If you are so, a bag of neuroses concerned overwhelmingly with power/dominance you will likely never get anywhere in learning a martial art to any degree of efficacy.
When you allow the process of failing, again and again, to teach you humility and to propel you to learn the ballet of physical chess required to even hang with anyone who has conquered their ego to the degree that they could learn mastery through interaction with other individuals, you will have achieved a level of consciousness inaccessible to those who would lumber themselves with such petty considerations.
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I have a 100% success record of avoiding “physical encounters”, Not because of my training (which is non-existent) in these matters. Similarly, I wouldn’t know a “deadly badass” unless they beat me to a pulp. Fortunately, I have never had anyone do this to me. It is certainly not because I have a special capability to recognize “deadly badasses”. I must just be lucky.
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It is “serentity” that makes you think things like “It is only my training that prevents me from dragging you outside and slapping you until you get a torn retina”? Some serenity, that is.
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Everyone gets pissed off. There are moments in everyone’s lives where they really want to get physical. Control is not doing it. Though I would define “serenity” as not even having it be an option, even in the worse circumstance.
I really hope this book has room for pacifistic males. I’ve always been adverse to violence. My dad is a manly man, who boasts of his ability to beat the crap out of people, who was never adverse to violence when I was a kid. I was a “sissy”, he always gave off an air of disappointment over my lack of protomanly bravado, even when bullies kicked the shit out of me. It isn’t that I’m a pacifist (I am that too), but more that I just don’t get it. Hierarchical, man-violence is mostly alien to me, on the most basic level.
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But you didn’t elbow, push or shove her. You may have made your displeasure evident but as they say, you used your words. That is the antithesis of the kind of atavistic behavior that this article is all about.
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Of the story I recall, I believe it involved a transgendered Olympic athlete, and one person interviewed said essentially that if the Olympic committee doctors didn’t see any problem with it then that should be the end of story. And again, IIRC, Joe Rogan had come out strongly against it for reasons probably not worth mentioning as he seems to have a touch of the blowhard in him.
I get angry, but it doesn’t even get close me contemplating physical violence. It just isn’t a reaction I have. I sometimeswant to yell and cuss and I try (usually successfully) to control that. I agree that one wouldn’t call controlling instinctive urges (be they to yell, hit, slap or otherwise) serenity. Serenity is when there is nothing that needs to be controlled.
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More serene than the sweaty little pile of anxiety and aggression that is a typical speedbump in life. And that’s not to confuse serenity with the universal practice of massive projection, denial, and repression to avoid acknowledging one’s own intractable hostility by creating the classic benevolent false self-image. That’s the “serene” person who can’t stand to be alone because it leaves them with nobody to blame.
Overall, I rely on my first instinct, being a coward. An underrated talent that has served me well.
Running the other direction is something that I practice religiously.
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You can also often avoid a beating just by looking really high and stupid. Then if they escalate it, go all Master Roshi on their unsuspecting ass.
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You misunderstand my terms and what I am saying.
Competitive athletes are going to be humble. Why? Because “pride” (the sort you are speaking of) means over assessment of one’s capacities. Hence, ‘pride comes before a fall’.
Does not have anything to do with a give and take of power. Everyone is always exchanging power. Has nothing to do with “ego” or “pride”.
As for consciousness, you can not judge someone else’s consciousness very easily. So there is no good yardstick there for where anyone is at. If that judgment is based on them believing the same deeply held beliefs you do and using the exact same terms in the exact same way – well, no guarantee you are right there. Belief can blind people. People believe what they want to believe.
You can judge by appearance of happiness, is one yardstick. But the world is full of evil.
Still, I know plenty of genuinely ecstatically happy people. Happy beats all. That and immortality.
Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a closet.
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I wanted only to castigate your choice to represent fighting in the terms that you chose.
My initial point was to undermine your accentuation of a false dynamic as the central motivation for fighting.
That is not to say that some men do not want to go around physically assaulting other people for their own inner (and outer to the wrong people) aggrandisement.
The act of being in physical combat is, by itself, probably enough of a distinct behaviour that one can label any particular instance of it as ‘fighting’ but I feel that we should be very careful to acknowledge the spectrum within which such behaviour can exist.
On one end there is base, physical assault, on the other, something akin to a duel, wherein rules, and more importantly, agreement to the bout from both parties exists before instigation.
To attempt to represent the motivations of all fighters, or all men who wish to fight, as a dark aberration of behaviour is neither helpful or informative without some serious attempt to differentiate the individuals within the wide realm of behaviour that can be labelled as ‘fighting’ who may hold diametrically opposed motivations.
What we’re really talking about here is the darkness in your heart, isn’t it?
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Testosterone is a very hard drug. Go easy on people that have too much of it. Most of the inflicted are not under the influence by choice.
'“We” like to watch because for almost the entirety of our mammal evolution everybody’s well-being depended very much on the positive outcome of our ‘silverback’s’ bloody battles. We rooted for them and cheered. Under their protection even peaceful bloodlines could prosper.
Our champion won every time too. Or else you and everybody wouldn’t be around because the competing group would have digested their forefathers. *(burp)
Humans are the most violent of the few remaining types of great apes. Obviously. But even chimps eat their neighbours.
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Why do men want to fight? Speaking as one man: Age 23- Some bastard moved in on my ex-girlfriend. Age 48- Pedestrian crossing against the light AFTER I got the green light I’d been waiting for flipped me off for tapping my horn and/or someone somewhere did something bad to a cat.
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So, in a word: testosterone.
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Good thing there are video games for that.
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Fortunately there have been enough people not like this through the ages to allow this thing called civilization to emerge.
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