Wednesday, 05 December 2012

• Caveman: The Obsession of Being Thin

  

  There comes a time when the things in life musts come into question, everything. There is this unmistakable, inevitable road that must be reached in life that one must decide where he/she is going. There are mountains and hills in each of our lives that cause us to emotionally retreat, even while knowing that there is indeed something worth attaining on the other side. Fear roars louder with every step, the certainty of pure uncertainty leave us frozen in our shoes as to what to do next. Shame and insecurities follows like a noonday shadow, lingering and heavy. The failures of the past dance before possibilities like a never ending opera concert, vocal and impressive.

  The mind of humans are so complex, yet so fragile in nature. Able to scale the heights of any adversity, yet unable to cope with life alone. Beating odds which the Greek gods assumed ambitious even in their arrogance, conquering it, and still emotionally unstable and broken. It would seem that then, religion would lend a hand in ascertaining the state of man, then to remedy it; but in my humble opinion, it's just not that simple.

  I'm well aware of the pain and torment maternally driven by the mind, fueled further by external things of life. I'm also no stranger to victory on some levels, victory driven by pain, and acquired through tears and hopelessness.

  So this year, though I'm highly against resolutions, and end of the year oaths, I would like those of you out there who are struggling with your weight to walk with me into the valley of the unknown. A road paved with set backs and hardships, emotional breakdowns and conflict like nothing else you've experienced. I see a lot of you guys out there in the blogging community (predominately ladies) venting about the woes and the hardships of trying to loss weight. A lot of you guys (Males) out there like me are dealing with similar issues, dealing with similar struggles and it feels strange to expose emotions like these that we normally consider feminine. We guys vent too about how we want to cry when we don't feel thin and socially accepted on grounds of measuring up physically with the expectations of our society, frustrated to the point of depression daily; but we don't have to hide anymore gentlemen, we struggle with the pain, and the torment just like our ladies. Let's step out of the closet!

  I hear the cries of you guys out there, some who probably don't think your being heard, and some of you who assume you have the ear of someone yet and still misunderstood. I'm writing this to say that we are all in this together. All of us have a goal to be thin, and to be beautiful, and healthy. It's not as easy (I know) as it seems on the surface. It's not as pleasant inside as the smiles we flash to cover up the brokenness. We can relish in one another without worry of judgement, reach out to each other (male and female alike) and expose the very real fact that we are engaged in an all out mental war everyday we live. It never stops, with everyday, every activity that we do, over every toilet that we throw up in, every calorie that we count, every social moment we throw away to spend ourselves in a gym or on some road running our butts off, every secret negative thought in regards to ourselves, every single minute of the day we spend consumed, obsessed with being thin. Is this wrong? There are those who will tell us that it is, but inside we know what we want, and we know that this is just simply our way of life.

  This new year, let's make an effort to not hide from each other, to find those who are in the same situations and of the same mindsets as ourselves and confide in one another. I know personally, that this is probably close to the loneliest life on earth, I can't trust everyone with my dreams, can't trust them with my thoughts because I would be labelled extreme and shallow and possibly sick in the head, so I stay quite. But we can lean on each other, when things get heavy we can bring it to one another, we understand our fights, we won't belittle each other, or completely misunderstand the words of our hearts, because we share this fight together. Come out of your caves guys, we can do this.

  "I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie." --Laurie Halse Anderson

  "I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop." -- Laurie Halse Anderson

  Do you have a struggle with losing weight? or maintaining your weight? Do you obsess over your weight and feel like you can't talk to anyone about it?

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