Ofyre Blog

What is violence, really? Why do people seem to be continuously violent, all through the ages? Countless wars, “ethnic cleansing", invasions, have gone on. Violence is the imposition of one life pattern over another, the force of one will against another. People are continuously violent because they are always trying to impose their will on something, either another person, society, or just the environment. We inherited it from the animals: wolves compete for dominance, hens have a pecking order, monkeys have complex hierarchies and rules.

So is violence “bad"? If you have a heart, then you will recognize and be hurt by violence. Otherwise, violence is very rewarding: you will gain dominance quickly, and there are emotional benefits, thrills.

Here comes the trap: “I see that violence is bad, so the next time I feel it, I will suppress it.” That suppression of your own feelings is actually violence against yourself. People are always trying to force themselves into some pattern, and so we are in constant violence, against ourselves, each other, and the environment.

Likewise, when you put someone into a category, or compare one person against another, you reduce the living beings down to some calculation of relative worth. This again is a form of violence. It comes from an imposition of some kind of pre-formed structure on a person, in order to make them conform to the pattern, or else to evaluate them in view of the imposed pattern. This is a subtle form of violence; this is pervasive.

Can you see your own violence through the day, and not condemn or suppress it? Can you let your own violence tell you it’s story?

BP

I think i am going to get more active in the blog.