Everybody hurts…

Listening to a podcast whilst dandering home from work the other day, I heard an old Tory admit to a psychiatrist that he believed that the human condition was fundamentally one of ‘insecurity’.

Taken aback by the incongruity between the self-assured way the old Tory carried himself and this unexpected admission of vulnerability, the psychiatrist did not hide his surprise from his patient.

“I must say,” confessed the psychiatrist, “I did not anticipate insecurity to be the prevailing condition of a man of such apparent certainty.”

Then, it was the old Tory’s turn to be shocked.

With a disbelieving sigh, the old Tory – who stunk of that snotty self-possession almost exclusive to old Tories – responded that even those of us who seem most in control are, deep down, at some basic level, fragile.

I did not agree with much of what the old Tory had said up to this point. However, when he declared insecurity a condition common to all people, I found myself in solid agreement.

But, I had heard this idea before.

Indeed, for millennia… artists, philosophers, theologians, and all manner of thinkers have dedicated their lives to acknowledging, studying and advancing our understanding of human frailty – or, more importantly, how to live with it.

In painting, poem and parable, through the ages, smart men and women have sought to remind and console us of the tragic – but ultimate – fact that to be human is to be hurt.

However, as they say around the post office, delivery is everything. And the old Tory’s delivery was deadly.

There was something in the apparent contradiction between his manner and sentiment that gave tremendous weight to his words.

This was a man who acted as you might imagine an ancient sculpture to act if magically brought to life. A bit stuffy and pretentious, sure. But stoic and wise, too. Ostensibly, he seemed as sure in his ability as granite might be in its density.

And here he was, admitting that he felt like his whole being was built on shaky foundations; capable of faltering without warning.

“Fair play to ye,” I thought to myself. “You could have let on you were rock solid the best, but ye decided not to.”

‘But why not?’, I wondered.

It would have been easy for this boy go on pretending that he was as imperturbable as he appeared. And for the truly charismatic, that must be very tempting. I mean, who among you would want to break such a convenient, self-serving spell?

Well – at that moment at least – the old Tory was more interested in honesty than bravado. He was not willing to sacrifice sincerity in order to uphold some superficial spectacle of self-assurance.

He saw the value in letting the world know that, though the veneer of his personality was a compelling one, behind it lay all the same vulnerabilities that are inherent in every other human – to varying degrees, obviously.

I really liked it. But it made me wonder…

If I were born with that kind of power of personality – I suppose you could call it charisma – would I go out of my way to undermine the illusion it created? Would I correct the distortion in the eye of the beholder, and confess that I suffered from all the same everyday anxieties, inadequacies and difficulties as them? Hard to know. People go far on the appearance of possessing unshakable confidence. Would you give it up to reassure the world that everyone is just the same?