Big Boys Don't Cry

In loving memory of every suicidal male ever.

Some men,
(when not
hurling
inwardly, or traditionally,
by the method for which
they were originally intended,
outwardly),
'Molotov Cocktails',
have cried
for hundreds of nights
in a row.
Until, perhaps
they've learned and decided,
(as taught they should)
never to shed a tear
again
over anything,
ever.
Hitler's legacy
upon them
must be
the default condition
(since it's everyone's)
The root
cause
of so many
who've
gone too soon.

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

I think it's great that you put yourself in the firing line by trying something different. You have addressed a really important male issue here - we are expected to present this tough image that I guess many of us don't feel inside. I'm not too clear about Hitler's legacy being my default though. One small thing - should hurled be hurtled?
Good work- very thought provoking.
Regards,
Alan

[Brett Hernan]

Thanks a quindecillion*, alan!
As always, your comments are insightful and clearly reiterate the very point (which as you know, sometimes I make every effort to avoid!) and in this case I felt myself expending toward metaphors far more than usual, in order to express what has recently become, (in the mainstream media in Australia, at least), a very topical subject of conversation. (Thanks be to God!)
In Australia suicide is the first most likely method of premature death to befall men between the age of 18 and 44. I'd sadly assume it's a pretty common phenomenon, globally.
It's the first I've heard mention of it since I was 20 and then that was only the quoted words of an intelligent friend who understood me better than I chose to understand myself, and who was just trying to understand what cruelties I'd befouled them with.
Not to appear contrary, and it's not such a small thing, but I deliberately chose the world 'hurled' because 'hurtled'
to me implies a type of traveling motion, which the inertia of some male characteristic conditions sets as 'off limits' to many men as we each go about the small circle of space allotted us to involve ourselves in the fulfilling of our dutifully enacted routines, (in which so many of us feel our soul is vaporising, these actions void of any other merit than the fulfillment of the obligation we've inherited by oft unplanned circumstances upon which the survival of those we profess to love is solidly affixed).
'Hurled', as in 'thrown down' was chosen because it's not uncommon for men suppressing their very self recognition that something's definitely not going as right as can be expected, to throw down their throats large quantities of whatever it is that supposedly 'gets them through the night', (as They have so incorrectly advised), or whatever will blot out the night, I suppose, the kind of night which remains long after the sun has risen.
These being the obvious, traditional alcohol, anti-depressants and/or other illegal type intoxicants, the legal type of which are dealt out as quick, band-aid cure-alls to every 'He-Man' that makes it out alive from the average seven minute doctor's surgery round.
Did you know that most anti-depressant drugs are only effective for two or three weeks and then the patient is simply tolerant and finds relief from satisfying the craving to feed their new, governmentally approved form of addiction?
So I have been told by my friend, a former biochemist, and I have discovered by my own horrific experiences of them.
These drugs are essentially powerless to stop 'wrong thinking' in the 'sane' man (how could they?) and whoever invented them was reasonably assured in themselves that there would also be a correspondingly large degree of therapeutic thought work undertaken by the psychiatric professional to whom the general practitioner of medicine should have the foresight to refer the patient to, before dispensing any type of mind-altering substance to their patient. Pity 'The Lancet's' nothing more than a piece of junk mail where snake oil salesmen make their claims in the headline and back it all up in the text below with routinely falsified test results, (believe it or not, I'm virtually verbatim quoting the statements made by its outgoing editor-in-chief!) The head researcher for Pfizer admitted lying for 17 years a few years ago about the results of testing the efficacy of some very commonly globally prescribed medications. Imagine the mind set of a Doctor who believes there's such a thing as a non-addictive super strong analgesic painkiller, such as the method the representatives of the drug company which made Oxycontin had included in their spiels!
I believe that general medical practitioners should not be allowed the privilege of prescribing mind-altering anti-depressants unless they're a fully trained psychiatrist.
Hurling a Molotov down one's throat, might accurately describe my personal experience when I attempted to obliterate that which I chose not to comprehend or attempt to explain to myself, a pattern I learned from the popular cultural stereotypes that I was fed on by our secular consumerist culture and it's old time, whiskey guzzling private detective heroes of Saturday afternoon black and white movies on TV like, 'The Big Sleep', whom I idolised to the point that the manly act of the drinking of whiskey was a main goal in my life from childhood, despite how repugnant i found even 'Chivas Regal'!
It really didn't work, therapeutically, unsurprisingly. When a drinker I lost control of every cognitive ability to express myself truly as a result, with some evil and vile statements usually exiting my sound hole, loudly, in the direction of those I possessed a dear love for and who I wished to express only the deepest and most well-phrased of affections for. That scores a big zero for alcohol's therapeutic values. Maybe in cold weather it deserves a 5 out of 10, but it doesn't actually warm you up. It just makes you feel that way. That says it all really...
But, instead of sweetly concocted congratulations on their being kind enough to find me equally as attractive as I found them, or so I thought, as they were to me, in diminishing amounts, these outbursts, all day sleeping fits and constant search for more was very rapidly tearing up their affections and turning them into a perceived negatively rated deficiency in my love for them, as the nasty comments, actions and repeated demands made upon one's self by the necessities of feeding an ongoing alcohol and marijuana addiction drove (nearly) every living soul who'd ever cared for me far, far away.
If it was part of my psyche that attracted them then it was that very same feature of my mind, manifestly mutated by psychotic marijuana and alcoholic 'thinking' (read; 'thimking') that sent almost all of them, repelled like the opposing poles of oppositionally placed magnets, reeling away from me in an abject horror toward the being that I had become.
This is, of course, a type of suicide. Engaged in by trillions.
I've actually had a really good run in comparison with many others.
I am proud that you identified these elements in my work and have here defended my choices, alan.
That's what makes a true friend, and as the great Australian indigenous rock band, 'The Warumpi Band', sing in their song, '''Blackfella/Whitefella';

"We need more brothers,
if we're to make it...'

I felt that I was being an ignorant and oblivious person by not mentioning the plight of women in my piece, but that's not rightfully a man's job at this point in history, I believe, nor am I equipped for it. How could I be?
Plus, I'm beyond certain that there are far more better qualified women to write the verses that need to be heard by all of us, both female or male, (or whatever gender assignation one chooses to assimilate one's gender identity to.)
* A single 'quindecillion' is a one with sixteen thousand zeroes following it, (kind of like the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force's number of vehicles during World War Two following that one single Emperor whom was expected to be venerated as not just a god, but verily as, 'The God'!)
I chose that number especially for you, since I remember you having a background in physics and science and so, perhaps, equipped by some mathematical study, I thought maybe you'd be familiar with the number, which originally I discovered as a child when reading, 'The Book of Lists- The People's Almanac' which was a bestseller in the early 1980's and a paperback precursor to the Internet with all of its various lists of almost 'useless' information! Personally, I find a number so huge mildly terrifying.
But that's another story..!
Thanks, mate.

[Brett Hernan]

I forgot to add, that I believe the effect of Hitler's decision to break trust and to invade Poland and create a state of World War led (in general) the generation of men who returned from that war predisposed toward an emotional barrenness where the growing of the psyche of their sons was to be handled in such a manner that each was trained to feel and express as little as possible, in case they were to be killing other men for no apparent 'personal' reason, which really does become very difficult if you're a real touchy-feely type, and severely lessens one's chances of surviving in the ever possible development of a sudden conflict of world War proportions, such as they themselves had experienced, what with the two world wars standing only a few decades apart. there was every reason to believe that in a decade there'd be another.
Under these circumstances, I can completely understand the motivation for the emotion expressing and blunting training regime, oft taken by ex-soldier men, themselves broken inside worse than any physical ailment resulting in the most horrific of deaths, which obviously they'd been forced to witness, repeatedly, and which had been by the Allied victory validated as 'all correct' in terms of methods of child raising from that time forward.
This is why I claim that Hitler's actions permeate western culture, even to this very day.
(Hitler committed suicide.)

[alanwgraham]

This is by far the longest reply I've had but you have covered a lot. I agree completely with the medication issue. I have been taking lithium for many years after a serious manic episode. My dilemma has been that the bipolar has undoubtedly released a creative urge but uncontrolled bp can be very dangerous (suicide relation breakdowns etc). Luckily I have suffered few side effects and seem to have retained the creative boost. I get your point about our father's wartime experiences and it's inevitable that these have rubbed off on us (my story Walking to Zero is about this. I'm not convinced about the Hitler effect. I think there are too many other things going on.
Thanks for your very open and illuminating reply.
Cheers
Alan
Just out of interest my younger son and his wife have just arrived in Tasmania for a 3 week your before returning to settle in Scotland (from Melbourne )

[Brett Hernan]

Thanks very much again Alan. I did get a lot of information into that response! I doubt that they could all be that long, altho I do wish I had the time to respond to people's comments like that all of the time!
I'm glad your Lithium meds aren't impacting on you in any other way than positively and your creativity hasn't been squelched by it, as is sometimes the case.
I will read your 'Walking to Zero' piece when I return from work today. I am looking forward to it already and thanks for pointing it out to me.
'The Hitler Effect' is very much with exceptions, as are all of these types of societal 'rules'.
Thanks for furthering the conversation and I hope your younger son and your daughter-in- law find the hidden treasures that Tasmania is composed of.
They might be interested to know, when in Hobart, if they're standing at Constitution Dock (around the corner from and near Salamanca Place where Salamanca Markets are held each Saturday) and are looking down the river on the left there are three hills on a spit of land which are conspicuously devoid of many trees at all.
This place is known as 'The Iron Pot', because it was here that in the eighteenth century the whalers used to melt down the blubber from the whales they'd caught in the river Derwent in a huge iron pot which was so voluminous that a tall ladder had to be climbed to throw in more blubber.
It was so slippery that a worker once fell in, and rather than try to fish his remains out, they simply continued the oil bubbling..!
The reason that these three hills are bald is because every tree that once stood there (and these were extremely large, tall and old eucalypts, blackwoods, sassafrases and pines) were all, over time, cut down and used to heat the pot!
I'd suggest your son and his wife come to my home, but I actually live in a quite depressingly ugly slum! Not really a bright spot in the tourist guide. (They don't even sign post the place until you've entered, or left, it which is what They think of the place!)
Thanks again for all your comments, Alan.
With the warmest regards
-Brett

[alanwgraham]

Great. I think I may have mentioned that my dad's battleship hms Anson took part in the regatta at Hobart at the end of the was before going on to Hong Kong and Japan.
Cheers,
Alan

[Brett Hernan]

Hi Alan,
Today is Sandy Bay Regatta Day!

[Donald Wilson]

The many levels here of a very sick society we all dwell...