My spiritual beliefs come from some mixture of Irish Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Native American ideals. There are pieces of each that i hold sacred and help guide me. There are two ideas, however, that i have found at odds with one another and which have caused me great inner turmoil, especially as of late. *(come on now, this blog site is called '1punkmonk' so you have to expect one of these once in a while)
These two ideas are the two i believe most strongly in, but finding the balance between the two is difficult, to say the least, and at times i truly struggle. The two in conflict are the Buddhist idea of peaceful respect for life and the Catholic idea that to stand by as wrong is done is as bad as committing that wrong. That sense of compassion for life, and more importantly quality of life, often feeds into the desire to fight for those whose life quality are being impacted or threatened. As you can see this quickly turns to questions of are you prioritizing victim's quality of life vs aggressor's quality of life. At first it seems an easy decision but stepping back the effectiveness comes into question and aggression weighs heavy on the soul.
i was raised to fight. To clarify 'fight' i mean in every sense: physically, verbally, and physiologically. When bullied for the first time as a very small child my parents' response was to teach me how to make a fist and where to punch to stop a bully. If you didn't learn to argue, you didn't get to talk at family get togethers. There are no shortages of bullies in this world and there is no shortage of injustice so i have had a lot of practice in honing these skills.
In the most powerful of situations a sort of switch flips. The Irish call it the 'warp-spasm'. The body almost seems to change form. Reflexes and senses are heightened. A sense of clarity seems to come into play and the world seems to slow down as you take in information about your surroundings at a much faster rate. In order for all this information gathering to take place you lose touch with any sense of pain or fear as all resources are working on processing and action. Again, this can happen for all forms of fighting: physical and verbal.
Now once people see this, no matter the outcome of the interaction, they never want to again. They don't bully/intimidate you or those you defend ever again. Now this may seem noble but at a wider glance i have come to realize that these people have not actually learned any lesson. These people continue to intimidate/bully others, you have just stopped them from victimizing yourself and those around you. How beneficial is this really?
With the seemingly endless number of bullies out there one could fight almost daily, so where do you draw the line? The ends of the spectrum are simple decisions but day to day life is quite grey. The way people treat one another (and all sentient beings) can wear very heavily on you. Constantly fighting/arguing can weigh on your own sense of peace to an equal extent. Where does that sense of balance lay?
If i knew, i would reach a higher plain of enlightenment (possibly even disappearing from view or at least hovering for a few seconds). This search is a truly honorable journey but the path is scarcely travelled and it is quite easy to find yourself lost. i'm not sure if the trees along the way all look the same or if i just haven't gone anywhere. One of these ideas is not more important than the other. In my view a balance must be achieved. There are things that are worth fighting for, and times when fighting is much more harmful than any good that could come from it.
The struggle to search for that balance has really worn me down lately. i wish more people were worried about finding that balance. i feel like Hawthorne's "Goodman Brown" and these are trying times. What's a boy to do?
No comments:
Post a Comment