Hey everyone, thanks so much for all your comments. I recognise I've got a working definition of violence that I'm teasing out for a book that I didn't explicate in this piece. Put simply, my definition is the severing of relationships. Much, much more on it to come.
Wow - I feel for you - a lot of bravery in sharing this.
Dunno if this is helpful, but I'm unclear what the concept of "violence" encompasses for you - and a bit uneasy about what seems to be a very broad application of it. I wonder whether it might be helpful to unbundle some parts of the word "violence", in what you've written into the words "conflict" and "suffering"? For example, you write - "the violence of death that allows life". It's true that death allows life - but I don't think death is always "violence" , whereas it is (pretty much) always "suffering". And, regarding "violence" and "conflict", there are important fields of thought developing ways to separate conflict from violence. They contend that, from personal relationships to international relationships. conflict is inevitable, but violence is not. Work in the fields of nonviolent conflict resolution, conflict transformation, nonviolent communication, etc. develops this very fruitfully.
I've no idea whether this helps - but very best wishes for you, in working your way through all this.
I think this is very valid - to make distinction between the different kinds of difficulty present in worldly existence. Also importantly, the intent, vs the result.
Your writing resonated with me this morning. Thanks & happy birthday.
“Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.” — bell hooks, All About Love
I'm starting late in life to develop a belief which, put in the terms of this article, states that violence doesn't need to come anywhere near love. As long as the conditions of fear that lead to violence are seen and braved together.
Happy Birthday Rachel! Thank you for your piece, very nicely written, poetic. I can see the care you put choosing your words. Always admired that, me, being a Spanish native speaker. But I am also a bit unclear about what violence is to you, as Bob pointed out in one of the comments. For me, the juxtaposition is more between love and pain, or maybe I could say also, love and fear. But fear and pain are related. The way violence relates to pain is that, for me, violence is a reaction to pain or suffering. Or fear, why not. But violence is a reaction caused by an strong emotion, but not an emotion or feeling the way Love is. The feeling behind it could be anger, too. So, I don't know if I will put Love and Violence, together like that, or just say that pain and suffering provoke a violent reaction in some people, in others, sadness, or fear maybe, or something else.
I also lived my share of violent relationships, or, could we say, violent loves? Can that be possible? Could love make people violent? Hmmm, it doesn't seem so. But then, fear of losing love, that could make some people violent, or aggressive because they feel fearful. I don't know, I think we need to keep thinking about this. There are too many angles from which to look at it, implications. Thank you for bringing it up. Saludos, cuca, The Nasty Woman.
Greetings (as Nate would say) on your birthday. I was moved by your post and welcome the courage of all those prepared to share their stories which involve so much pain. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on our own stories and what we have made of them.
I had a remote mother who I felt didn’t love enough and a father whose love was too much, manifesting in demands to be his playmate and workmate backed up by unpredictable outbursts of temper that felt like I was being cast into the abyss. Love for me is therefore both a need and a fear. I have also been steadfastly opposed to physical violence as well as words and actions designed to hurt.
Nonetheless, I am guilty of saying things that hurt my partner when the child in me feels ignored and pushed away. In turn she is similarly capable of such behaviour. We negotiate this in the aftermath and try to learn what we can from the experience.
What we always come back to is we made a commitment to always talk about our fears and resentments and that commitment enables us to get through difficult times.
A final thought is that love has no particular form. As you suggest, loving someone may not involve living your life with them either partially or at all. Perhaps the only love worthy of the name is that which leaves each person able to commit in the way which respects their differences.
Bravely written, brave to share. Yuval Harari's insight is that consciousness is the ability to suffer, and suffering is the rejection of what is, so yes, as humans we are bound to experience suffering. In English, love is a weak word, unlike classical Greek which distinguishes eros, philia, agape and epithelia. None of them shares any boundary with violence; notwithstanding the excuses of psychopaths, violence is not ever an expression of love, and the pain lies in the difficulty of recognizing this.
Do you know of the Tamera community in Portugal? (Tamera.org) They have been dealing with these intrapersonal relationships as a starting point to broader relationships, turning fear and hatred into trust and love...
Happy birthday Rachel - wonderful piece, especially like your focus as always on inter-relationship of apparently opposing aspects.
I think you would find a deep read into Buddhist teachings on Dukkha (poorly translated as suffering) relevant and interesting - if you aren’t familiar already.
What’s important is the presence of dukkha (unsatisfactoriness? Stress? Unreliability?) that is present throughout experience, that exists despite an underlying, unavoidable nature of interconnectivity, (love?), because everything is inherently always in change and flux.
Suffering, Unhappiness, Greed, Violence - seems to arise when that nature of impermanency and impersonality is opposed or ignored.
I wish you all happiness for the year ahead- we are lucky that this depends on our intentions and generosity, rather than solely on what has been done to us in the past.
Go steady, stay sharp, there are waves to ride 🏄🏼♀️🧘🏼♀️🤙
Very brave and lovely piece - indeed the only political is personal, not in terms of ego/I but in terms of 'the between' that is us and the social, together - dialectics is such a deep word if read rightly, alive not dead xx
Hey everyone, thanks so much for all your comments. I recognise I've got a working definition of violence that I'm teasing out for a book that I didn't explicate in this piece. Put simply, my definition is the severing of relationships. Much, much more on it to come.
Wow - I feel for you - a lot of bravery in sharing this.
Dunno if this is helpful, but I'm unclear what the concept of "violence" encompasses for you - and a bit uneasy about what seems to be a very broad application of it. I wonder whether it might be helpful to unbundle some parts of the word "violence", in what you've written into the words "conflict" and "suffering"? For example, you write - "the violence of death that allows life". It's true that death allows life - but I don't think death is always "violence" , whereas it is (pretty much) always "suffering". And, regarding "violence" and "conflict", there are important fields of thought developing ways to separate conflict from violence. They contend that, from personal relationships to international relationships. conflict is inevitable, but violence is not. Work in the fields of nonviolent conflict resolution, conflict transformation, nonviolent communication, etc. develops this very fruitfully.
I've no idea whether this helps - but very best wishes for you, in working your way through all this.
I think this is very valid - to make distinction between the different kinds of difficulty present in worldly existence. Also importantly, the intent, vs the result.
Your writing resonated with me this morning. Thanks & happy birthday.
“Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.” — bell hooks, All About Love
You are an exceptional writer.
I'm starting late in life to develop a belief which, put in the terms of this article, states that violence doesn't need to come anywhere near love. As long as the conditions of fear that lead to violence are seen and braved together.
Happy Birthday Rachel! Thank you for your piece, very nicely written, poetic. I can see the care you put choosing your words. Always admired that, me, being a Spanish native speaker. But I am also a bit unclear about what violence is to you, as Bob pointed out in one of the comments. For me, the juxtaposition is more between love and pain, or maybe I could say also, love and fear. But fear and pain are related. The way violence relates to pain is that, for me, violence is a reaction to pain or suffering. Or fear, why not. But violence is a reaction caused by an strong emotion, but not an emotion or feeling the way Love is. The feeling behind it could be anger, too. So, I don't know if I will put Love and Violence, together like that, or just say that pain and suffering provoke a violent reaction in some people, in others, sadness, or fear maybe, or something else.
I also lived my share of violent relationships, or, could we say, violent loves? Can that be possible? Could love make people violent? Hmmm, it doesn't seem so. But then, fear of losing love, that could make some people violent, or aggressive because they feel fearful. I don't know, I think we need to keep thinking about this. There are too many angles from which to look at it, implications. Thank you for bringing it up. Saludos, cuca, The Nasty Woman.
Greetings (as Nate would say) on your birthday. I was moved by your post and welcome the courage of all those prepared to share their stories which involve so much pain. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on our own stories and what we have made of them.
I had a remote mother who I felt didn’t love enough and a father whose love was too much, manifesting in demands to be his playmate and workmate backed up by unpredictable outbursts of temper that felt like I was being cast into the abyss. Love for me is therefore both a need and a fear. I have also been steadfastly opposed to physical violence as well as words and actions designed to hurt.
Nonetheless, I am guilty of saying things that hurt my partner when the child in me feels ignored and pushed away. In turn she is similarly capable of such behaviour. We negotiate this in the aftermath and try to learn what we can from the experience.
What we always come back to is we made a commitment to always talk about our fears and resentments and that commitment enables us to get through difficult times.
A final thought is that love has no particular form. As you suggest, loving someone may not involve living your life with them either partially or at all. Perhaps the only love worthy of the name is that which leaves each person able to commit in the way which respects their differences.
Here’s to life and loving!
Happy Birthday Rachel!
Respectfully, thank you for sharing.
It always strikes me that your offerings via Planet Critical and elsewhere are acts of love.
They feel infused with love, love as a verb rather than simply a noun.
Love takes courage, thanks for yours, it means a lot, and keep the faith.
Kindest regards and love from Jim and Joan Canada
Bravely written, brave to share. Yuval Harari's insight is that consciousness is the ability to suffer, and suffering is the rejection of what is, so yes, as humans we are bound to experience suffering. In English, love is a weak word, unlike classical Greek which distinguishes eros, philia, agape and epithelia. None of them shares any boundary with violence; notwithstanding the excuses of psychopaths, violence is not ever an expression of love, and the pain lies in the difficulty of recognizing this.
Happy Birthday Rachel.
Intelligent writing Rachel, thankyou.
Do you know of the Tamera community in Portugal? (Tamera.org) They have been dealing with these intrapersonal relationships as a starting point to broader relationships, turning fear and hatred into trust and love...
Happy birthday Rachel - wonderful piece, especially like your focus as always on inter-relationship of apparently opposing aspects.
I think you would find a deep read into Buddhist teachings on Dukkha (poorly translated as suffering) relevant and interesting - if you aren’t familiar already.
What’s important is the presence of dukkha (unsatisfactoriness? Stress? Unreliability?) that is present throughout experience, that exists despite an underlying, unavoidable nature of interconnectivity, (love?), because everything is inherently always in change and flux.
Suffering, Unhappiness, Greed, Violence - seems to arise when that nature of impermanency and impersonality is opposed or ignored.
I wish you all happiness for the year ahead- we are lucky that this depends on our intentions and generosity, rather than solely on what has been done to us in the past.
Go steady, stay sharp, there are waves to ride 🏄🏼♀️🧘🏼♀️🤙
Χρόνια πολλά, ευτυχία, υγεία και χαρά !
Να έχουμε ένα υπέροχο 2024 !
Very brave and lovely piece - indeed the only political is personal, not in terms of ego/I but in terms of 'the between' that is us and the social, together - dialectics is such a deep word if read rightly, alive not dead xx
So what happened?
Exquisite reflections Rachel. Thank you for sharing -- helps us work through our own big reflections. Well, at least it does me <3
There is no necessary connection between death and violence.
What then if Death is the Way to Life - such is the title of one of the essays featured in this remarkable book
http://www.easydeathbook.com/purpose.asp what death requires of us - beautiful prose
Related references:
http://www.adidaupclose.org/death_and_dying
http://beezone.com/wide-stacks-many-topics/death_message Death as the Constant Message of Life
http://www.nottwoispeace.org/excerpt-no-enemies
http://www.priorunity.org
Welcome Sister Death
http://www.beezone.com/adida/laughingmanmag/vol2no3deathdying/welcomesisterdeath.html