Tough

For a while, at least as a kid, I think even I knew what a tough person was.  It was the killer in a film but also the cop that caught him.  In Predator, the tough dude is obviously the one that got rid of the alien.  In books, like in Jurassic Park, the tough are those that do not get eaten by the dinosaurs.  Tough seems to mean those that are big, fast, and intelligent.


These days, it seems big, fast and intelligent has not built a world we can all agree is a havenly haven (hello Mr. Dredd!).  However, it is getting there - or so I’m repeating the same generational phraseology of all the people who came before me and believed the same.  Let’s look at it from a fairly simple perspective, and this I believe is a good rule of thumb.

What does tough look like in an urban city like Toronto?  Is it the guy who is above the law, untouchable, and can blow smoke in your face, dump garbage on the street, or kick those in wheelchairs over?  This person can’t be stopped and I see these things happening for decades now all over.  Generally though, these are not tough cakes, but biscuits.  See an elderly lady?  Bump, oops, sorry, not my fault.  That’s not tough either.  See that homeless guy?  Laugh or ignore him - that’s not tough either.  Passing by an immigrant or a tourist?  Heckle them!  Is that tough?  Is it tough doing what you please and nobody telling you otherwise?  I am confused, because having been born with cataracts making me way blinder than most, I know I’ve never been tough in any sense of the word, so it’s why I search for tough people.  Us weaklings look for tough guys to protect us.  But that does not seem to be tough in this world.  Spiderman was tough, or so I thought, in his movies.  But not because of the aforementioned big, fast, and intelligent body and mind that he possesses.

Spiderman is not really tough when compared to the Hulk is he?  And Hulk is chump change when compared to Oblivion.  And what about Dr. Strange’s dimensionality?  Or a nuclear bomb’s blast, now that’s gotta be tough, right?  I think for me, what defines tough, is the man that wakes up at 5 in the morning in winter, sips on his coffee, gets his shovel, and for free, goes around the neighbourhood shovelling snow for others and the elderly who are still asleep, so they can go about their day without at least that worry.  Then this man takes a shower, and goes to work on something else.  To me, this is tough, and it’s something I rarely see these days.  For the most part I see people wondering with accusatory voices “why hasn’t anyone cleaned the path I’m walking on!  Such a lazy world.”.  And to that, I say... tough!

Building muscle requires a bunch of cans of beans lifted up and down repeatedly.  But tough is heart, son.