The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...and Something Else.

The history of our world has brought forth many people that have done the unthinkable. Things that mankind once thought to be impossible are now possible and things that usually mean certain death have been overcome. Men and women that stand in the face of danger and laugh. People whose paths lead to nowhere but to the extreme: The few, the proud, the hardcore.
In my search to understand these individuals a little better I went to Tombstone. After all Tombstone is considered to be, “the town too tough to die.” It doesn’t get a whole lot more hardcore than that.
I wrote down a few things I learned in the ways of the hardcore while there:
1.) Wyatt Earp is hardcore.
2.) Slapping people and then saying, “Are you gonna do somethin’, or just stand there and bleed?” is hardcore.
3.) Doc Holliday is also hardcore. (Give him a ship and stick him in the Caribbean and you’ve got Captain Jack Sparrow)
4.) Twirling a cup is more hardcore than twirling a gun…..if you’re Doc Holliday.
5.) Playing classical piano is hardcore…..if you’re Doc Holliday.
6.) Mustaches are hardcore.
7.) Spurs are hardcore.
8.) Walking in slow-motion is hardcore.
9.) I’m your Huckleberry….
10.) Hiding behind your horse, while riding, while in a gun fight, and then shooting from around its neck is hardcore.

So in review: Wyatt Earp took on an entire gang of hoodlums known as the “Cowboys,” with his two brothers and his friend Doc Holliday. Wyatt took people’s guns and hit them over the head with them more often than he shot people with them. Doc Holliday is one of the fastest gunslingers of the Old West…many bar-fights were won at the tip of his gun, and one time he even saved Wyatt Earp’s life…which is hardcore since Wyatt has already been established as being hardcore himself.
I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly it is that makes these people hardcore. Why do Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday fall into the category? I mean…I could slap someone and ask them what they were going to do about it…and most people would think I’m a jerk then slap me back. I have to admit my first reaction to that would be to cry. If I grew a mustache I would just look kind of weird and if I wore spurs I’d probably hurt myself and get laughed at. I can’t ride a horse that well and if I could I doubt that I’d be able to hide behind it in a gun-fight. Who knows though right? I do say “I’m your Huckleberry,” on occasion, but most people just look at me funny and laugh: Not the initial reaction I’d be looking for when trying to be hardcore.
So what is it? Is it something in the DNA? Some scientists are trying to prove that people who believe in a god of some sort only believe because of what they call the ‘god’ gene. I don’t believe that myself, but it makes you wonder right? My eye-color is dictated by the blueprints of my DNA. My height and build spur out of that too…I got gypped. Is being hardcore ingrained in the DNA?
In the movie Tombstone Wyatt Earp is infuriated when his brother Morgan gets shot in the back and killed. Wyatt and a few others go on a manhunt and track down some of the men responsible. They eventually catch up to them and a gunfight of epic proportions ensues from horseback leaving only one of the Cowboy gang alive. In his fury Wyatt calls out to the fleeing survivor, sweat on his brow and mustache twitching, “You tell them I’m coming! You tell them I’m coming and Hell is coming with me!” And that’s just what he did. Wyatt held to his word and sought out each and every Cowboy, putting an end to their shenanigans. That is hardcore.
Doc Holliday had Tuberculosis. It’s a nasty little disease that attacks the lungs and essentially makes it hard to breathe…there’s a lot more to it, but for the most part it makes life more difficult…it’s a major hindrance if you’re prone to getting in gunfights. Things with the Cowboys flared up particularly bright right in the middle of one of Holliday’s worse moments, and like the hardcore dude he is, Doc decided that he would challenge a man to a duel. If I had tuberculosis I’d use that as an excuse not to get in a gunfight. Hard. Core.
However, despite my recent understandings of the ways of the hardcore, I have heard and seen other voices in the matter.
There is an ancient way. Its actually proclaimed all over the world and spoken about by many men. Some claim that it is exactly the opposite of hardcore, but I would beg to differ. So, rather than elaborate on my already vague statements, I’ll let my list speak for itself.

Hardcore things I’ve learned from other places:
1.) Loving your enemy is hardcore.
2.) Turning the other cheek is hardcore.
3.) Lying down your pride is hardcore.
4.) Laying down one’s life for a friend is hardcore.
5.) Spitting in the dirt and healing a man with the mud is hardcore.
6.) Walking on water is hardcore.
7.) Causing earthquakes upon your death is hardcore.
8.) Dying on a cross for all of mankind is hardcore.
9.) Rising from the dead is hardcore.
10.) Before Abraham was, I am.

The truth of the matter is, there are two or more versions of what it means to be hardcore. The first of which is the first list I made. But I would argue that it is in fact easy to strike out in violence. It is mostly easy to grasp onto our pride and let it float on the rising waves of this life. Getting angry is definitely easy, and violence is the most logical outlet for our anger--who cares who gets in our way?
Hardcore is doing what is hard. When we come against an enemy it is much easier to hate them in return and much more difficult to love them. Hitting someone back is easy. Taking the slap to the face, looking that person in the eye after and telling them you love them, then turning the other cheek to them, is hardcore. It is easy to get people’s attention to feed our pride. It is much more hardcore to do something great and pass the glory off to God. Saving your own skin is easy enough, but to put your neck out in place of a friend’s goes against the grain.
Don't get me wrong. The guys of Tombstone had something right. They held to their word with solid certainty. When they said something they meant it. When they put their minds to something they kept to it, no matter the hindrance or cost. When Jesus said, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On he third day he will be raised to life!" (Matthew 20:18-19) he meant it. Sticking to your guns is hardcore.

My challenge is this: rethink what hardcore means. To quote Bradley Hathaway, “Society tells me all day long that I have defined manhood completely wrong. But you ask any honest man and he will agree. You ask any honest woman and she too will see…that I, am a manly man.” Our world has a different view on the hardcore, and it usually falls in line with the views of evolution, "Survival of the fittest,". "Kill or be killed." That to me is simply surviving. Being hardcore is meant for those who choose to live, not just survive. Hardcore is for the few who choose the hard path; The narrow path.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wonds you have been healed.” ~1 Peter 2:24. That is hardcore.