What is a safe space?
A place to let it all out, to rage, to vent, to rant, to cry and shed big fat tears. And most of the time, a safe space lies with people, it is in persons.
Whom does the man call when life is happening to him?
Rarely does it happen that a man is able to confide in people. He is expected to shoulder everything and reveal nothing. He goes around in circles, talking about everything and anything but himself. His true self is not his favorite color nor food nor automobile brand nor his political leanings. That part of him is locked down, tightly and you know what happens when a pressurized container is placed near a flame.
You may say, "he has friends, his guys, his gees."
Traditional man will live as a weakling for all of his life if he so much as hints at an instability in his life. The obvious metrics are his ability to farm, his ability to produce sons and the weight of his words among the members of his community.
The modern man is not so different. The metrics have obviously changed with time but the basics are the same: productivity, reproductive ability and influence.
Modern man may talk about some, but he is not going to mention all. Perhaps it is man's survival instinct that prevents him from telling all, after all, your secrets are safe only with you and thus cannot be used against you.
Yet, there is a clamor for the unburdening of the man's mind and soul. Share, they say, but how do you go against millenia of well-taught and fully absorbed lessons? How do you unburden the man's mind and soul when he lives in a society that shoots first and asks questions after?
The man lives, a lone wolf in a community, and when he can no longer can, he snarls, he growls, he scratches, he bites and eventually, he kills.
And thus are the lessons taught.
Thus, are they absorbed.
To be continued.
The aim of this series is to highlight, to portray and to let us see the Man. It is not to proscribe solutions, as individuals differ from families and families differ in culture and tradition and society is a culmination of differences in fragile harmony.
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The photo belongs to Oritsemaruntosan Ukuemoluwa on Pexels.
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