What Happened When I Found a Motionless Body
There was a body not too far from me, lying face down in the grass. It was just my morning walk, and a glance into a nearby field, over a short stone wall, revealed this startling sight. A large black man lay shirtless, his face compressed down into the grass. I squinted and tried to watch his body for signs of life. I yelled to ask him if he was okay, but there was no response. Was he breathing? I couldn’t tell. I paused, unsure of the most prudent decision. Should I really call the police and just report a body? Or should I risk an approach, knowing that he’s stronger than me and might behave in an erratic way if I wake him from what is merely a drugged stupor?
Just then, a man approached from my left, jogging with earbuds in, probably in his early 50s. Immediately, I signaled towards the body and said, “Do you think he’s alive?” with exaggerated mouth movements so that the man could understand me over the volume of his music.
The jogger came to a sudden stop, looked at the body, then stared at me with shared panic, before jumping over the stone wall. Without saying anything, he signaled for me to stay where I was. Then he got close enough to the body and communicated to me that the man was breathing. He repeatedly yelled “Are you okay, sir?!” to the unconscious man while cautiously getting closer. Suddenly, when he was only a yard or so away, the body moved, and nodded his head “yes” to the inquiry, before rolling over, clearly recovering from some kind of substance.
But why did it all unfold this way? Why was it so obvious to the jogger that it was his responsibility to check on the man, rather than mine? We never had a conversation comparing abilities, but we both knew what made sense. Despite every movement of gender indifferentism and feminism, in an emergency, a man (especially of that generation or older), takes on a distinctively patriarchal role, and assumes the risk by default. It’s so natural as to be beyond question.
And really, such things ought to be beyond question. In other words, we ought to be able to recognize that which is obviously natural. A lot of the movements of modernity are counter to nature. They tell us to question the most basic things that we know to be true. They cast doubt on our ability to reason, by positing and elevating the unreasonable. It’s a sophistry that is woven to confuse people about even the most basic truths of our existence. Such movements try to pass for intellectualism but are really closer to the exploration of insanity.
When we are ungrounded, we are easier to manipulate in these ways. What ungrounds us? Youth. Inexperience. Lack of formation. Lack of religious instruction. Openness. Being “open” is noble in our age, but that’s a very modern idea. Prior generations worked on becoming closed—closed to error. An openness to anything other than what is true is a flaw or at least a vulnerability. If we seek “openness” then we seek a status of never being certain of the truth and always questioning what we ought to know. It’s a type of permanent immaturity. To be young is to have not yet settled on base understandings, and to be (hopefully) in a state of learning from a trusted source.
It’s easy to see how all of this has gone wrong—our youths do not learn from trusted sources and so many of our adults believe openness to be a virtue. That openness is then exploited to undermine their understanding of not just acceptability but of what is. Their definition of man is ambiguous, they don’t know why they exist, they don’t understand their relationship to others, and being adrift leaves them at the mercy of the homosophists so endemic in our age.
Our society relies on men as close minded as the one who jumped over the stone wall without wondering if the woman half his size should be offered the opportunity to take the lead. If we mal-educate them out of existence, or shame them into unnecessary uncertainty, we only weaken the foundations that we will rely on in the battles of today and tomorrow.
"openness...it's a type of permanent immaturity..."
Seldom are truer words spoke in this age of 'word-harm.'
Fyi - you did the right thing in not approaching him. But you already know that. That jogger guy did do the right thing in putting himself into a potentially dangerous scenario Instead of watching you do it. I would have done the same thing. That's our job.
Whatever else men do on this rock, whatever our other jobs or skillsets... we are first and foremost hunters and guardians. It's hardwired into us, whether by God or thousands of years of adaptation (or both). This is why we have the muscle mass, bone density, colder logic and fury of battle infused into our reactions and subconscious. This is indeed the realm of men. To safeguard women and children. Always.
Women have their own realms upon this Earth, and very important ones at that, just as men have theirs. The potentially dangerous, violent encounters with predators and monsters... that is our realm. It will always be ours.
God bless.
I worked in an industrial yard for a few years. I came to appreciate how men are often willing to put themselves at risk, not wait for proper safety equipment, monkey up the warehouse racks to get photo, lift something at the edge of their strength, and were ALWAYS willing to lend a hand when I found a task either beyond my skill or strength level or required tools I didn't own. They will get it done in order to facilitate the work flow, keep everyone moving, and get everyone a paycheck to take home to a family. It's why they have shorter lifespans! As a woman in that setting I campaigned for better warehouse layout and workflow tweaks that would prevent some of the need to just push things around, procedures that would help prevent injury and retirement with a worn out body. Sometimes they listened. They were men, bless them, and they usually opted to act now and think later. Men, bless them, are wired to act now. Women are more honest about their abilities. I think the lesson from your experience and mine is that we should not hesitate to recruit help. Men ARE wired to help a woman.