this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Surviving in a "hard situation" resembles suffering much more closely than it does strength.
That flower is not surviving pinned under rubble for the sake of inspiring the flowers that are not, nor for the sake of "becoming stronger" - it is surviving because until someone bothers to remove the boulders that are crushing it, its options are to survive or to die. And plenty of flowers in that same situation would die, and its actually not out of the question that this flower's eventual death will be due to these conditions that it is forced to endure.
Knowing that, would you still compliment the flower on its strength, on the fact that it has not yet been killed, before considering that maybe, just maybe, you and the other flowers might want to find a way to do something about those boulders that would have already killed any weaker flower?
One should not prioritize complimenting the systematically abused for surviving their undue suffering above working to prevent that undue suffering from continuing. Their suffering and tragedy should not be repurposed as inspiration porn.
Ok but I’m still going to tell someone who is not yet dead from cancer and trying to see through the treatment as strong. As it’s helping my relative stay inspired to allow the docs to help them give life a fighting chance even though medically assisted death is an option for them.
Strength is often not about how your survive or why you do so but just rather the fact that you did. That despite all the misery and pain that surrounds you, you've found a way to just get through the day. To not let it overwhelm you completely even though it's wearing you down. Someone who thinks about not waking up the next day but does so anyway chooses to be strong. For themselves or others.
Who would you consider strong? The guy who can hit the hardest or the guy who can take that hit and stay standing?
Your choice is survive or die, and most people are almost hardwired to not even regard death as a choice, so there's really no autonomy. I suppose you could say my mind is strong, but that's about as meaningful as saying I have naturally strong muscles: cool, but that's not something I did or earned, that's birth luck.
I don't want to be seen as strong for my struggles. I was only a bit of bad luck from death, would that person have been considered weaker than me now? She's hardly different from me, so if she's weak I'm weak. And if you'd say we're both strong, what's the point in calling a survivor strong anyway? I'll take the title "survivor", but " strong" implies more power than I really had.