Violence--ways to look at it

People love the hero, the epic battle won, the fight for justice or in some cases cheering for the villian. Warriors are seen as honorable, killing just. Yet all these things are acts of violence, these epic tales, myths that define our cultures. If you just fight hard enough, you prevail. As I was listening to the tv in the background, a movie my husband was watching which had as usual battles as a major component, it came to me. Once violence is resorted to, regardless of whether it is physical or emotional, the person resorting to it has already lost whatever it is they sought to gain, for even if they win, the price they paid is greater than the thing gained.

I know this will make no sense to some of you, thinking, but what about the conqueror, the warlord, what did they loose by initiating the violence that would be greater than the gain of untold riches and power? What did the soldier loose by defending his country at war that was so costly? The person who bullies, intimidates and abuses others, what is the cost to themselves and what is the cost of their targets in resorting to violence to resist?

What nonviolent ways are there to stop such acts?

What might be your answers to these questions?

What they lost is their inner blindness. By using violence, they become creators and initiators of destruction. I heard this yesterday: "to overcome darkness, you have to embrace and know it."

So you feel you need to engage in destructiveness in order to overcome it? That to be constructive instead is to be blind to the darkness within?

Among culture there is the concept of acceptable and unacceptable violence.
What these things are varies. Every culture has one.

In an ideal world, people would just get along and maturely know how to deal with life's complications, our passionate differences, and their emotions.

Being a warrior is not about killing people, beating people up, power, greed, anger, showing off, ego, ect despite popular perception.
If it was such a shallow thing, I doubt this image would have lasted through ten thousand years of human civilization.

There is no gain to being a warrior in our society except self fulfillment, self discovery and whatever else you usually gain from being yourself and living your life freely, and following the path your heart desires.
Expecting something else is kind of silly.

The only thing is doing what is true to you in the moment you are given.

I once watched a group of cats once.
The biggest cat wrestled another cat who was being kind of insecure and being mean to the littlest cat. He pinned him and hissed at him like "HEY STOP"
Otherwise, the large cat was the gentlest one. 10 seconds after releasing the other cat, he was back to being cute and innocent. The other cat stopped being a bully for a while.

Strength used with love is different.
I can't see why humans would have evolved something like this without it having some resulting balancing quality for life.

I think it's silly to think we are above being animals and divorce ourselves from our instincts and intuition in order to be "more civilized."

I also see nothing wrong with being a dedicated martial artist, boxer, ect.
In Asian culture, being a warrior was also deeply spiritual.
Buddhist monks sometimes trained in martial arts because it teaches you self discipline, respect for others and self, meditation and many other things.

In my conclusion is not "violence" or engaging in combat by itself that is bad, it is doing it under a number of painful illusions.

What I like about conflict or having a good round with a worthy opponent is that I have learned more about the reality of humanity, someone else I was squaring off with, and myself in the end.
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Now I have to say that colonizing and otherwise expanding our cultural way and life and values through the media, trade, political manipulation and what not is still preferable to me over genocide, militaristic campaigns and stuff.
Still though, is it much better?

Thinking our way of life and cultural values are an improvement to someone else's sort of automatically stems conflict and this feeling that we can fight for a better tomorrow for the good of everybody/everything.

So, as long as we think we can change the world, improve the quality of life, and contribute something good to this world, there will be fighting involved.
Perhaps it's something worth fighting for, being wrong sometimes and having a steep learning curve, perhaps not.
Is this purely a destructive battle? I think not, but it can have that effect...
I find the best battles always help me reflect on questions like "who am I?"
"Why is the world like this?"
"What can I do about it and how do I feel about this?"

In any case, it is not always a  requirement to fight another human being or invisible opponent like poverty or illness, thinking it is one is another illusion.

I know people who have engaged in acts of violence (like punched a guy) who are otherwise nonviolent people are they are not screwed up so I dunno.
Some guy once jumped my karate professor at a fast food place or something and he put them in an arm lock and escorted him out the door.
I dun think it made him less of a guy considering he knew what to do and did it. He prob was even nice to the robber because the arm lock he showed me is non damaging long run.

So I dunno isn't this more like using and knowing your power responsibly vrs abusing it willy nilly?
Where is that acceptable/nonacceptable line?

Sometimes I think the fear of violence makes us fear understanding it, and people fear what they don't understand so you get this crazy complex circle thing which is more over thinking than it has to be.... and then it becomes even more attractive to people because it's scary or cool or taboo or whatever....

I think maybe Pat was referring to this. You sometimes need to explore about something to demystify, and that means getting your hands dirty once in a while.

Unfortunately, I think this "I HAVE A NEW TOY" type of thing is what lead to us using the Atom bomb.... so I'd much prefer if people took karate or something like that instead to get this "must beat people up to show em who's boss" thing out of their system...

On the upside, our stupidity may have prevented anybody else using that crap again so I dunno.
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So I guess the reason why you choose to fight or not is yours to figure out and yours alone. I just think it's good to do it without illusions and in your flow.
Knowing who you're really fighting, why, ect... you have to have humility and love and trust for that.

me:

A balanced stance cannot be knocked around lol, while somebody out of balance will be knocked over.

Translation:

I like epic battles in movies/literature.
They're not all about fighting, not really good ones.
The well developed ones are about transformation, exploration and world reframing.
And good stories teach you something about yourself.
Hero/villian/fight is a surface structure.

melodiccolor wrote:So you feel you need to engage in destructiveness in order to overcome it?  That to be constructive instead is to be blind to the darkness within?

It's not about engaging in destructiveness to overcome, nor is it about being blind to the darkness within. It is the opposite. Every human being has his share of darkness inside. Darkness, to me, is when you don't understand a situation or an event, when you lose complete control, when you lose your marks, no fail-safe. However, darkness is simply an absence of light. An absence of light shed on that particular situation. Most are accustomed to know what to do in any situations, whether it is through listening to verbal cues, making plans, working out solutions... This is light; you know your way around or through a given moment. And light may be part of the reason you trust life and the future, what will happen next. Tomorrow a plane may crash on my house and I'll die or whatever. But I also know that tomorrow, I have to buy some eggs to bake a cake. Stuff happens, and always will. But you have the capacity to plan, you have faith.
However, when you immerse yourself into the parts of self that are in the shadows, darkness, you lose it. This is not to say that you don't trust in general; it is just that you didn't in that situation and it stayed. Darkness is learned, too, but in the end, it is all about shattering unhealed events. This darkness is benign, because it is unbalanced compared to the lit areas of self. Light prevails... But for someone to become violent in any way -cut oneself, kill oneself, kill someone else, harm someone else- the darkness has become too overwhelming to handle. It is not just an absence of something anymore; it becomes real in it's own dark-y way. Darkness that creates darkness. Darkness that will push a person to hurt so that he can get a sense of the depths of it- understand and tame the pain through others' suffering. Trying to see it as an observer, because it has become too painful to experience solely from your own body and mind... This is why to me any kind of violence is horrible, yes, but also unbearably sad.

So to overcome, you have to be willing to not be passive in the face of your own darkness. You won't see a thing anyway; it's darkness. So you have to willingly put on a blindfold and jump in, walk through it even if you have no idea what you are stepping on or where you are going.

My take on it, anyway!