The Way of the Gentle Warrior:
You may be a fighter and not even know it.
Most people interpret fear as a sign that it’s time to stop or turn back. Warriors, however, do not allow themselves to be hindered by fear.
My work has afforded me the unique opportunity to work with, and learn the minds and motivations of, some true warriors in the classical sense: warfighters and combat athletes, to be specific. Through my America’s Warrior Class book project, I’ve been able to gather over 100 intimate portraits from American warfighters who have served across all strata of the military. I’ve looked at their reflections on everything from life and death to ethics, violence, spirituality, and sex. Additionally, as a combat sports athlete myself, I’ve had the benefit of training with and observing the trajectory of fighters in various disciplines as they develop themselves and their fight careers over a number of years. From a diversity of backgrounds, there is one strong common thread uniting all of these individuals: they do things that need to be done, but which most people are afraid to do. And they do these things willfully, and repeatedly.
There’s a saying that I’ve heard passed around through both communities: “do it anyway.” A common fallacy among most people is that fighters – in any genre of combat – feel no fear. What I’ve learned is that for most fighters, this isn’t true at all. Everyone feels fear. But the key, for the warrior, is to feel that fear and yet remain relentlessly undeterred. This is how the warrior ultimately accomplishes things that other people choose not to. Most people interpret fear as a sign that it’s time to stop or turn back. Warriors, however, do not allow themselves to be hindered by fear.
Most people interpret fear as a sign that it’s time to stop or turn back. Warriors, however, do not allow themselves to be hindered by fear.
This is how you lose a fight and then get back in the ring a second time. This is how you open a door and get shot, but return on another deployment to kick in yet another door. These fighters embrace a sense of purpose and objective that makes it worthwhile to act in spite of fear.
Fighters embrace a sense of purpose and objective that makes it worthwhile to act in spite of fear.
I am speaking in extremely broad and simplistic generalities here, but this is necessary in order to enable my next point. There are dark and scary places on the edge of human life; existential places where most of us don’t want to go. We are programmed to abhor and avoid these places at all costs: illness, infirmity, death, sorrow, despair…the list is long and full of things we would much rather not think about.
There are dark and scary places on the edge of human life; existential places where most of us don’t want to go. We are programmed to abhor and avoid these places at all costs: illness, infirmity, death, sorrow, despair…
And we do what we can to avoid thinking about these things. Our tendency to avoid these existential black holes is what holds us back from visiting an ailing and infirm elderly relative. It’s what stops us from offering support to a newly divorced friend. It’s why the sights and smells of hospitals and retirement homes can be so repugnant to us. It’s why we can avert our gaze from the homeless. It’s why we sometimes hold our tongues, finding it easier to remain quiet than to try to muster up the correct words to comfort someone who has just suffered an unthinkable loss. I’ve seen this before in the presence of the dying: people who are afraid to hug, kiss, touch, or comfort them. In the last weeks of life, I’ve watched many elderly people have more physical contact with their hospice caregivers than their own friends and loved ones.
In the last weeks of life, I’ve watched many elderly people have more physical contact with their hospice caregivers than their own friends and loved ones.
But yet. There are those gentle warriors who are not deterred by that dark precipice on the edge of human life’s abyss. Death from old age can be a slow and undignified process, and I think of the caregivers and healthcare workers who literally and figuratively get their hands dirty with the biological byproducts of life at its end. I think of the religious and spiritual guides who are unafraid to help the dying confront their spiritual needs in their final moments. I think of my little sister Emma rubbing lotion on my grandmother’s hands as she lay on her deathbed, even as a child unafraid to have such intimate contact with a dying elderly person.
But yet. There are those gentle warriors who are not deterred by that dark precipice on the edge of human life’s abyss.
In all of these cases, there is an ultimate purpose at play that stands above fear, and it allows these gentle warriors to do their bidding beyond what most people would find to be repugnant. The hospice caregiver’s wish to uphold human dignity. The religious leader’s steadfast faith. Emma’s gentle desire to do unto her grandmother as she would have done unto herself.
There is an ultimate purpose at play that stands above fear, and it allows these gentle warriors to do their bidding beyond what most people would find to be repugnant.
As death is the greatest human unknown, the thing that most of us ultimately fear most, acting in the face of death – whether someone else’s (in the case of the gentle warriors), or our own imminent peril (as our warfighters face) – is the most active frontier in testing our own ability to act in spite of our fear. For this reason, there are plentiful examples to be pulled from the realm of the dying, but that is not the only place to find gentle warriors.
More broadly, gentle warriors are also those individuals who are willing to face the things that most people will avoid at all costs. Not all warriors fight physical battles. Sometimes, what it means to be a warrior is to choose to stand with another human being on the precipice of the scary things they’re facing that you would rather not think about: mortality, loss, grief, tragedy, and all manner of existential uncertainties. Walking with a friend or loved one through suicidality or mental illness. Supporting a friend through the loss of a pregnancy. Even sticking by someone as they face the legal or moral fallout from having made a huge mistake.
The gentle warrior may even face down existential uncertainty within her or himself.
The gentle warrior may even face down existential uncertainty within her or himself. The sometimes uncomfortably intimate and deep conversations that lead to authentic human connection. Showing one’s own vulnerability in order to connect with the authentic humanity of another person. Acknowledging and acting on your true feelings. Looking fearlessly inside yourself to identify your own weaknesses and biases.
At their best, a gentle warrior uses their agency in the world to act for the good in spite of their own fears.
At their best, a gentle warrior uses their agency in the world to act for the good in spite of their own fears. Missionaries who travel to foreign countries to share their faith. Social workers and other public servants who engage intimately with the lives of individuals in troubled populations. A child who chooses to stand up for a peer who’s being bullied. My friend Caleb’s parents, who chose to pay tithe to their church in spite of their own financial woes, believing that their needs would be provided for (they were – his mom found a job shortly thereafter).
I thought of the gentle warrior today when I received a text message from my mother, who’s at the hospital with my 95 year old grandpa. He’s had a rough winter, but he’s tough as an ox, and he’s currently receiving inpatient treatment for various issues. My family was a bit unsettled, because while they were in the hospital room visiting with my grandpa, his roommate passed away. The roommate was alone, with no friends or family present.
In my own work at the VA hospital, I’ve often had to report to the bedside of a veteran immediately after his or her passing. It’s never easy, but I’ve always felt that it’s important to not allow that experience to become “all in a day’s work.” Every passing is sacred; every family’s experience is individual to them. Attending to these grieving families, often with their newly deceased loved one still lying in the bed, was my own crash course in what it means to be a gentle warrior. I already knew how to fight a violent physical battle, but the emotional courage that it took to attend to such a scene was a new experience for me.
“See it as a sacred opportunity to do good,” I texted my mom. “You have a great opportunity to comfort his family or even the nurses right now.”
“Interestingly, a priest just appeared to bless him and pray with him,” she replied. “How about that.”
