Violence, is an ordinary matter in so far as it is abundant, commonplace and not a foreign concept to us, our kind and our history; however it is by no means a trivial thing. The topic of violence, be that as it may, uncomfortable and repugnant is a necessary topic of discussion and rumination.
It is by some tangible margin, inescapable. There is seldom a case where a creature or thing had the good fortune or privilege of having never been “touched” by violence or perpetrating it. To boil down violence to its most elementary form you will find mere power as being the requisite force, the power of the hard over the soft, the power of wealth over poverty, the power of omnipotence over the impotent.
So now that we’re on the same page here, violence necessitates power but power does not necessitate violence and in saying that, power is essential to the vitality of violence.
So, why is it that violence seems to creep up on us in our vigil, why is it that in our archives of history we find violence at every corner of the world and in every shape conceivable. There must be some meaning or necessity beneath the superficial horror of such a thing.
Let’s try determine violence in its forms, from unliving to living, moderate to excessive. We’ll start with the physical phenomena of violence; take for instance a stone that happened to tumble off a sheer cliff, the natural forces of gravity propel the object faster and faster until it reaches the limits dictated to it by the accepted laws of physics, as it reaches its terminal velocity and meets the hard ground and an exchange occurs, the momentum built up by the stone at the moment of impact is very quickly albeit gradually transferred to the stationary floor bed.
Now what I’m saying is, that the stone being the carrier of this force is obliged by physicality to present this force to the ground and in so doing, strange yet now apparent phenomena occur, as the constituent elements of the stone meet another object (floor) the elements exert a force that causes the ground to resonate with it, in simpler terms, to share the same force and express it equally back to the object (stone). Thus, 4 things can possibly occur:
In one instance the stone (or the object falling) could remain intact and the ground (opposite greeting object) could crack or shatter. In this case, the stone has won the battle of fortitude over the ground.
In another instance, the stone could crack or shatter, upon meeting the ground. Here, the ground has proven sturdier than the stone.
Another would be that both the stone and ground neither crack, nor shatter. Here the exchange was met, but there was not enough capitol in power to affect either in some apparent way, never the less there was an exchange and there is evidence of that, either in sound or in subtle heat produced even if only momentary and little.
Finally, the last case and not by any means the least, is if both the stone and the ground, upon eventful contact both cracked and/or shattered. In this case, the force driving the stone and the inherent sturdiness of the meeting object, had the effect of causing the other damage or annihilation.
If I have not yet bored you with the happenings of the inanimate, let me assure you that there is no lacking of drama in this subject. For our world, the very earth we stand on is not unlike the stone, falling from a sheer cliff and we the living, like microbes in comparison, are the constituent elements of the this world and this world need only meet another in the same way and we would unquestionably feel the quaking of this exchange and suffer as a result of it.
Now, moving on from that we enter the realms of the living and let us again start somewhere seemingly small. The microbe, the single celled organism, the singular unit of living matter that for all intents and purposes is the building block of all greater living beings.
The “microbe” is a simple machine, in that it is unconscious of itself not like how greater creature’s bare necessity of thought due to possessing higher faculties of function and thought. This organism has a simple structure, cell walls to contain and protect its organelles. A seat of purpose the “nucleus”, the driving force that both is the cause and origin of the creature and within its nucleus contains all the necessary instructions for the cell to maintain itself, replicate itself, adjust itself and instructions on its intrinsic nature to both grow and feed respectively.
Even in this microcosm, the nature of struggle is present, though the cell does not have the ability to process pain as we perceive it, it does however have the ability to sense scarcity and abundance and move to and from, either away from the former or towards the later. It when finding a source of nourishment, will then absorb its sustenance and replicate itself until all of its sustenance is exhausted.
Similarly, the same creature will avoid or cease to be in circumstances or environments where this cannot happen, whether that be the vacuum of space, a derelict place where none of its sustenance ever appears or where predators of its caliber are present (other microbes not in conformity), thus through time this creature may develop of propensity to avoid these places in search for greater potential, or even be able to hibernate in a slumber until its stimulated into action again or even learn to protect itself and deter its predators from neutralizing it.
In addition, this creature may take a more proactive approach, developing means slowly but surely to increase its palate thus allowing it to thrive in a wider range of environments and circumstances, propagating its own kind even further.
This creature, this single unit of self-organizing and propelling matter, is an undoubtable league above its not so animate counterparts and sub-constituates by an order of magnitude clearly ascertained, yet it is below the threshold of wanting, this creature as far as we can tell and have yet to determine does not show desire for grand things, nay it does not compare or complain whether its comestible is in a lagoon by the cottage, inside the bosom of a the anima or in refuse. This creature is exactly at the level of fundamental necessity itself, and even so at that level, one can rightly assume that it is in fair competition with its rivals and its enemies. It is at war with destitution.
We now, as it is known and proven are made entirely of these small organisms, it is, irreprehensibly within our biology, this war we wage with hunger, strife, lacking, poverty, and thus we feel a great deal of pain, fear, angst and disgust when faced with the former circumstances, it is as if our entire being, constituted of millions of our tiny selves, cry out in protest when we are such predicaments and it is our nature, more even it IS nature.
It is a well-accepted fact that all subsequent creatures hail from these modest beginnings, for you could not have crops to grow, cattle to nurture, the hound to keep sentinel, the trawl in abundance or the shade of the evergreen and as such you would have never been as you are, yourself.
And our history is saturated with violence, the kind that is bloodshed, born of hatred compelled by the seeming desire for justice, the likes have which has shaped our laws, burdened our civility, haunts us in our sobriety and chases us like a living shadow.
It is only now that I can begin to touch on the subject of violence being a cycle, only now after understanding the fundaments of nature can we truly begin to understand where violence was necessary, before we could hope to dismantle where violence was unnecessary, even further before we could even hope to quell natures thirst for blood we must understand why it desires this sacrifice. Therein, lies the key to ascending beyond the tyranny of impending ruin, decay and hardship.
How far we have come, from the permeations of inordinate matter, to the primordial beginnings of life’s cradle, the fumbling odd creatures waddling through the earth, to the tyranny of great hungering beasts, to humanity. Such a journey through time would not be possible, if it were done by one singular being. Many have trod this Earth in confusion and awe, not a single one responsible for everything, neither a single one insignificant.
It is through time, do the living wander, great and small and it is time that enables change, in fortune or adversity and it is in deep thought that the solemn thinker can peer into the depths of their heart and feel their memories, scars or hymns of the past and taste again the fruits good nature or bitterness of forlorn confoundment.
For if you conquer violence with violence, you would have succeeded in being your own destroyer, of silencing a voice that you did not recognize, and of dousing the fires of wrath with the deluge of ignorance and from ignorance the slate is rendered anew and the propensity of violence re-emerge, painted in eagerness, impetuous and pure in purpose.
So then too can one fall after an apparent victory, for war is never ending and violence a mere tool and what a tool it is, hard and cold, eager and indifferent, calculated and sentimental. The engineered dissemination of opposition to put it clinically, yet never the less unsettling.
Yet power does not necessitate violence and can deter it; power which can rest and not lose its edge, power the likes of which animates and produces in abundance, which transfigures without scarring, power that can burden but not break. Such a thing is independent of violence, such a thing need only command and all around it obeys and no such one being can fathom it, let alone weaponized it.
There are those before you, of your kind, of the same tribulation that have moved away from such ugly and unbecoming things, like wanting and needing, fear and regret, free from the shackles of necessity and sublime in virtue and they are not far but near to you, they share your origin, they share your capacity and their inspiration can be seen in your own testimony.
See it then with your mind’s eye, that the human apparatus is such a lofty thing, how profound you are to belong to the league of the Homo-Sapien, the upright Simian, the first to reflect upon oneself, the first to give names, father of Daedalus, Adam the first Man and Eve the mother; to be of the same ilk as all the great personalities of yore, the likes of Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Abraham of Sumeria, Joan of Arc, Pachacuti and Alexander the Great.
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