I woke up the other day, flipped on the TV and witnessed someone reaching deep inside themselves to reveal a sensitive, emotional, caring soul tortured by all that is wrong in the world. As this person struggled to overcome the stress of the situation and hold back the tears of frustration, I found myself thinking about two things.
The first of these centered upon public displays of emotions. I do not consider myself a cold person, but I was not raised to let emotions control my actions or influence my decisions. My father is a role model for rock steady and always a voice of reason or support in any tough situation. I am sure there were times when he felt scared, saddened or uncertain, but I do not remember a single time when he showed that side of the situation when my brothers and I needed guidance, a helping hand or calming in an uncomfortable situation. Did he inherit this trait from his parents, is it a byproduct of tougher times, a necessary characteristic of being a soldier in the Korean War, a conscious decision to raise his children to meet the demands of life or a union of all of these? I honestly don’t know the reason, but what I do know from past experience is to trust the calm, focused and confident individual who found the door out and not the person crying in the corner. I have also spent many years in martial arts and competed against numerous opponents. During the seconds we were touching gloves, I was focused on one and only one thing. If he was looking down, he didn’t want to be there, if he was raging in my face he was likely to fall victim to every feint …. but the guy who locked on to your eyes and seemingly stared right past you had a mission and a confident plan to get there and therefore … a dangerous opponent…
And then there was the second thing ….
The person I observed on TV… the individual that was welling up tears and choking out the response to a planted question… was a presidential candidate. A person that hopes to win a role which symbolizes the leadership position for one of the most powerful nations in the world. All I could think of was a visual “touching of the gloves” between leaders – is this new leadership hopeful going to expose the tears and stare at the ground or stand strong and look straight through the eyes to understand the intent inside. Clearly running for the position of leadership is far easier than the day to day activities of helping to lead a nation (yes helping – I am assuming you understanding that the president is a governing role balanced by congress, but if you still think a given president went to war without congress approval, you clearly do not understand this). So if this is too much to take, what confidence should I have that they will be successful if elected.
If a candidate must play the soft card to swing some votes, I have to trump with another pick – and my chads don’t hang
And just to be clear that this has nothing to do with sexism, people accept, say, a teary-eyed Bush or any other politician when they are addressing soldiers’ or others’ deaths and sadness, but not when it’s due to personal stress–then it’s a bit scary. For a male example, Ed Muskie famously blew his Presidential run in 1972 by exhibiting tears (he said they were snowflakes) while defending his wife from a newspaper attack. On the flip side, Michael Dukakis lost a lot of support when he gave an emotionless policy-type response to a scenario of violence against his wife. So people want politicians who care and show appropriate emotions, but not when it appears they are falling apart due to internal stress, and this is true for male as well as female politicians.
I must agree. Recognition of sadness to another individual or situation would be/is acceptable – life has serious downpoints and recognition of those is part of life on a personal level. Every miltary funeral I have witnessed has touched me pretty deep and I’ll personally never forget having to take my most loved pet on it’s final drive to the vet which is exactly why I mention in the original post that I realy don’t consider myself a cold person. When it is used to simply gain a vote or it becomes a resultant action in time when others need you… that is where my issues are. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate on my post … especially adding in real life examples!