Some say that this is a sad story, that Sonny was a quitter. They say he had given up on the cause, and not only was he a quitter, but he was a hypocrite. He was no better than those who had sent out the deceptive messages, or those who sought to understand and then infiltrate the others. He too was just afraid and responded in a destructively protective manner. But we know different. This is no sad story. Sonny had not given up, he had not lost hope. He could not have lost his hope. Hope was that thing that put life into him when he was born. And although it may sleep at times, it does not truly die until we die. And now, his hope was more awake than ever. so awake that he nearly felt it unneccesary, for as the hope slept it had undergone a metamorphisis into faith.
Maybe he was a hypocrite, but hypocrisy is a great teacher when you see it in the mirror. The lesson was that he wasn't so different, he was human just like everyone else. Of course he was going to be afraid. It was impossible not to be. By trying not to be afraid, you would just become afraid of being afraid. He could keep the fear out of his mind, but he couldn't keep it out of his heart. Fear was our most basic instinct, our will to live. He could not change its presence in him, only his response to it. Seeing this connection made him realize how disconnected he had been. How terribly lonely he had been. That painful lonliness where you want to be alone. His mind had done a good job at repressing it, but now his heart was screaming out all that had been trapped inside.
He had always failed to grasp why noone could understand him. Now he knew. He was saying don't be scared, but he was shaking in his boots. His logic had told him that he might now be able to control what others did to him, but he could control what he did to others. From that, he concluded that there was no reason to be afraid, and he promised himself he wouldn't be. But maybe he still was. He had driven harder and harder to bring the world together, yet the harder he tried, the further it drifted away. Now, he realized that he was trying to bring the world to him when he should have been bringing himself to the world. All his dreams, efforts, they had just been procrastinations. He was trying to avoid the fact that he was afraid, afraid that he would be of no use to a world that seemed scared of him. By doing that, one becomes very lonely. And he found the lonliness to be much worse than any fear he had ever encountered. Sonny had sought to combat the fear, yet the lonely man has no chance against fear.
Sonny had thought that a brave man was the one who felt no fear. He had thought he had been brave when really he was only ignoring the fear, avoiding the fear. He had thought he could cast the fear away, but really the fear wasn't going to go away until it was done with you. Knowing this, he realized that true bravery is confronting fear, and standing up to it. Bravery is being scared of something and doing it anyway. Bravery isn't trying to force your heart into changing its mind. The only way to change your heart is to complete what it thinks it can not do, thus proving to it that their is nothing to be afraid of. And the only way to do this is to disobey what the fear commands you to do. If you instead try to make yourself not afraid, you inevitably stay afraid. You end up never trying because there will always be some risk. No matter how much you try to control something, there is always a chance you won't be able to. So in order to be able to stand up, you must be willing to fall down.
Sonny's flaw was that he thought that the fear had total control over the body. He had thought that one must not be afraid or they would be forced to do the bad things fear told them to do. But now, he realized that he had a choice in the face of fear. While his mind could not change the fact that he was going to be scared, it could change the actions he performed while scared. To do so he would have to be brave.
Sonny knew the only way he could find the strength to be brave was through love. Before he had thought that love was just the opposite of fear, but now he knew he was wrong. Love was an entity unto itself. Like fear, it too was a means of survival. Yet, while fear was cold and autocratic, love was warm and forgiving. Love gave you the strength to make a choice to reject what the fear was yelling at you to do. But, love was not given to you itself. It was not delivered, but discovered. Discovered with the help of others who saw it. The reason being that to wield the power os this love which could stand up to fear, one must learn to show the love themselves. That is becuase the strength of this love resides in forgetting about the self, if even for just a moment, for the self is the root of the fear. As a pupil of love Sonny had been shown that he belonged in the tribe. As a pupil of fear, Sonny had struggled to belong in the world. Now, it was time for the student to become the teacher. Now it was his turn to love. Thinking this, Sonny was overcome by a sense of belonging in a world that moments ago seemed so cold. Although his answer may have been a question(Who do I love, How do I love, When do I love?), he knew he had passed the test that began when he left the tribe. Now he knew. He knew he could go home, and when he saw his mother, he would kiss her first this time, and he would know that he was right.
