Protect Your Peace
There are so many villains that come in every shape and size. We design our own villains based on the things we fear the most. The things outside of our control, that we wish to admire from afar. The secret hero’s we’d rather not cross paths with whether it be again, or at all from wisdom gained. There is something to be said for facing them of course, but it’s something else entirely to find an alternative. Staying away never works when they are out to get you, how many times can you turn the other cheek? If only there was a way to live in harmony.
When a daughter’s only birthday wish is to reconcile with her father, serving him opportunities for healing and shows of warmth, and all she gets are empty words from whatever warm and comfortable place he is as she tries to come home to the miserable cold she once found comfort in. Those she looks up to offer her rationalizations for how she is ready to fly in order to afford themselves a more peaceful narrative, and she grants them a sliver of this image they desire just to try to make them happy. Those who offered her peace hold their bite strongly where she offered her weary hand.
How does one love themselves enough to punish others for not loving them properly? Is that what love is, this love she has been missing? The willingness to be cruel to others that you draw in? She was drawn in to what was called love when she was most vulnerable and innocent. To be the result and—quite obviously to an onlooker—failed solution to ongoing conflict taught her a tainted kind of love: to jump on the grenade when others pull to pin and play catch. We will forgo the various traumas and tales for now and ponder the resulting question. Who was she being punished for, where was the love in her creation tale?
When she begs for something, it’s at her wit’s end. The damage has been done, and she just wants things to be made right. When they beg, it is for forgiveness of their misdeeds—to go along with the subversion even when it was unsuccessful. Even the Orientals call it Mesopotamian wisdom. This dynamic is often weaponized against those who know true suffering: their plea’s are mimic’d when there is an unmet desire, and knowing how this low feels they oblige. To see that quivering fear of unknown’s in another, the shattering of their reality… it pulls at one’s heartstrings. Some will latch on to this organic response and develop it as their modus operandi. The worst will turn it into a game: how much can one hurt other’s and still make them see me as the victim. How many sensitive spots can one stab and then pretend to be loving and tending to the wounds…
Murderous rapists who want to watch the world burn will earn more favor in the long run preying upon kindness than those who bend over backwards purely by fact that they are more seen in an attention economy. Creating the problem and maintaining the festering wounds allows you to sell the solution back to them while hiding them away, changing the narrative over time to show your supposed service to those you imprisoned. As the white feminist tells the black woman how hard she fought for her rights… the black woman smiles back at her in admiration of her sacrifices.
But making ourselves more sensitive to something is how we show it respect, how we get closer to it… from afar. Our villains become our obsessions, and if we grow we depend on them for gravity and orbit. To become a giant you have to learn to respect them, even those you will never be close to. As you grow, you will become more lonely and more distant… and every unexpected connection will hit harder. Navigating smooth interactions into your orbit becomes increasingly difficult. That which seemed imminent danger becomes a curiosity, previously risky hazards mere dust.
People love her because she finds joy in the moment, no matter which moment it is. She can see the light that exists in every moment of suffering. She has spent so long buried in her hole enjoying the fleeting moments of sunlight that she is sensitive to every joy the world has to offer. When she claws at the walls, things start to fall in on her so she has learned to find joy it letting things be. She knows the pain that trying can bring, not only to her when she tries… but she herself was pulled into this hole trying to help, and so she is weary to the suffering of others. She was weak when she was thrown down here, too weak to help those in habitation that’s for sure. If it all caves in, what will she become? Another zombie wandering the lands? As much as she may desire this specific ailment it is one she is immune to.
A waitress feels like she is the most lost in all the land, but she has a skill that will always transfer. The machine will keep churning, she will always have a place. This individual who see’s only glimpses of other’s journey’s… their moments of reprieve, of recuperation, refueling, even healing. It all looks so easy with everyone passing through so relaxed, being served. They exist in a world where everyone relies on things going smoothly for everyone to get home, but the risk is a missed tip over a kitchen collision. “Corner!” A car without a garage gets curbed, but what happens to a missile without a silo?
As the final blows are dealt to her… the absentee step father with empty wishes, the meaningful mentor shifting back to the new status quo with her purpose served, the disingenuous lover offering false promise of peace growing stronger and more vitriolic as plenty is already guaranteed and nothing expected was lost. Those close demand pity when they deliver uncertainty as a vector of control. They ascribe their lack of effort to incredible expectations intended as pressure to perform. “I thought you might be busy with other things” comes up over a failure to show up for important moments, but nonstop harassment being met with a panicked acknowledgement is seen as enthusiastic consent to further engage.
Any attempts to repair are intentionally too little, too late… measured just enough to breed hope into reliance of hope. Only enough to save face, maintain ego. Never enough hope to afford blame however, only ever enough to try to maintain dignity over them. As she hangs out over the cliff side grasping onto a root which once fed the great tree yonder, a number of hands reach out… first her father, just enough of a brush of his fingertip to remind her of his heartbeat… her head to his chest. He used to toss her up in the air and barely catch her. The first time he missed? Nothing. After that? Left for her to figure out. The next? It’s him again… but was it really? The rest of the hands appear ghost-like, reaching through one another with no rhyme or reason. Every offer of help tainted by the cutting lie that many offers were before, no ability to distinguish what is real or not. Set’s one up to be real easy to blame for lack of gratitude while they try to hold their organs in while hanging from a branch.
As night falls she is alone again with nothing in her birth place, now illegal just to exist as much in the day as the night. Everyone has left her behind as she tries to run to a home that doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. The designer goods she has cared for mean more than ever in the time she was told she would regret them most, because they represent how much she cared… and thereby, how much she deserved to be cared for.
Man’s greatest evil is leaving his kin strong enough to remember why they fight but too weak to ever win. Making sure the cards are stacked in his favor before presenting himself as taking the strong, hard, righteous stance. When you are only gambling what you cannot lose… when your position leaves no skin in the game, then is not your skin fair game? What other reason could one have to hold out food to the ravenous in your bare hands? Is it forgetfulness of how you once perceived what you have become, loneliness so deep it blinds you, or asking for trouble from boredom? All three really the same thing.
Peace isn’t found without war’s to fight. The calmest souls knew the strongest storms. The honorable among us know that we aim to kill and if we find the wounded we do what we can to let them have their dignity, live or die. Most only find true peace in the end, but those who live to catch a glimpse never hold on to it for very long. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but sacrifice is the biting cold breeze unseen yet inescapable.