Bullets

This blog will be about straight headshots! During my first week of training at Shinobi Martial Arts Academy, I had a very interesting conversation with the head coach, Colin Byrne. I believe we started off talking about the motivation behind my project, ventured to spirituality, he gave me some book recommendations on vibrations, and it eventually transitioned to the topic of the sex dichotomy. In the sentiment of, men are men, and women are women, he extolled the differences while heckling women for their emotions and by extension their difficulty in the same fashion I imagine women express their frustration with males when they exclaim a very loaded “Ugh… Men”. He then followed up a “Man they’re bat sh*t crazy!” or something to that effect with “I wouldn’t want to go to war with them, best thing to do in that situation is to put a bullet in their head and keep moving”.

I started laughing. It was out of disbelief. I put words to it: being in a university setting so long that a statement like that seemed unfathomable. The person saying it would be labeled a misogynist or sexist; probably both because of buzz words, then required to make an apology, and promptly made into a social pariah for not holding to the doctrine of equality between the sexes the ivory tower mandates. He didn’t care! Colin dropped out of school at fourteen but still lives a good life in a beach town, owns his own gym, and coaches one of the best fighters in the world. He can have his opinion. I respected that he said what he did with confidence. This isn’t Grinnell, this isn’t Michigan, this is the real world and I guess I’m out exploring it to encounter starkly different opinions.

Once I got home I kept replaying what he said In my head. At first, the feminist senses, the ones absorbed at the aforementioned ivory tower started to tingle, and not in a good way. To keep the embers of my slight indignation ablaze, I tried mental acrobatics. He was framing women in general as handicapped in war, which is categorically false, right? I thought to myself, women serve in the armed forces and risk their lives just as much as men. In fact, in my freshmen year of college, I remember watching an old movie called G.I. Jane about a woman becoming a Navy Seal. This inspired a search for real female Navy Seals. To date, there are none. Only thirteen have passed the Special Warfare Combat-Craftsmen Crew Training, which are the boat operators who transport the Seals on covert missions. My mental gymnastics didn’t work.

I started to feel bad because I was agreeing with him. Well not totally, let me clarify. I saw the soundness in logic, specifically, I recognized that he conducted a cost-benefit analysis and operated under a utilitarian framework. In layman’s terms, Colin weighed the value of one life against what he thought provided more utility or what is more important--many lives. The death of the woman, therefore, is a necessary and justified means if the end meant the survival of the rest of his comrades. Basically the trolley dilemma, but, Rambo. Cold-blooded, I know. At least it’s efficient, right?

This line of thinking is pervasive throughout creation. I once saw a video of a group of elk or deer species attacking a young calf. The calf’s mother tried desperately to protect its baby as other members of the herd weaved around her sneaking in front of hoof stomps or hind leg kicks. I was shook! Bambi was not analogous to this at all; I guess most Disney movies aren't grounded in reality. Anyway, the comment section explained that the older members of the herd were trying to kill the calf because it was sick and slowed the group down making the collective easier targets. Heck, we do it too. If a human baby endangers our freedom of movement, career path trajectory, or is a general burden beyond what we would like to bear, there is a clinic willing to help us be, you know, more efficient.

I disagree with Colin on an ethical level. I wouldn’t put a bullet in a woman’s head or anyone’s head for that matter out of a sense of comradery. Loyalty is something I cleave to and as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, I believe the truth he spoke about love; laying lay down your life for a friend is the highest form of it. After broodily pondering as well as talking to my fiancé, Taylor— who is a great soundboard for this whole Watson experience— I realized that’s where our differences stopped. I am more like him than I care to admit. Even in my theoretical “mercy”, I am still looking down on the woman for being inherently a woman, unconsciously associating them with liabilities.

You know I am good for a story within a story, so here we go! For the duration of my master’s program at the University of Michigan, I lived with a young woman, who we will call for the sake of this work, my roommate. We were familiar because we completed the same summer public policy program in 2019, so once we started our ensuing master’s in the pandemic, we thought it made sense for us to live together. We became really, really, really, good friends, really fast. I considered her to be a sister, someone on par with my friends A.T. and Rick. We even joined the University of Michigan Cheer Team together as graduate students because we missed the thrill of intercollegiate competitions. She was a division-two gymnast and national champion.

Plot twist: my roommate and I are no longer friends and this happened as a result of Taylor and I becoming an item. Juicy love triangle? No! Just four months of awkward silence. You see, my roommate confessed to having feelings for me, and because of consistent proximity and mutual affinity toward muscular physiques, I could not help but consider it. Eventually, I decided against taking things further with her because of our values system. I am a practicing Christian who holds to an orthodox view of the authority of scripture and sexual ethics—two things that might make someone my age stick out like a sore thumb among their peers. She, however, was not. Well not yet. Inshallah! She became somewhat interested in my faith as we lived together and even came to church with me multiple times. I could not tell if she was motivated to pursue God out of ambitions for romance or an actual curiosity. I want someone to pursue Jesus for themselves and don’t want x’s and o’s interfering with that exploration. Not the American football kind either.

I didn’t think it was wise to move forward because of the reasons previously mentioned, and I mentioned it to her on multiple occasions. However, when the ship actually beached, I cited Watson as the primary reason for not wanting to be in a relationship. I say primarily because, during the conversation, I also mentioned the other reasons, but leveraged my trip as the most logical one so as to let her down easily and not make her feel less judged for not being Christian. Fast Forward a month, Taylor and I are going on coffee dates and taking salsa lessons.

An important detail in this sub-layer is that Taylor, my roommate, and I were all friends. Taylor would come over to our house for dinner regularly, all three of us would go to the movies together, and Taylor and my roommate even got ready for Michigan football games when Taylor would be on the field as an alumnus. Apparently, Taylor was dropping the hanky the whole time, and although I was oblivious to the subtle art of being available, but not chasing, my roommate I guess, peeped game start. I know what you’re thinking, and I offer one question as a rebuttal. Is a man not allowed to change his mind? In conversations around sexual consent, if a woman at first consents, then takes it back, that’s, that, point, blank, period. Right?. Yea, check your bias!

So what’s important, why all the details? It helps you understand my roommate’s response, she stopped giving any whatsoever. What do I mean by that? We lived together, had some of the same classes, and were on the same sports team, yet we drove separately to each listed event although headed to the same destination and coming from the same point of origin. On purpose. I told you, awkward. After the initial shock, she later communicated to me that her feelings were hurt and that she lost trust in me. I was confused because I didn’t lie, but genuinely had a change of heart. I even hit her with the same rebuttal question I asked you all. It still didn’t work.

Over the course of the next four months, I owned up to my cowardice, condemning my lack of directness when telling her I didn’t want to be with her. I admitted to the mixed signals and apologized for passively accepting her affection, then discarded it when what I actually wanted came around. We were both emotionally irresponsible and therefore both to blame. My roommate had proved herself to be emotionally mature showing the ability to understand nuance in conversations while discussing hard topics and thinking critically. Add this to what I thought was a genuine friendship unstained by ulterior motives, and you have a recipe for mutual recognition of culpability, followed by just keeping it pushing and acting normal. I was wrong.

She had a perpetual glower and emitted an unpleasant Jedi-like force only second to Anakin Skywalker when making his transition to the Darkside. I genuinely couldn’t understand it. Had I not said my apologies? Did she still think I was lying even though she admitted I’m allowed to change my mind? So, one night when discussing the matter, I accused her of being controlled by her emotions, helplessly being tossed to and fro by feelings. In the same breath, I offered a full-proof plan that’s always helped me get over sadness. It is this: view this moment as a lesson instead of a loss, act like it didn’t bother you, and finally—the two birds, one stone bit—grind/work on yourself until you actually feel better and or the person who hurt you regrets their decision. Works every time, but she didn’t seem the infallibility my advice. It didn’t go over too well and my relationship was never the same after that.

I discovered two things from the epic that was my roommate and I’s saga. The first is that I don’t like prolonged conflict; with the exception of anger, I don’t empathize with negative emotions well. I try to solve it, and if I can’t, remedy it, I distance myself. The second thing is that it’s not that I just don’t like negative emotions, I actively demonize them and view them as weaknesses. Being in your feels a little too much: crying, mourning, and sadness, for an extended period, blinds people to objectivity and leaves them incapacitated, a sitting duck, or worse… a young calf. To me, what is needed is a healthy skepticism of your own feelings and sometimes where possible distance in order to keep moving.

I am more like Colin than I care to admit because, after all this time, I still think my roommate’s actions made her look weak. And truthfully, I lost some of the respect I had for her. This reflection feels like a black box, I can understand that this perspective has to do more with me than her. This is not the totality of her personality by any means. She is a lovely young lady best described as intelligent, festive, and effervescent. That just means bubbly. However, the sad part is I have to work hard to remember that young woman because the stereotype of the “female controlled by her emotions” is the most readily available information in my amygdala. I think a lot of men are like that too. We expect women to operate like us, graft what’s important to us onto them, then dismiss them as a liability when they can’t “play ball”. It is unrealistic and because we are all individuals with different capacities. Heres the hardball; life isn't fair and I don't know what to do with that.

As I was talking with Anshul about what Colin said, he gave his take: “If you wouldn’t praise a man for beating up a woman, why would condemn her for losing to a man”. Pithy, I know, A.T. is like that! I’ve had an upbringing that calloused me. Constant ridicule as a child made what may hurt other people bounce off me. Where others get disheartened or lose spirit, I’ve become accustomed to melancholy due to low self-esteem throughout my youth. Where things really get to me: I have the prospect of the future, the Lord’s favor, and my tenacity to help imagine a future, I like then obtain it. That comforts me. It’s paradoxical, my wounds are the low expectations that allow me to be grateful for a lot of things. In a way, it’s my armor. I feel like if people just lowered their expectations they would be happier.

In the same conversation, Anshul said that we could do better by seeing women in a more holistic way. There is value in mourning, I mean there is a whole book in the Bible named Lamentations. And, intellectually I know emotions alone don’t make you a young calf, but more in tune with yourself and better at walking with others through healing. I am in desperate need of a perspective change. It can be easy for Taylor to become my roommate. In some ways she has. Taylor and I grew up completely different. At random her mother, Mama, C will share in her reminiscence with Taylor by sending her beloved daughter a picture of herself in uniform. The following text lauds her with compliments of not only beauty but character. That may seem normal to some readers, but it’s not to me.

Losing respect for my wife because she’s not “strong” in my way, will kill our marriage. My daughter (future) or heck, even my son (also future) can easily become my roommate. This is what makes me want to be able to empathize with people in their emotions. Admittedly, I'd rather make my children's lives harder, withhold affirmation, and challenge them so they too can become calloused. Seems like a better solution than having them break down every time their feelings are hurt. However, that's what I am trying to fight against here on the Watson. I need to figure out how to hold tough love and gentleness in tension. I don't want to just hold them at gunpoint and then pull the trigger when they become inconvenient. My children’s emotions, I mean. I’m not trying to be, you know, efficient.

I realize that this whole situation probably makes me look at best, cynical and emotionally stunted, and at worse un-Christian-like. I want to clear something up. You’re reading this, so you get a peek behind the curtain of who the real Max is. Nobody is as ever good as they think or pretend to be. Jesus came to comfort broken people–the spiritually ill if you will. As someone who takes the first-hand accounts of his life, death, and resurrection seriously, it is an honor to show my wounds and testify of how the manger-born–God-man from Bethleham is healing them and using the scars.