Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 16 hours ago
You’ve gotta be tough. We hear that all the time-- you’ve got to be tough. The tough are praised, the weak are ridiculed as losers. But think a minute. Who benefits us most these days? The tough or the weak? In ancient times, it was the tough, of course. When your tribe came across a competing tribe, your tough guys protected you from THEIR tough guys. But it's all flipped now. The tough don't do anything for you. They’re at the gym, standing in front of mirrors admiring themselves, or they’re stealing your lunch money. The rest of us be damned is their attitude. It is the weak who are more beneficial to us all now. They’re the canaries in the coal mine–they feel everything first. By being first, they show us where the injustices are, so we can avoid or fix those injustices. Their weakness is their strength–for the rest of us. They are the sensitive– the artists, the thinkers, the creators.
And still we hear: “You’ve gotta be tough.” Why does this persist? When sensitivity is key to all human advancement from science to philosophy to commerce, why don’t our leaders want people to be sensitive? Because what our leaders want above all else is soldiers. “You’ve gotta be tough” is just grooming. They are grooming you and your children for their wars. That’s why the system we live in pretends to care about all the violence in our world, yet feeds us ever-increasing amounts of it in our entertainment--our television, our movies, our video games, our sports. Brutality is normalized. Empathy is mocked as weakness. Our leaders don’t give a damn that we have life, liberty, and happiness. What they want is war–and they want us to fight those wars for them. That’s what is meant when you hear: “You’ve gotta be tough.”
You’ve gotta be tough. We hear that all the time-- you’ve got to be tough. The tough are praised, the weak are ridiculed as losers. But think a minute. Who benefits us most these days? The tough or the weak? In ancient times, it was the tough, of course. When your tribe came across a competing tribe, your tough guys protected you from THEIR tough guys. But it's all flipped now. The tough don't do anything for you. They’re at the gym, standing in front of mirrors admiring themselves, or they’re stealing your lunch money. The rest of us be damned is their attitude. It is the weak who are more beneficial to us all now. They’re the canaries in the coal mine–they feel everything first. By being first, they show us where the injustices are, so we can avoid or fix those injustices. Their weakness is their strength–for the rest of us. They are the sensitive– the artists, the thinkers, the creators.
And still we hear: “You’ve gotta be tough.” Why does this persist? When sensitivity is key to all human advancement from science to philosophy to commerce, why don’t our leaders want people to be sensitive? Because what our leaders want above all else is soldiers. “You’ve gotta be tough” is just grooming. They are grooming you and your children for their wars. That’s why the system we live in pretends to care about all the violence in our world, yet feeds us ever-increasing amounts of it in our entertainment--our television, our movies, our video games, our sports. Brutality is normalized. Empathy is mocked as weakness. Our leaders don’t give a damn that we have life, liberty, and happiness. What they want is war–and they want us to fight those wars for them. That’s what is meant when you hear: “You’ve gotta be tough.”
