About being Strong

May the Force be with you in 2009

Marilia (Freyja) Coutinho

The strong is self-sufficient. If he is self-sufficient, he is free.

If he is free, he liberates.

To be strong is to be independent and self-sufficient. Therefore, the strong has no need to stick to anyone. The strong doesn’t need the other and so he may enjoy the other’s presence.

The strong may love– the weak may not.

To be strong is to be complete – incompleteness is weakness.

The strong is not attached to anything – he is whole.

Therefore, the strong does not fear loss. The weak is attached, greedy, envious and prisoner to all the emotions related to possession or attributes external to his identity.

To be weak is to need approval. To be weak is to need labels, awards, titles and everything that, in truth, does not exist... They were invented to fulfill an absence – a weakness.

* This is Virginia Tech’s murderer, who killed 32 people in 2007 because he was unable to extort the “approval” he needed.

The strong has no need to defeat anyone, only himself. To outdo oneself is to grow. To be strong is to dedicate one’s life to growth.

Nobody grows “in relation to” anything. Growing is intransitive – growth is entirely self-referent. Only the weak needs to defeat others.

The weak doesn’t grow – he wallows. The strong moves on.

The strong is grateful for the recognition of his merit.

British Olympic champion, Ben Ainslie

The weak extracts undeserved benefits. He manipulates legitimacy and validation criteria. The strong has real merit (whether or not it is recognized). The weak does not.

The strong has no fear: he recognizes real risks and deals with them rationally.

The weak is afraid. Fear leads to hate, envy and violence.

The strong defeats the fears that are born inside him. The weak is a slave to his fears.

Because he is whole, the strong loves the other. He sees the other. For the weak, the other is just an enemy, or a step to climb.

The strong tolerates.

The weak segregates.

The strong loves peace.

The weak loves war.The weak loves war...

The strong is not afraid of dying because he lives to the fullest. The weak is terrified by death because he is afraid of living. Because he fears life, the weak kills.

The strong saves.

The strong is serene because he accepts the things he cannot change.

The weak forces trends, violates reality and loses his mind. The strong is courageous, because he has the strength to change the things that must be changed.

Anti-nazi French Resistance Movement during World War II

Anti-war movement during the 1960’s Viet-Nam war

Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s boat that was bombed by whale killers

Doctors Without Borders

The weak is a coward and struggles to maintain what is wrong.

I do not love strength for being superior to weakness. “Something” cannot be better than its absence. I abominate weakness for being dangerous, for being the origin of all pain, all suffering and all human prejudice.

American soldier torturing prisoners in Iraq.

Weakness is the mother of all error.Weakness is the mother of Power in society.

Many of the Munich Olympics massacre were weightlifters. They employed their strength to defend other athletes under terrorist attack. These men were truly strong.

Strength is the mother of Inner Power.

May the Force be with you in the new Year of 2009!