Rejection

It might be painful. It might even be devastating. It might drive you to do shameful things, and drown yourself in self-pity and drink. Or then again, rejection might just be very thing that gives you the validation you always craved.
In order to be authentic, we have to be willing to be honest, to bear all, and to be able to risk rejection in the name of that authenticity. This is a difficult thing to do, but at the same time, it is also a necessary thing to do.
This means being prepared to be weird. This means being prepared to stake your identity on the chances that a woman who fits your ideal, might not actually respond in the same way. This means being prepared to have your heart broken. This means confronting the possibility that you might end up alone, isolated and misunderstood.
This is all a bit heavy. But such a dreadful reality is highly unlikely. You have to have faith that there are women, and people in general, whose deepest desire is to associate with this level of authenticity.
This is where your passions, your values and your desires come in. In about the last five years, I have been working towards this. But I have resisted it. The recurring thought in my mind has always been, “Yeah, nice idea, but impossible. Easier said than done.” But as I experience more and more painful forms of rejection, I realise that it is a choice. Rejection is simply the constant existential opportunity to re-assert your values. To re-assert who you know yourself to be. You have to be prepared to suffer rejection from the one woman you thought might finally validate your dreams. You have to be prepared to suffer the possibility of someone you love deeply completely misunderstanding you.
Don’t get me wrong. This is some painful shit to even consider, I know. But trust me, I have had more than my fair share of confrontations with this reality. And I have wrestled with it, rejected it, and raged against it all my life. And it is only now that I am beginning to come to terms with it.
The bottom line is, it’s a choice. It’s a decision. Do you accept the rejection as the basic fact about you, and therefore reject yourself? Or do you stand your fucking ground? Do you buckle, give up on the dream you have of who you know yourself to be? Or do you use the moment for what it really is – an opportunity to go deeper into that reality, to dig your heels in?
The problem with this kind of thinking, is that it can seem like a convenient form of new age self-delusion. This has been my issue with thinking like this. It just seems too easy, a cheap form of positivity that doesn’t actually relieve the pain of feeling alone on the world. But I think eventually, you have no choice but to see it this way. Unless, you really do think that your destiny could be worthlessness and oblivion.
As I approach thirty, I am only now beginning to see that the validation I have sought from others, and particularly women, can only come from one's own defiant decision to throw all your energies behind your dreams. There is no guarantee. There is no reassurance. There is only a deeper and deeper resolve to hold your position.
The moment of validation will not come when some gorgeous woman, talented, and who loves the things you love, turns round and falls into your arms. The moment of validation is not some end point. It is a recurring opportunity. The moment of validation comes with each time you are faced with the choice between rejecting yourself because someone else has, or accepting the chance to force yourself EVEN DEEER into a resolve about who you know yourself to be and what you know you can become.
Oh yes. I have railed and railed against this. I know what you are thinking. “No way! Nice idea, but what am I, a fucking superman? What the fuck is wrong with needing a little affirmation and validation as I battle through this life?” Nothing. But your dependency on it will drive a wedge into the solidity of your identity.
I am not putting forward a nice little self-help strategy here. I am talking about survival. I am talking about preserving that energy of the soul, that masculine electricity which will define you as a man. Because, the alternative is a depressive void. The alternative is loneliness. The alternative is slavery to the emotions and whims of a woman. And this is a kind of extinction. It is an extinguishing of something vital about you.
What characterises life, and what I will boldly identify with the male principle, is the defiant will of assertion. What makes you as essential to the life as birth of the sun’s morning light, or the violence of a volcano, is just that energy of assertion. It is an inward assertion, and by its very nature it has to come out of nothing. It has to have that same mystery and frightfulness as the Big Bang itself.
It cannot be sparked from a woman’s loving gaze. It cannot rely on the encouragement of your mother. It can’t come from the affirmation of your friends. Nor will it come from the acceptance of your creative outpourings.
BY ITS VERY NATURE it has to come from nowhere. It has to be implausible. It has to exist with no guarantees or proof of success. Because the essence of beauty, whether we are talking about the face of God or the shape of a woman’s ass, is in its improbability.
God does not make promises. There are no certainties. The only thing you can do is stick firmly to the choices you make about who you decide to be. Of course the irony is, that you cannot but fail to draw love towards you as a result of this kind of resolve. Each painful rejection takes you closer and closer to the experience of true love, because it forces you to become ever more fucking determined to live out your chosen path.