November
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THE COWARD AT THE DOOR
While reading this submission by our guest, Matticus, I began humming, We’re off to see the Wizard… Sorry Matticus, I am forever going to visualize you with a mane playing anxiously with the end of a lion’s tail. But seriously, the 1939 film “Wizard of OZ” offers us some keen insight regarding cowardice when the Wizard speaks to the cowardly lion.
You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you’re confusing courage with wisdom.
On more than one occasion, I have done what some might consider brave but in hindsight it’s more probable that I was carelessly naive. Social media has enlightened me enough to reexamine some of the things I have done. I probably shouldn’t have offered to help the high and drunk out of his mind pedestrian involved in a hit and run… at night… in a bad part of town… before cell phones… by myself. Cue the scary murder music as I tell you about the time I walked a long dark driveway to a house in the middle of nowhere to report a cow in the middle of the road. And I definitely shouldn’t have followed 3 suspicious acting vehicles with my daughter in the car. Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of reacting before thinking and someday I am going to end up on the wrong side of wisdom.
Please welcome Matticus to the Sisterwives and let us know how you define bravery? What have you done, or not done, in the name of courage?
~Hasty
I once had a friend admit to me that they wished they were more like me. He and his fiancé had been woken abruptly the night before by a large man, obscured by the darkness beyond the peephole, knocking, pounding, forcefully on their apartment door. My friend told me that he felt inadequate as a man and as a potential husband as he backed away from the door and went to hide back in the bed, hoping the man would disappear back into the night. His voice quivered slightly as he recounted his tale and then claimed that he knew I would have handled it differently, I would have been brave enough to answer the door or at least call out to see what they wanted, see if they needed help. My friend saw me as an ideal of braveness to live up to, an ideal he had fallen woefully, ashamedly short of.
I told him he was right. I would have at least called out to the man to see if he needed help. I wouldn’t have gone scampering back to my bed with my tail tucked between my legs. Because I am brave. Because I am a man. Because it was the good thing to have done. The right thing. The human thing.
I lied, of course. To my friend, at least. I knew the words coming out of my mouth were bullshit. I knew I would have quietly snuck back to my bedroom and laid shivering in my bed until enough time had passed that sleep might once again claim me, though that wouldn’t be likely to happen as my imagination would turn every shadow and bump in the night into a looter, a pillager, a raper, a murderer come to dispense their brand of mischief and evil on me, on my family. As I lied, I realized that not only was I cowardly because I wouldn’t have answered the door but I was more cowardly than my friend because I didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth. He could at least admit his cowardice to me. He was braver than me.
My mind, not wanting to admit my cowardice, tried to rationalize my desire to remain quiet, to call out to the stranger, to keep the door firmly closed between us. I would be doing it in the best interest of my family, I couldn’t risk their safety even if it meant possibly helping someone else. Who doesn’t have a cell phone these days, if they truly needed help they could have called friends, family, the police in an instant. Who knocks on a strangers door in the middle of the night, only hooligans, only the worst members of our society. I would be doing the safe thing, the smart thing, by keeping my presence on the other side of those two inches of wood a secret.
I know that doesn’t make any sense. Those men and women who use the cloak of darkness to hide their nefarious actions don’t announce their intentions by knocking loudly, firmly, confidently (urgently), on doors. Who does that? Surely only someone in need of help. Surely someone who was hoping a kind soul would open that door and be able to help them make a phone call, or jump their dead battery, or spare a gallon of gas to get them to the nearest station, or… They knocked, bravely, hoping to be rewarded by another brave person answering their hour of need. They didn’t find one in my friend, and they wouldn’t have found one in me either.
My rationalizations about safety and risk don’t make me feel any better about it. I am a coward. I know it. I don’t embrace it. I don’t actively try to change it either.
Society glorifies bravery and demands that men rise to the examples set by the heroes of the past. Children are raised on stories of knights leading charges, soldiers defying odds and rallying those around them, and astronauts risking everything to explore the final frontier. Who wouldn’t want to live up to those ideals? But then life happens. Responsibilities. Bullying (for some). The shine of those heroes becomes tarnished by the truths of our present realities. We compromise. We deflect. We hide. Until, one day, we wake up and find ourselves lying to our friends about how brave we are.
I should call him, tell him that I lied, admit my fear matched his own and tell him it was okay to be afraid. We don’t have to live up to those ideals of what it means to be a man anymore. We don’t have to compare ourselves to what society deems it means to be a man. Yes, I should call him, but I won’t. I don’t want to admit the truth.
In my mind there is still a sliver of hope that I will grow up to be as brave as those knights, those soldiers, those explorers. I’m just waiting for the right occasion to come along and test me and then I will rise up and prove that I am brave, that I am a man, that I am everything I should be.
I’m fooling myself, of course.
Apparently I’m a fool as well as a coward.
Matticus is a writer of multiple genres, themes, topics, silliness, and general shenanigans normally found at The Matticus Kingdom, but also normally found at various other intersections of the web and reality. He and his family, the Queen and Little Prince, live in California. Aside from writing, he enjoys many other hobbies and pursuits, but thinks that referring to himself in the first person is ridiculously silly.
The SisterWives 
I don’t think you should blame yourself for cowardice in the “big man at the door” situation if you haven’t been in it yet. What if you do turn out one of those odds defying people then? (I wouldn’t use knights as an example, since they spend years training for fighting, and are in less danger because of all that armor)
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It’s true, that we never really know how we are going to respond to a situation until we are in it… but, I’ve lived with myself for long enough to have a good idea, right? The odds aren’t in favor of me answering that call in the night.
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It’s really hard to know what we’ll do in any given situation. When I worked for Wal-Mart I reacted (probably stupidly) to a lot of emergencies. When a call came over the radio one day that some guy had pulled a knife near the registers, like an idiot I sprinted towards the front of the store intent on protecting my follow coworkers. When a customer came in one day and said there was a man trying to break into a car in the parking lot I ran out there to stop him instead of calling the police first. When our LP officer said, “Come help me,” I did so without regard to the fact that the shoplifter would sometimes have to be physically wrestled to the ground or might have a weapon.
I would like to think that in your friend’s situation that I’d attempt to find out what was going on. As much as I fear and loathe violence, I fear something happening to my loved ones (especially my children) even more. Their safety, and the safety of others, often will override any common sense or fear I may have.
Is that bravery? I don’t know. It’s also not something I normally talk about, either. Well, I sometimes talk about apprehending shoplifters, because some of the bullshit they say after they’ve been caught is just hilarious.
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I can actually see you wrestling shoplifters as a storm trooper. I think you and I are so much alike.
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Luckily, in all my apprehensions only one person tried to fight me. The rest came willingly. But there were others which got way out of hand that I wasn’t there for. I’m lucky nothing ever happened to me.
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Scott, I have no doubt that you would answer the knock on the door. It isn’t necessarily cowardice or bravery in your situation, it’s your empathy your core of compassion (it’s that you are such a great person), that overrides any other thoughts. You truly value helping people.
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You have those same qualities, my friend. I believe you’d answer the door, too, despite your misgivings.
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Maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to prove myself worthy of that compliment, my friend.
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Ideally, some huge, looming creep (or what appears to be a creep) won’t be banging on your door in the middle of the night. Either way, you ooze character (in a good way), my friend. You’re a good man and more men should aspire to be like you. So sayeth the trooper.
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You win. I have no good comeback to that.
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Because, for once, I’m right. Accept it. It happens every once in a while. 😉
Seriously, DJ, I respect the hell out of you. Keep being you. Fear is natural and nothing really to be ashamed of. We’re all afraid of something.
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It’s what we do with that fear that sets us apart. It’s our acceptance of the fear and resulting actions that determine if we are brave or not.
You are right. You are right a lot.
It’s kind of annoying. 😛
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I have that affect on people…
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If you answered the door even when you have misgivings, you’re simply living up to the co-dependance within. Doing something you know you probably shouldn’t because, conditioning teaches you to answer the door despite your gut feeling. Nothing wrong with doing what you choose to be right (for the safety of you & family) however, the good and sane person inside really would of called out to the other side of door and offer to call a road service repair or the police. How would you feel if it was your child banging on the door for help and no offered to get them help?
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Yes… what if it was my child… and they had picked a strangers door at random in their hour of need, and nobody answered. I guess I’d hope that their need wasn’t urgent and they eventually found someone who would answer the door…
Perhaps I will be able to teach my child to be “braver” than me… to do something, rather than walk away from the door and pretend nobody is home: call roadside assistance for them, call the police, ask if they need a taxi…
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List of X is right. You can’t hold yourself accountable for something you have no experience with.
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But I’m so good at it! 😉
Yes, List of X is right. He usually is (grumble, grumble.) However! Based on Scott’s comment, now I’m wondering if it has less to do with cowardice and bravery than it has to do with empathy and selfishness. I value myself over others and wouldn’t want to risk my safety or health for a strangers? Somehow that makes this all seem a bit worse…
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Sorry for the delay. Work!
I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re an admirable man. Plus, you don’t just value yourself, you value your family as an entire unit. You, the Queen, and Little Prince are you. You are more than yourself.
You would open the door for a friend, you would open the door for your neighbor. Your goodness is intact.
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Yes, take “stranger” out of the equation, and I would indeed open the door, without hesitation…
And perhaps I am being too hard on myself, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. We put certain expectations on our behavior by what we consider societal norms and we judge ourselves based on performance against those standards. Some people would answer the door because they would have faith that by doing the right thing they would come out okay in the end. They would trust in that faith and let it sway their actions rather than listening to the whisperings of doubt and fear… (Oh! I should have been writing that down, that was good! Oh, wait! I did! 😀 )
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Well, at the risk of making myself even more irresistible and intriguing to all of you, I must admit that I used to have too much courage… and not enough smarts. I can’t list all the times I got my ass kicked jumping in to save some bullied kid or maiden in distress. I have even been beaten up by two undercover San Francisco policemen… hey, I thought they were muggers… it was dark… and late… and I was drunk… and they were beating the guy up with blackjacks in the back corner of a parking lot… how was I supposed to know he just stabbed another undercover officer… and my ‘interfering in an arrest’ charge was dropped when I went to court. And it extends to stupid things… like pulling a guy out of a crashed truck when he was covered in blood, stabilizing him, and then almost getting run over when I tried to flag down a car for help… I guess a long-haired guy covered in blood by the side of the road makes a tempting target, but not to stop for. Hell, I used to go to bad parts of town when I was a teenager just to prove to myself I could. If somebody said, hey, don’t go to that bar, they don’t like long hairs there… sure enough, that’s where you would find me the next night.
Since my kids were born, I try to limit the number of stupid things I do just because I want to impress myself, but there are still some that need to be done… even if they are stupid and dangerous.
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You have a zest for life! You like to chase the natural highs, the endorphin rushes, the adrenaline overdoses. The world would certainly be more boring without people like you in it. That need to prove yourself to yourself is something I’ve always lacked. I’m more go with the flow, quietly get my job done, and try not to stand out too much.
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I always told myself it was so I could have experiences to write about.
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So you knew from a young age you wanted to be a writer? That’s fun. I didn’t find my love of writing until after I was done with school.
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Oh, I was writing songs and poems, and started my first novel… and comic books… all kinds of art stuff… when I was a young teen.
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I can see you doing that. You have so much positive creativity!
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thanks… I also get some negative energy out with my art… just ask Dick Cheney,
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I’d ask… but, I’m not sure you actually want me to waste my time in talking with him…?
Also, the negative energy could be accomplished with most politicians these days across all parties.
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I don’t want to spread it too thin…
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You could just attack the idea of the corrupt two-party system, rather than one individual? (And perhaps this isn’t the forum for this discussion?)
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no… this is all about you… or at least as all about somebody else as I am likely to ever make anything… because that is how much I respect you…
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*bows humbly* Much appreciated.
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oh yeah
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Reblogged this on The Matticus Kingdom and commented:
You can find me visiting The SisterWives today, talking about courage, the lack thereof, and if any of it really matters to anyone beyond how we see ourselves. Join us to add your insights and thoughts on the topic.
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Your friend was brave to admit he was afraid…but that doesn’t reflect on you. Other than you are accessible enough that your friend felt comfortable enough to admit that to you. That means a lot.
No one is courageous all the time. And acts of bravery depend on the person. Sometimes walking out of the house is an act of bravery so strong that most people couldn’t comprehend it.
I love this. This is brave writing.
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I am brave when hiding behind my words. In person I would stumble over this topic, blushing, my eyes looking for the exits, and making a mockery of the coherent thoughts in my head. This “paper” allows me the opportunity to be brave in a way I never could otherwise…
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You know what? That is a lot more than a lot of people can do. It counts.
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Then, I’ll take it for the win, this time. 😀 Thank you for the support.
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Sometimes bravery is foolish. People often die because the jump in to try and “save” someone. But also, bravery has many colors. You can be brave because you stand up for what you believe. You can be brave because you treat others with respect and kindness. You’re brave for writing about how not brave you are…if you ask me.
I had a guy come to my door last year. It was only 9:00 pm, not too late, but I was home alone, my kids sleeping upstairs, and I was terrified. He kept knocking, over and over. I called 911. He left before the police arrived, but I felt better knowing they were coming, that if he got in I could fight him until the police arrived. It was terrifying. Never open the door. It might be someone in search of help, but it might be someone in search of something else. You’re right…everybody has a cell phone these days, so they can just use that.
It doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you smart. And as for not telling your friend, isn’t that part of this whole illicit bro code I keep hearing about?
Thanks for sharing your words here with us. We always love a male perspective here in this sea of estrogen. Hope you come back.
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Not only will I definitely be back… I’ll be back very soon. 😉
The bro code? I never subscribed to that. Just like the dating rulebook I threw out in high school… I guess in that regard I’ve never had a problem doing my own thing. Which perhaps makes this all a bit more interesting… if I have no problem with my decisions for those types of social interactions, why must I question myself in others? All part of this grand adventure of life, I guess.
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Maybe it’s just because I love you like a back alley hooker loves crack, but I think you’re one of the bravest people I know.
Just the fact that you’re examining it makes it so.
Thank you, dear friend, for being here today.
big bloggy love,
S
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Big bloggy love right back at you. Thank you for giving me this forum. Thank you for the constant uplifting support.
My words, fueled by my immense imagination, can be whatever I need them to be… my actions? Well, only time and circumstance prove the worth of those.
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By the way, I wasn’t sure if I could link this post to you on Twitter. Can I?
xoxoxo
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Of course, of course. 😀
I’ve already reblogged to the kingdom and am doing my part to promote it (and The SisterWives), too.
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For what it is worth, I don’t think you’re a fool. That term makes my blood boil. /rant.
You are filled with empathy and compassion. I’ve seen it. To sound like a broken record, you don’t know what you’d do in your friend’s situation til you’ve been there. You are brave for sharing that it’s probable you might do the same thing.
Who’s to say that your friend’s innermost gut told him not to answer, and he doesn’t know it? Who’s to say it didn’t? Intuition is strange like that.
When I was 18, I worked in security and found myself in situations where I had to diffuse tensions in the middle of the night. I loved that job for two years. Now I have an internal battle just to take out the trash. I wonder what that says.
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That says we’ve learned we are not immortal and invincible as we perceived ourselves in our youth. That means we value the lives we’ve built for ourselves and we don’t unduly want to put our futures at risk. That means that life isn’t so simple that we can know right from wrong, the correct course of action, in any situation because there are so many different layers and factors that need consideration and weighing.
Thank you, Jaded. This comment truly helped.
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I hope that it might have been helpful. I see your response below on how things were misplaced when you arrived home. You took action to make sure things were okay. Maybe gut and surely protectiveness.
I’m not sure age fits in. I locked myself out of my apartment years ago (no cell phone). I knocked on my next door neighbor door. She refused to acknowledge. Being a female, I was so angry. We saw each other daily, but in the night, who knows? It is night.
So, this guy was walking his dog and I pretty much latched onto him and told my sit…we were both residents of the same complex. He was kind enough to call management.
A year ago, my screen door opened. I freaked out a bit and when I opened, it was obvious the guy was drunk and got the wrong door. We laughed and that was that.
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Maybe it all just depends on the day…
Maybe we aren’t meant to open the door sometimes and sometimes we are. Maybe we are meant to be brave some days and other days not. This rollercoaster of a life can’t make up its mind on what it wants us to do, who it wants us to be.
When our ideas on what these words (hero and coward) mean comes from books, movies, and songs, where they are played to the extremes, and they shape how society deems them, is it any wonder that we fail to live to those standards?
Who am I to say…
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Pingback: BRAVERY IS… | hastywords
Living in Philadelphia, my husband and I returned home to find our neighbor, a single 50-year-old man, standing in the middle of the street looking frustrated, confused and scared. He’d walked into his house just then to only to realize that people were in his house robbing it. He’d just run outside and seen us. My husband hopped out of the car, grabbed a large metal flashlight and ran into the neighbor’s house screaming like his viking ancestors and Vietnam. I stood in the street holding my preemie infant twins and my two-year-old son, calming the neighbor guy down.
A little bit it was really nice to have a viking husband who can protect anyone. I was also pissed, though. Valhalla is a made-up place. Warriors don’t come back when they run into the battle heedless of the outcome. And safety-first is real. He could have been shot, for what? And then what? Sometimes wisdom is the better road, the more mature choice.
Jes’ sayin’.
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Hey, hey, hey! Who said you could bring maturity into a discussion on bravery!? 😉 Excellent point, though.
And, interesting… We came home last night to find a few things out of place, and our front door unlocked. I immediately searched the house to make sure it was safe for the Queen and Little Prince. There were no intruders,and I didn’t feel brave or cowardly at the time, I didn’t have a spare thought for notions such as those, I just needed to make sure the house was safe for my family. In the end, everything was fine, it was just our slightly absent minded kitty sitter and a misunderstanding. But, yes, what if I had run into a burglar while searching the house last night…?
And what is the difference between the two scenarios… In the one they are outside wanting in, and the other they are already inside? Is it that simple to switch from me cowardly shrinking away from the door to storming through the house to make sure everything is in its place and nobody is there that shouldn’t be?
interesting, interesting…
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There are all kinds of bravery, and it takes a brave person to admit they’re out of their depth and that they would NOT stand up and fight, but would protect themselves. You’re no use to your family if you’re dead or busted up. Sometimes the path of least resistance is the right path.
I’m not smart – I react, act first and think later. If pushed, I fly off the handle and get physical very quickly. It’s very dangerous because potentially I could rapidly find myself out of my depth and unable to cope, and then…it doesn’t bear thinking about, really.
That’s part of why I took up boxing – not only so I *am* able to hit more effectively, but also so that if I get myself into trouble I stand half a chance.
Thank you for sharing this with us – I echo what others have said: this was brave writing.
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I started a martial arts class when I was much younger, because I wanted to learn how to defend myself. I gave it up after two weeks when I realized that it was 99% discipline and strength training and 1% them teasing us with the possibility of learning something cool a year or two down the road. At the time I didn’t have the patience for that… I wonder if I would now? Not that I have the time at the moment, but it is something to consider once the Little Prince gets a little older. Maybe it is something we could do together…
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In my opinion, no one knows how they’lol react in a situation until they’ve reacted. In a different location, your friend might have reacted differently. With a different person at his side, he might have as well.
There is no sense in second guessing oneself, especially not in imagined scenarios.
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The second guessing has a lot to do with not coming clean with my friend at the time… If I could have just admitted that I probably would have reacted the same as him, then I probably would have been less guilty about the whole thing. Guilt may not be the correct word, but it does imply some of the feelings around not living up to the societal expectations of a “man,” right?
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We certainly cannot compare acts of bravery today to acts of bravery when the Knights were defenders of all things good. Those brave Knights did not have the misfortune of dealing with the evolved evil in the world and they did not have to deal with the knowledge that the most innocent of knocks on a door can announce the most sinister of intentions on the other side. I think if many men were being completely honest, they too would be backing slowly away from that door and reaching for a mobile device to call for back up!!
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I’m not sure how I missed this comment last week. Sorry it has taken me so long to reply.
Yes, as the world evolves it makes complete sense that the words we use to describe the world would need to change as well. Bravery can’t possibly mean the same thing, and yet we do hold ourselves to the same standards (or our understanding of those standards anyway). That’s a good point. I’m not sure what anyone else would do. I guess I’m not really even sure what I would do. I’d hope that I’d make a phone call so that someone uniformed (and armed) could help the person out if that’s what they needed, but I wonder if I would just try to ignore them and hope they go away. It’s an interesting hypothetical. Though, perhaps the answer has no bearing on bravery or cowardice?
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It’s kind of brave to accept yourself with your flaws and strenghts. Don’t be too hard on yourself, as your first thought is protecting your family. Some might just help, without thinking one second about whether they should open the door or not. Others prefer to think before taking any action.
Before I had a kid, I would certainly have opened the door to the stranger. Now that I am a mum, I would think twice.
Society has expectations. But as human beings, we do the best we can with what we have and who we are.
I understand that you would have wanted to be true with your friend. I would have wanted to. But maybe you were just scared, not ready to admit it, not ready to say it out loud, not yet…
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And probably still not yet… It’s far easier to give voice to my truths here with my words. I’ve done so with most of my hardest and darkest truths… Not all, but most. One day maybe I’ll actually let them taste the air, but for now this will have to do.
And, you are right, we do the best we can with what we have and who we are. Very well said.
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Matticus,
YOU are NO fool.
You are writing what many men cannot say.
You are honest and beautiful and real.
You are BRAVE because you have written these words.
For me, honesty is COURAGE…honesty is masculine.
xx Kiss from MN.
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I will agree that honesty is real courage… When telling half-truths, and white lies, and little fictions have become so much a part of our culture, honesty can be one of the hardest things to face. That’s kind of sad… but, perhaps a bit encouraging too. If we can recognize that, we have the chance to improve upon it.
Today (well, yesterday technically) I was honest with my words here. Perhaps tomorrow I can be honest with my spoken words.
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I don’t believe you to be a fool at all. Or a coward for that matter. It’s self preservation. I know personally, I was much braver when I didn’t have children to worry over. I’ve made a thousand moves that could have ended badly and that, my friend, is foolish. Whose to say how that situation would play out and is it worth taking the chance? No. Call the police. Let them help. If they are on the up and up, they’ll appreciate the assistance. If not, well then, bravo. You saved someone from a bad guy.
Not telling your friend is not cowardice either. It’s a small thing. This writing, this piece. That’s pretty brave.
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It’s a step in the right direction. It’s one small bravery on a path towards… towards realizing that their are moments for bravery and their are moments for cowardice? But, what is truly important is to find peace with that truth and use that peace to be honest with ourselves and our loved ones? Yes, I think that is the goal I’m striving for.
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Bad Matticus, bad, bad, bad! There are moments! “There are!!” Ack… Oh well. All my writing credentials out the window…. Oh? I didn’t have any to begin with? Okay, then never mind, carry on.
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I’ve known you for 17 years, you are a better person than you think you are. I do not doubt your bravery, integrity, honesty, or good heart for one second. Yes, I am aware of the stupidity too, I was there for some of it. Also, yes, it really has been 17 years. Think about that.
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17 Years!!! How did you know I was going to question that… oh…yeah, cuz you’ve known me for 17 years. Well, how about that. Amazing!
Thank you for believing in my integrity and good heart.
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Pingback: The Coward at the Door | Stories that Must Not Die
I agree, nobody knows how they will react to any given situation until they are in it, that being said I was the recipient of a person who had the tenacity to open the door to my pounding fists and when they did I practically collapsed in the door. I was having an asthma attack, had left my emergency inhaler at home and didn’t have a cell phone at the time. I needed to use the phone, my life was depending on it. The kindness of strangers is a wonderful thing however, there is a real threat from people with ulterior motives and when you have a family to protect, that will come first and should.
Honestly, if the person banging on the door didn’t make some noise sounding like a cry for help, I wouldn’t have opened the door. I have a rule, if you haven’t called to say you are coming over and show up at my door you better be bleeding…and I don’t know who it is you can bet your ass I’ll be holding a big knife or my gun when I do approach the door.
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I don’t think you’re a coward. You don’t strike me as the type. In this instance, you fear for your own safety & that’s different. I think if I was lying bleeding on the road – you’d call for help and not just walk away or whip out a smartphone and video it.
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