Violence

Our attraction towards violence will not stop.  I’m not expecting all of us to not be violent at all, all I’m saying is lets try to be a little less violent, lets try to have some control.  Expecting people not to be violent is like expecting people not to be sexual; it’s not going to happen.  But let’s be a little more responsible with our sex energies, lets be a little more responsible with our expression of violence. 

Football was not enough, they needed Boxing, Boxing was not enough, they needed Kickboxing, Kickboxing was not good enough, they needed Thai Boxing, Thai Boxing was not good enough they needed MMA.  Soon enough there will be another country that will try to compete to develop a “sport” that is more violent than MMA.  Eventually it can lead right back to Gladiator fighting. 

We are essentially just moving backwards in life.  It is up to us whether or not we wish to develop ourselves towards greater violence or greater peace.  War is a big problem but it is even a greater problem when we really don’t have a reason to go to war but we have a desire to engage in war just because we are bored.  People are not fighting out of survival; they are fighting for pure pleasure.  That is a big problem. 

Playing violent video games is not enough, a teenager purchases a BB gun and starts killing birds.  Killing birds becomes boring, now he starts shooting dogs and cats.  As he grows older, he ends up purchasing a shotgun and starts hunting deer.  He kills the deer and doesn’t even care for the meat; he just kills the deer for pleasure.  Now that is no longer an attraction, so what’s next?  He gets depressed and suicidal, at this crucial moment, before he decides to take his own life, he wishes to fulfill his dream of killing other humans for pleasure.  He shoots up a bunch of people randomly at the mall and then takes his own life.  People wonder what led him to this. 

It’s not rocket science.  We live in an extremely violent culture.  Violence is praised all the way up to the level of MMA; the next level of violence is pure violence on the streets, gang violence, etc.  We need to go back towards peace, not greater violence.  We need to promote sports like basketball, volleyball, soccer, and tennis, not MMA or Boxing.  If we are to promote Martial Arts, we need to promote it in the proper and responsible way. 

The more violent we become, the less intelligent and the less spiritual our culture will be.  This is not a progression of humanity it is a regression.  We need to be guided by the intelligent and the wise, not the ignorant and violent.  People like Socrates, Einstein, MLK Jr., Dali Lama, Lao-tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Osho, J. Krishnamurti, We need to be guided by those who will lead us towards the positive, not those who will get us lost in the negative. 

There is a certain appeal to the negative.  There is a certain appeal to Denzel Washington in “Training Day.”  There is a certain appeal to Al Pacino in “Godfather.”  There is a certain appeal to Robert Dinero in “A Bronx Tale.”  There is a certain appeal to Tupac Shakur.  We must learn to draw inspiration from the charisma of these “negative” individuals but yet not embody and embrace the destructive behavior expressed by each person. There is positive and negative in everything we do, we need to constantly be aware of these energies and learn how to effectively create the balance between the two.