Maturity necessary to live it in a useful and dignified way.
by Vito Viganò
In these troubled times of ours, witnesses as we are of wars and nuclear threats, murderous wickedness and aberrant destruction, it is good for us to think that we are also capable of tenderness, of delicate and loving ways in interacting.
"He makes me tender": this is often said of a child due to his disarming naivety and fragility. But lovers also exchange tenderness with passionate pleasure. It happens, but more rarely, that the feeling of tenderness is experienced and expressed even in interactions between adults, who are usually more emotionally reserved. We even feel tenderness with pets at home, when they seem to entrust themselves, docile and affectionate, to the good hearts of their owners.
Sentence. Tenderness is a variation of love, a delicate and pleasant feeling. It is felt as a desire to set up the relationship in a kind and loving way, towards a partner for whom one feels sympathy and condescending protection. Those who are the object of tenderness remain involved and induced to reciprocate it with sympathy and trust. Even a new creature is conceived in a context of shared tenderness. A hint of tenderness can emerge, with unpredictable spontaneity, even in the most gruff people, or between enemies at war or in a mafiosi, as a refinement of which the human heart shows itself capable. It is said that, for exampler beware of it, the torturer must avoid eye or voice contact with his victim; otherwise he couldn't do his job.
Feeling to express. Tenderness, as an emotion in relating, is a feeling that demands to be manifested to whoever is its object. And words are not enough. We then look for more effective expressions and gestures to show the other what we feel inside. Facial expression or a delicate caress, a pat on the cheek or intimate cuddles. However, tenderness does not lend itself to theatrical comedies; words and gestures express tenderness only if it is alive inside, otherwise the unconscious of those who are the object of it picks up on the charade, made with another purpose.
Tenderness and maturity. Sometimes people feel almost obliged to avoid tenderness for a function they perform or a role they play. This doesn't just happen in military life. Hospital staff, teachers and sometimes even parents refrain from sweet feelings and ways, thinking that tenderness harms them, almost as if it were a weakness they cannot let go of. What a shame, this lack of tenderness! Sometimes, it is true that with tenderness you can manipulate others. Even children can do it with coaxing. It is a mechanism that works among adults, as in the case of adults who beg by showing off children in their arms or around them. But apart from the possible manipulative use, there are no other contraindications to tenderness, so much so that one should worry about containing or avoiding it. Regret is more justified because there is too little of it in human coexistence. The aims of power and personal interests often occupy all the space in people's hearts, inducingor to harshness or abuse. Thus the delicate chords, although present, of benevolence and tenderness remain weakened and asphyxiated.