Drawing from the public's attention on the violence of recent events (particularly talk of escalation between Israel and Palestine, the shootings at Sandy Hooke, and a shooting I was in), I wrote a note to colleagues encouraging them to familiarize themselves with the emergency procedures, and to begin developing a department-specific emergency plan. However, I still think the best thing we can do comes from being kind and sincere in our encounters with people.
This year I've been around malicious gunfire that was so close I could taste the gunpowder shortly after the aroma reached my nose. The incident I was in happened between extended family members, and it didn't surprise me to see and hear it happen. Violence swiftly escalated from language into physical pushing, shoving, and punching which eventually turned into gunshots and a brutal beating in response to the shooter.
I suspect the notion of love is antithetical to this situation. I understand compassion, it's been illustrated in tremendous experiences for me this year. Yet what if people don't know love? I appreciate peace, but similarly, what if most people actually don't know peace?
Despite popular assertions that they can be found in simple expressions, peace and love are complicated concepts to substantiate, and it's almost inconceivable for those who lived much of their lives with an oppressive and abusive environment. If anything, we human beings fundamentally understand the notion of hope before we understand the nature of peace and love.
I'll say it again: More people probably understand hope better than they do love.
Truly, not everyone knows what love is or grew up with meaningful exposure to it and therefore, more people lack meaningful understanding of it than we’d assume or wish. People do, however, recognize compassion and reprieve from hostile situations on a more frequent basis.
Look at international relations as an example of a similar misunderstanding between war (analogous to hate) and peace (analogous to love):
Reprieve from dire hostility (i.e. war/sectarian violence, etc.) becomes labeled improperly (and thereby assumed/presumed understood) as “peace”; similarly, peace-keeping forces (actually security forces) designated by the UN aren’t actually an authentic indication of peace, they provide a crucial opportunity for fostering authentic peace by creating a more secure environment.
Hostility, and hatred, both still allow for hope—a special kind of opportunity with positive possibilities, at least for a particular individual or group of entities who carry the same hope(s).
Hatred is a choice to engage in certain behaviors present within our nature, but does not constitute our nature in its entirety. Hatred operates upon unreasonable hostility, and a deep inclination for humans (and other species) to reciprocate perceived behaviors tit-for-tat.
[War: communication and artificial environment (creates structure)
Hatred: unreasonable consciousness/mindset/worldview that perpetuates the circumstances necessary for war.]
For local examples of environments and histories that have strong influence over how an individual perceives their choices and behaviors:
A few friends of mine confessed to me that they had seriously considered suicide in the past, or present. One of them considered it out of shame, the other out of frustration in knowing that his intimate partner only wants the relationship to satisfy her physical desires. The first lived in a neighborhood of Detroit where the average lifespan of his friends and family was about 35 years old due to systemic violence. The other also grew up in Detroit, and has a family history of suicide, bipolar disorder, and/or manic depression. Those are real questions: will I need to accept the legacy of the place I grew up in or family I come from as the trajectory of my own life?
In retrospect, both of them are the first in their families in several generations to leave the area they grew up in, graduate high school or earn a G.E.D., they're also the first of their families to attend a University.
I considered the same and share the same question too, though I know I'm about 8 steps ahead thanks to a few friends who've astutely pointed out that: you are not your family. Similarly, we, as individuals, aren't our cities or communities. We have choices and new opportunities
While I'm not vigorously trained in the physical aspects of the martial art known as aikido, I strive to live its principles. In aikido, one acknowledges and embraces an assailant's momentum to direct it elsewhere for a mutually favorable outcome. It's a profound alternative to traditional thinking in fighting and conflict resolution: normally the only way to end a fight is to prevent it or combat power with power to win. That's how war and most fights start to devolve until threats are eliminated.
We have choices and new opportunities now. Let's start with the hope we'll create peace for everyone involved.
Despite popular assertions that they can be found in simple expressions, peace and love are complicated concepts to substantiate, and it's almost inconceivable for those who lived much of their lives with an oppressive and abusive environment. If anything, we human beings fundamentally understand the notion of hope before we understand the nature of peace and love.
I'll say it again: More people probably understand hope better than they do love.
Truly, not everyone knows what love is or grew up with meaningful exposure to it and therefore, more people lack meaningful understanding of it than we’d assume or wish. People do, however, recognize compassion and reprieve from hostile situations on a more frequent basis.
Look at international relations as an example of a similar misunderstanding between war (analogous to hate) and peace (analogous to love):
Reprieve from dire hostility (i.e. war/sectarian violence, etc.) becomes labeled improperly (and thereby assumed/presumed understood) as “peace”; similarly, peace-keeping forces (actually security forces) designated by the UN aren’t actually an authentic indication of peace, they provide a crucial opportunity for fostering authentic peace by creating a more secure environment.
Hostility, and hatred, both still allow for hope—a special kind of opportunity with positive possibilities, at least for a particular individual or group of entities who carry the same hope(s).
Hatred is a choice to engage in certain behaviors present within our nature, but does not constitute our nature in its entirety. Hatred operates upon unreasonable hostility, and a deep inclination for humans (and other species) to reciprocate perceived behaviors tit-for-tat.
[War: communication and artificial environment (creates structure)
Hatred: unreasonable consciousness/mindset/worldview that perpetuates the circumstances necessary for war.]
For local examples of environments and histories that have strong influence over how an individual perceives their choices and behaviors:
A few friends of mine confessed to me that they had seriously considered suicide in the past, or present. One of them considered it out of shame, the other out of frustration in knowing that his intimate partner only wants the relationship to satisfy her physical desires. The first lived in a neighborhood of Detroit where the average lifespan of his friends and family was about 35 years old due to systemic violence. The other also grew up in Detroit, and has a family history of suicide, bipolar disorder, and/or manic depression. Those are real questions: will I need to accept the legacy of the place I grew up in or family I come from as the trajectory of my own life?
In retrospect, both of them are the first in their families in several generations to leave the area they grew up in, graduate high school or earn a G.E.D., they're also the first of their families to attend a University.
I considered the same and share the same question too, though I know I'm about 8 steps ahead thanks to a few friends who've astutely pointed out that: you are not your family. Similarly, we, as individuals, aren't our cities or communities. We have choices and new opportunities
While I'm not vigorously trained in the physical aspects of the martial art known as aikido, I strive to live its principles. In aikido, one acknowledges and embraces an assailant's momentum to direct it elsewhere for a mutually favorable outcome. It's a profound alternative to traditional thinking in fighting and conflict resolution: normally the only way to end a fight is to prevent it or combat power with power to win. That's how war and most fights start to devolve until threats are eliminated.
We have choices and new opportunities now. Let's start with the hope we'll create peace for everyone involved.
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