Life is long. One bad choice, given to us in free will, allows us to earn or keep our respect.
In what it means to be a man, that is simply to be born with certain parts. The characteristics upon a noble man or even a gentleman are long taught and everchanging.
Patience: To have the tenacity and capacity to get to know someone may take years. To structure this time, we must meet on good terms and treat one another accordingly. There is always a bigger man and each man can get leveled. To build each other up is important in defining the structure and architecture of an individual and this coordinates to any person. Knowing what’s just and right.
Strength: If it were about who is loudest, then the subtleties of a quieter man may go unnoticed. If it’s about laughing the loudest or smacking the table the hardest, one might miss out on the underlying formation of the plot thickening in the undercurrent.
Losing: If one man strikes another, through violence, that relationship does not grow stronger but rather inevitably leaves a party weaker. And in the weakness is a sly grudge that is ill-intentioned, malicious and wreckless.
Two things are possible. Either one person is proven an idiot in their behavior, or the other owns up to being an idiot for trusting the bond in the first place. In this moment, the reality of the cheap shot.
Then, the backstory of that friendship is replaced with a history of not deserving compassionate respect.
Afterwards: The man becomes a monster. The man becomes less gentle toward common man. His idea of alpha is replaced with lonely warrior. Unsupported by gentler men. Therefore not able to know or understand the gentler man. The man who operates in the subtle, attending to the intracacies of innovation and invention. Leaving their life in the realm of battle until a bigger man comes along.
Lesson: Life is long. And the term mankind should be a hint toward what is acceptable in the long run.
Prose
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I liked the progression of the relationship between the two “characters” throughout the piece and how it is presented. By bolding the theme of the paragraph it draws attention and has authority. In my head, i had this image of two men who were (at the same time mind you) at war with each other and having these private moments together, and I thought it was a good blending of scholarly and common syntax. The whole piece is bookended with the lines about people, and starts with “life is long.”