or ruthless, callous and often abusive. Their seeming insensitivity makes relationships difficult to maintain, as they can appear rigid, hard-hearted and uncaring. This way of being hard can leave a person isolated and emotionally cut off from others who cannot abide such rigidity.

• Hardness as resilience

Toughness can, of course, also imply resilience, real power that has been cultivated over the years and is genuinely courageous and strong. This is qualitatively different from being a ‘hard person,’ which implies that we have adopted something that is not a genuine part of us, but merely a cloak to cover up the hidden opposite kinds of feelings. 

Thus, as with many aspects of life, hardness can have two sides; it may, as we have seen, imply a closed, rigid personality, one that lacks empathy and understanding. On the other hand, it can mean that we are strong, well able to defend ourselves from real danger and protect others.

This is resilience, an important quality for us all to develop. It is not about callous hardness and rigidity. Resilience is the capacity to withstand trouble and trauma, misfortune and crisis, and to be able to survive and recover from these with intrepidity and courage.

• Feelings… and the defences against them

“She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn’t know how to nurture it or if it could live.”

Megan Whalen Turner

Many people have been brought up, trained and socialised to hide their feelings, and, over time, vulnerable emotions may eventually become lost to the self, hidden behind a mask of hardness.

In fairly recent history, men especially have been brought up, and socialised, to be ‘fearless,’ ‘brave,’ and not to show feelings, being told in no uncertain terms that “real men – and big boys – don’t cry.” 

“Learning to wear a mask (that word already embedded in the term “masculinity”) is the first lesson in patriarchal masculinity that a boy learns. He learns that his core feelings cannot be expressed if they do not conform to the acceptable behaviors sexism defines as male. Asked to give up the true self in order to realize the patriarchal ideal, boys learn self-betrayal early and are rewarded for these acts of soul murder.”

Bell Hooks.

It appears that being angry has been deemed as a more ‘appropriate’ emotion for men, and many still cover their sorrow and pain with anger. Society has let men down, typecasting them as macho, muscly he-men, cardboard cut-outs of their real selves.

From a young age, many boys have been socialised to be tough, ‘manly’ and strong and, if they do shed tears, aggressively told to ‘stop crying.’ Such dictates teach them to hide tears, to be ashamed of them, to be falsely ‘strong.’ Over recent years, this is beginning to change, with men risking showing vulnerable feelings and women revealing and utilising their strength and personal power.

In fact, it is not strong to withhold tears and appear hard in this way, for doing so can result in increased stress and inhibit the natural release of deep, pent-up feelings. Holding back tears can indicate that we are ashamed of our feelings, unable to face them and not strong enough to accept and value them.

This is not however, only about men; many people, of whatever gender, have been raised and socialised to hide their more vulnerable feelings, and eventually such emotions may become lost to the self.

Two lovers by candlelight. Philippe Mercier Berlin 1770’s. Wikimedia Commons.

“Softness is what makes us human; it’s where love, compassion, and empathy reside.”

 Kristin Hannah

• Defences v. boundaries

It is important to be able to differentiate between defences and boundaries.

Psychological defences are unconsciously set up in order to protect a person against feeling anxious, hurt and vulnerable. These strategies, such as repression, denial and projection can sometimes be necessary, in order to cope with some of the world’s painful realities…

“…we discussed the function of defense mechanisms and found that we were humbled by the power of that portion of our psyche, we began to understand that if it weren’t for rationalization, sublimation, denial—all the little tricks we let ourselves perform—if instead we simply saw the world as it was, with nothing to protect us, honestly and courageously, it would break our hearts.”

Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

However, when used to extreme, defences can indicate an inability to cope, seriously distorting our perception of reality, interfering with relationships and personal growth and creating a sense of alienation from the true self.

For example, it can be that some people surround themselves with hard, prickly, emotional barbed wire; perhaps this takes the form of rigid beliefs, entrenched and heavily fortified. These serve to confine and restrict themselves and others. They may feel ‘safe’ behind this barbed defence, but it also will prevent others from reaching them or getting close.

Barbed Yard. Great Beyond. 2011. Flickr.

“Denial is a useful defense mechanism until it’s not.”

Rosalind Kaplan

Boundaries, on the other hand are a necessary and conscious, considered way of protecting oneself and other. They help us delineate our personal limits, having recognised our needs; they enable us to stand up for ourselves.

The Stone Fence – George Wesley Bellows.1909.  Wikioo.

“Boundaries are, in simple terms, the recognition of personal space.”

Asa Don Brown

Whilst boundaries need to be firm and clear, there also needs to be a sense that they can sometimes be ‘stretched,’ that they are elastic and somewhat flexible. Otherwise, a model of rigidity and lack of humanity may be set, which can inhibit life and relationships.

• What does ‘being soft’ mean?

Kandinsky. Hard in Soft. Wikimedia Commons.

Like hardness, softness can have two sides when it refers to a personal quality.  It can mean that we are flexible, open, resilient, compassionate and caring. On the other hand, it can imply weakness and fragility if taken to its extreme. This could mean that we give in to others too easily, or end up being used and abused.

“Softness is not weakness. It takes courage to stay delicate in a world this cruel.”

Beau Taplin

• Can we be both hard and soft? (It takes strength to be both)

Soft Hard. Wassily Kandinsky. 1927. Wikimedia Commons

“Do not be too hard, lest you be broken; do not be too soft, lest you be squeezed.”

Ali ibn Abi Talib

Can we be flexible enough to bend without breaking? Could our softness actually be our strength? There is the paradox… and there is the path forward, the optimum way of being.

There is no compulsion to choose between being hard and soft; indeed, it is important to learn to be pliable and to be able to shift between these states. This is part of achieving balance; life is about balancing opposites,  managing the inconsistencies and changes that constantly make our lives interesting and colourful…. and, at times, difficult.

Paradoxes teach us that there are no absolutes, that reality and truth are complex issues, that contrary views can both contain the truth, that nothing is as it seems.

These are valuable lessons that can only guide us on our path through life. 

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.”

Soren Kierkegaard

Unless we think about, consider and discover harmony in the apparently contradictory, different ways of thinking about the world, we will never see the whole picture and our lives will, truly, be reduced to ‘a paltry mediocrity.’

If we are, however, able to understand and accept the inevitable paradoxes that constantly challenge us, this will help us to develop flexible and balanced ways of thinking.

“What if you rested in between contradicting energies? What if you practiced holding contradictory views at the same time with no fantasy of them ever being resolved?”

Nate Green

Being able to keep two opposing views in mind simultaneously, without feeling that we have to come down on one side or another, gives us the ability to reflect, to weigh and balance opposites, to discover contradictory truths that may both have value. 

This is so much better than having a thoughtlessly rigid and superficial mindset, one which immediately takes sides without weighing the real evidence, one which cannot accommodate two opposing truths at the same time. This is a very ‘unbalanced’ way of seeing the world.

Let us now examine Kandinski’s painting, Soft Hard, above. Kandinski was aware of the power in combining opposites.  Imagine if there were none of the more gentle curves, if the painting were made up of only the hard lines. Imagine, too, if the softer colours were removed and the work was painted only in black, white and red.

The painting would lose it sense of contrast, of balance and, perhaps most importantly, its meaning. Accepting the ‘contradicting energies’ within the artwork reflects the importance of doing so inside the self, so that we can comfortably contain opposites, remaining both hard and soft, balanced and composed, comfortable with our ‘unresolved’ oppositional qualities and accepting of our inconsistencies.

Steve.D.Hammond.Trees, Rocks,Water, 2010. Flickr.

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”

Lao Tzu

© Linda Berman