Have you ever done something stupid? Dumb shit that you sit back and think about later and you go “what the fuck was I thinking?”, like having unprotected sex with a stranger knowing fully well you can contract a life-threatening disease, drinking heavily, and driving, intentionally not taking your life-saving pills, spending all your money on something meaningless, traveling a long distance to go see a babe and risking your life all because you want to orgasm…a whole lot of things you knew doesn’t make sense which might even cost you your life, but you did it anyway?
Such is the story of Samson and Delilah…and there’s a Samson in all of us, that stupidity plug waiting for the right socket to power it up and the resulting shock may never leave us the same. This post is not about castigating Samson or talking about how dumb he was, but rather to sympathize with him and draw out some lessons that can be relevant to us in today’s world. Follow me…
The story of Samson is quite a fascinating one, one that has been watered down over the years to the story of the lust of a man and his encounter with the infamous Delilah, but it runs deeper than these and if we focus on just the Delilah part, then we miss a major part of the story.
Samson’s interaction with Delilah goes a lot deeper than him just being with a pretty woman. In fact, nothing was said about Delilahs’ looks in the story, she wasn’t described as a slay queen or some Miss World prototype with a banging body. She was just Delilah. We all have our ‘specs’ when it comes to women, some like ‘em slim, some chubby, some light-skinned, some dark. We all have our kryptonite, and woe to the superman that doesn’t know his kryptonite.
Besides, Samson was used to pretty women, you can’t be a badass like Samson and women will not flock to you. Some will want you for husband and some won’t mind being your side chic. Women have an uncanny attraction to fame and power. The point is it wasn’t just about looks that Samson fell in love with Delilah, there was more to it.
ENTER SAMSON
Most of us are familiar with the story, Samson was chosen before birth, an angel of God appeared to the mom and told her she’ll bear a son and he will be dedicated to God and no blade must touch his head all his life.
Yes, Samson was full of physical strength but he lacked the mental gravitas for game and attracting good quality women into his life. The guy was impulsive, he was the kinda guy that sees a woman today and marries her tomorrow, he fell in love on a whim, a classic example of sense>>>strength.
He was married to a Philistine woman (against his better judgment and that of his parents). He had no business with a philistine woman in the first place, this is a woman of the arch-enemy of his people. This woman was later given off to his best man and of course that left him heartbroken and apparently, he never healed from that till he met Delilah.
There are issues that happen to us we never truly recover from, we look fine outside but broken and bitter inside, it affects our worldview and decisions, and what you don’t heal from might eventually kill you.
So Samson was born and he was equipped with supernatural strength, the type a man can tear open the mouth of a lion, uproot the gates of a city and carry it to throw over a cliff, kill men with bare hands, kill over a thousand soldiers with the jawbone of a donkey. I mean, Samson was a real badass, it doesn’t get any badass than that.
This brings me to my point of being the chosen one, We men are the chosen ones metaphorically speaking, we are responsible for a whole lot of things in the society, security of lives and property, giving direction to society and family, read https://menstyleplug.com/nobody-cares-about-men-memoirs-of-the-realities-of-a-man/ I spoke much about the burden of being chosen and being a man. However, these roles don’t come with a manual, many are just winging it and hope they get it right and it’s funny how you can get it right in one aspect of your life and make a total mess in another aspect.
ENTER DELILAH
Nothing much was said about Delilah other than she was hired by the philistines to trick Samson to reveal the source of his power. She took the contract and went to work. I assume they know Samsons ‘specs’, she wasn’t just chosen randomly and they knew he was a broken man and had a woman-weakness, hence the choice of their scheme.
Delilah played the oldest tricks in the book women play. Cunning and seduction. Very subtle, but very powerful and effective, many men can’t see through it, many think it’s harmless, like a moth they’re attracted to the light, but forget there’s fire behind the light and it burns upon contact.
Samson didn’t just lust after Delilah, he loved her, that’s where he fucked up. He was vulnerable, needed companionship, he was trying to keep her, he must have said to himself “I’m not gonna lose this one again, I’m going to do everything to make it work this time”.
The shocking part was she was trying to kill him and he knew it! What kind of bond is this that you literally are laying with a murderer and you are so foolish you think you can handle it. Some people are playing with dynamite and so arrogant they think they can handle it.
Samson was a badass but had an inflated impression of himself and didn’t know he should run in the face of imminent death. He forgot the rules of engagement in battle are different from the rules on the bed.
3 times, this woman sought to know the source of his strength, 3 fucking times bruh!… I assume Samson must’ve been barrel-chested, tall, and fit so it should be obvious enough that his strength is merely physical. But his enemies knew there was more to it than what meets the eye.
See ehn, there are people that are just after your secrets, what makes you tick, how you’re doing it that things are working for you, they don’t love the ‘you’, they’re only attracted to your giftings. They are users and don’t be fooled to think they’re really on your team.
When someone says you’re scared because you don’t want to do what they’re challenging you to do, they’re appealing to your pride. The foolish move is to prove you’re not scared by doing exactly what they want. The wise move is to emphatically agree and tell them you don’t care.
Samson eventually told her all his heart. His hair might have been the physical expression of his strength, but the real secret and strength were in his heart…and if he hadn’t told her his heart, she wouldn’t have gotten to his hair and he paid for it with his life. It’s not everything you tell people (even the very close ones) not even your wife, no be everything dem dey tell woman, e get why. Some things you take to your grave, some you economize the truth, some you reveal. Just use your discretion accordingly so it doesn’t end in tears.
Baba revealed this great secret to his enemy and guess what, he slept off on her lap, damn! It’s hard to wrap my head around but I know if you and I think critically, we’ll find a moment or two that we were really reckless and careless. I don’t know why self-destruction is in our nature sometimes, but it’s there lurking, waiting for the right triggers.
The story goes that she called her handlers and they cut off his hair and she called out to him that the philistines are here and he got up to do his badass shit and he didn’t know his strength had left him. Then they captured him and put out his eyes…
Interesting how you lose your strength first, then your vision. Take a moment and close your eyes, what do you see? darkness. Funny how we get distracted from our vision for short-term thrills and whims.
We are in an age of abundance, an abundance of women, casual sex, information abundance, mediocre entertainment on tv and social media, our issue is not scarcity, it’s having too much and it’s derailing us as men, we are losing our place, masculinity, and relevance and see what the society is turning into.
if anything can take you off your vision or goal, then it will succeed in impeding your progress and impairing your mobility. As it is physically, so it is spiritually.
SECOND CHANCES
So Samson was stripped of his power, stripped of his authority, and whenever you get in a vulnerable position people aren’t satisfied to see you down. They want to make sport of your condition. His destruction became entertainment material, instablog content, Twitter is having a filled day, everybody giving hot takes on the matter.
Samson could no longer count on himself. His eyes are gone. His body is bruised. His strength is abated. His confidence is wrecked. His mind is perplexed. His heart is broken. His peace is destroyed.
There are no friends with him grinding at the mill, Delilah had been paid for her services and she was nowhere to be found because people only love you when you’re going up. Oh, when you’re on your way up, you can get friends anywhere. They’re a dime a dozen. They’ll come from everywhere when you’re on your way up, but when you’re on your way down even those who said, “I’ll never leave you,” watch how they run. And there he was, the mighty man, grinding at the mill with the ox.
Now, it’s bad to grind at the mill, and it’s bad to hang out with the ox, but it’s worse when you used to be up. The thing about life is that when you have been up and go down, the memory is torture. See, if you never had it you don’t know what you lost, but if you had it and then lose it, then you have to live with the memory of how life used to be.
And he’s grinding at the mill. The oxen are happy to be there because they have nothing to compare it to, but Samson is tormented where others are happy. This is the conflict that you have when you associate with people who have no hope and no dreams.
They are happy to be someplace that is tormenting you. They don’t understand why you want to get up. They don’t understand why you want more. They try to convince you why you ought to just celebrate and enjoy where you are and make the best of a bad situation, but once you have tasted better bad doesn’t work for you anymore.
His hair began to grow again and thus his strength. He was supposed to be brought out for entertainment for his oppressors and he employed the service of a little boy to place his hands on the beams holding the arena in place and it was recorded that he killed more people in that place than he killed while he was alive.
To me this is not a happy ending, ok he got a second chance to end the lives of his enemies, but he could have still lived a full life and enjoy all the benefits of his giftings if he hadn’t been stupid.
CONCLUSION
There are mistakes a man can make that are correctable and there are some that he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. The main point of this post is don’t use your hand to kill yourself either by your actions or inactions. Bring your emotions under control and stay on the mission, there is no shortage of pretty women, you’ll get a lot of women chasing your dream than you’ll ever get chasing women.
Learn game. Stay sharp and watchful. Stay manly…
I’d like to hear your take on this discourse, please drop a comment and hit the share button. Thanks.
Olowe Segun
Amire Steve
Tolulope
