The Crisis of Strength

Nothing describes the problems we have in the modern-day than the crisis of strength. People in charge are making lots of promises that they just aren’t keeping. Rather than owning up to this fact, they instead double down on failed tactics or evade the promise using entertaining distractions.

I began to think these thoughts as I was working outside. It was only some light exercise – blowing off the driveway and shoveling the refuse into a trashcan doesn’t take much effort. However, the effort caused me to think back to when I was moving out stuff from College Station. I remember the soreness in my arms after raising them to the ceiling to dust off every fan in the house. I remember thinking “this is so weird – I’m not lifting anything heavy, yet my arms feel strained by doing this!” I’ll admit, I’m not the fittest person out there – I could certainly use more exercise, but what was I that weak?

Admitting when you aren’t strong is hard because it’s the same as admitting your vulnerabilities and your flaws. If you are someone who puts a lot of effort into appearing strong or perfect, this can be a tough sell. Admitting you have a problem is also the first step toward a greater effort in fixing it, and too many people don’t want to take that effort. I sympathize with people who struggle with both of these things. I know from experience how people in a tight spot often stay in that rut, saying to themselves how they don’t want to involve others. However, if you are stuck in a hole, the way out isn’t another shovel – it’s asking for support and allowing another person to pull you out.

I don’t think I’m alone either. Too many people aren’t working out and thus lack physical strength. Not enough people are lifting, and this affects how things are built, how things are carried. The people’s health is the highest law, indeed. If (God forbid) America was invaded by a foreign country, would our military be capable of dealing with it given how sedentary the typical American lifestyle is?

However, physical strength isn’t the only kind of strength out there, or even the most important. The lack of discipline that keeps people from exercising carries over to other parts of their lives. A lot of well-meaning people fail to follow through on their moral convictions. They may speak out against injustice if it costs them nothing, but many won’t lift a finger to help the people in front of them. That isn’t even getting into the personal vices that people struggle with due to a lack of discipline. In general, people need to build more strength of character.

A major reason why these bad habits accumulate is that we lack strength in numbers. Even though we may be more connected than ever before, we often feel alone in a crowd. Let’s face it: social media isn’t the best place to find friends. Not even the technology entrepreneurs and executives in Silicon Valley allow their kids to go on the platforms they manage or use the devices they invent. If the people who know this technology better than anyone else aren’t letting their kids enjoy it, why should we?

I used to fight with my mother all the time about this. I used to argue that playing video games and going on the Internet were only harmless hobbies, and certainly, they can be harmless – to an extent. The problem is that most people don’t have the self-control to not let technology overwhelm them. People are becoming more and more dependent on their smartphones, laptops, and entertainment centers to live normal lives, to the point where we’re practically becoming cyborgs. Is this healthy? That question is up in the air, though books like The Shallows have convinced me that the correct answer to the question is a resounding “no.”

Rather than relying on social media networks, we need to have personal networks. Social media friends are fair-weather friends. They have no personal investment in what you do. Sure, they’ll alleviate your loneliness for the moment, but in the long term, they’re not a replacement for a real-life friend. Finding someone you can lean on for support is hard, but making such a friend is worth the effort.

As the people in our society get weaker and weaker, so will our overall quality of life. To have a better society, we need to be stronger people. To understand this, think of society as a body. All the people working together are like different parts of the body. Each body part does something different, but they all contribute to form a greater whole. However, if the parts of the body start failing, then the body will become weaker and weaker. A weak body is more vulnerable to disease and injury than a strong body. A common cold might inconvenience a strong man, but it endangers the life of a weak one. This is what makes the crisis of strength so terrible: not because it’ll necessarily end us, but because it’ll weaken us enough to cause the next big crisis to be our potential downfall.

There are plenty of flashpoints that could spell society’s doom: the collapse of the social security pyramid scheme, a war with China and Russia, race riots, and climate change, to name a few. Even to a strong society, the problems that lay before us seem herculean, but with our weakness? Any one of them might reduce us to a Mad Max-like state. Sorry to be a bit pessimistic, I just am pointing out what I’m seeing.

There is a solution to this though: working together to help overcome our respective flaws. Only through solidarity can we succeed in helping ourselves and our neighbors. It’s important to ignore the shiny new shovel and reach out to our neighbors. Let’s help each other out of the hole.