Fueled By Love

Parents and anyone of us who resort to violence to protect their kids and loved ones are being violent.  There is no justified violence  — violence is unnecessary.  When I’m violent, I’m violent just like any other violent person.  A person’s violence may be partially fueled by love, but is likely primarily fueled primarily by ignorance and underlying violence.  People who are hateful, racist, homophobic or prejudiced aren’t simply defending what they hold dear, they are responding from underlying anger and violence and from their reptilian brain and choosing fight and violence instead of flight.  A person being violent may be seen as a freedom fighter, but he’ being a fighter of freedom and not a fighter for freedom.  Seeing violence through the eyes of love may decrease the violence but it doesn’t make the violence an act of love.  As Thich Naat Hahn said, when we hate the hater we become a hater.  Likewise, when we are violent to a violent person we are are violent ourselves.  Yes, it is possible to a person who is violent.  That shift in my heart isn’t subtle, it’s major.  What helps me make the shift is reminding myself that violence fosters violence and nonviolence reduces violence in the hater and in me.

 It would be a surprise to me based on your reflection here if you are a parent.

After you have been blessed and labored, nurtured and partnered with your child, they are in your very heartbeat, your marrow. Protecting them is separate from violence. Violence is not there. It is merely protecting what you love.

Transference of some other perspective of violence, and what it is and what it isn't, must be the perogative of those who are experiencing the behavior. This said, if the experience is experienced as violent, it is. For a parent, protecting their child in the example Timber Hawkeye uses, havs very little to do with hate and everything toi do with love