Will Clarke, Strength

As some of you may know, I love playing sport and going to the gym. I am sometimes asked: why do you go to the gym? What is the point of going into a building, three times a week, with a bunch of random sweaty dudes, to lift things up and down for an hour and leave? I usually answer with classics such as: “I want to be stronger for footy, fitter for rowing, or just to make girls recognise that I even exist.”

But this isn’t really the real reason why I lift. And I believe that this analysis of my passion for exercise, will shift us towards a broader understanding of strength and how we should acquire it.

I go to the gym because in Year 7 I was the runt of the litter and a frequent subject of bullying. I weighed 29 kg at the time and was naïve as can be. This made me the target for bullying by the much larger Year 8s.

Being one of the smaller lads in my year, I was forced to wrestle much larger kids, which usually ended in frequent trips to the nurses’ office. I had my belongings stolen and thrown at me, I was once taped to my bed, and I dealt with events that are too vulgar for Formal Hall. As you can see, in my first year of high school, I was straight-up not having a good time.

Towards the end of the year of torment, a little film was released in cinemas called Captain America. Essentially, Steve Rogers – a stick-thin young man from Brooklyn who is constantly beaten down by the local drunks – gets juiced up with super-serum and takes on the most sinister villains of WWII. After this film, I thought that if I can get big muscles and be stronger, bullies will leave me alone. If I suck at fighting, I need to get better at fighting.

Thus a 6-year campaign of gym going began.

I was desperate to be strong. I was so afraid of being weak compared to my peers, and I hated being an easy target. I hated always being told that “I’ve got to be tough” and “be a man”.

Now, I am not going to go into a rant about the way boys are raised. Rather, I want to ask: why is strength important?

From the story I’ve just told, the answer is that strength allows you to stand tall within the social hierarchy and avoid

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such tough circumstances. It’s pretty obvious – no revelation there. As a result, we idolise strong mythical and pop-culture icons such as Hercules or Superman. These characters often inspire us to go to pursue meaningful goals of physical value, wherever it be getting fit or standing up to bullies.

But if the answer to all of life’s problems was to load them onto a barbell and bench press them, then Shawn Ingle would have already solved world hunger. Human challenges are often both physical and emotional in nature. The passing away of a loved one not only means that they are physically absent from your life, they are also emotionally absent, and no number of dumbbell bicep curls can consistently help people through those hard times.

I have come to learn that a different type of strength is needed. As the world becomes more connected via social media and smart phones, this new type of strength has begun to gain traction: the strength of vulnerability. Originally, when I heard that people should be comfortable with being vulnerable, I thought it was the dumbest idea to ever pass through my ears. Why would I ever let my guard down and expose my true feelings to others? As someone who was ridiculed for them in the past, it seemed like an inferior strategy of dealing with emotions.

Over the course of this year, I have observed the polar opposite. Vulnerability isn’t about appearing weak, but about being honest with who you are. The strongest people are not just those who can punch the hardest, smile the brightest or are the wealthiest. The leaders of our generation will be people who are comfortable expressing their true nature to others. They don’t always hide behind a mask, they willingly take theirs off, so that others feel comfortable to do the same. Strength in solidarity is truly what people seek – to be seen in a group; to feel like they are cared for; to have a voice are all strengths that grow fastest when humans are strong enough to show their true selves and lift others up.

For most of my life, I exercised to turn pain and humiliation into my weapon, my strength. But the society we live in needs to include more compassionate approaches to dealing with struggles if we are to realise our full potential. Vulnerability is therefore not weakness, it is a gateway to having a more positive relationship with yourself and our community.

By Will Clarke