Here is the thing.. If you think that: 1) You know a lot about human violence and are prepared, or 2) You radiate positive energy and that’s what you attract – and therefore violence only happens to others, you need to listen to this audio.
My fellow MovNat-ter Daniel Vitalis, who is an expert on the negative effects contemporary lifestyle has on us humans and how to reverse these negative effects without rejecting civilization’s achievements, has very recently interviewed Rory Miller, himself an expert – in human violence.
I highly recommend that you find the time to listen to the entire recording. I promise you that you will come away with quite a few facts and truths that you new nothing about, and that will make you think deeply about how you previously viewed the world of human violence.
I won’t try to give a full account of what Daniel and Rory talked about, but I’ll list below some of my notes that I took while I listened. These notes made me ponder my understanding of human violence and I’m not done pondering yet – I won’t be for a while:
- “If you’ve studied human violence as an art and I’ve studied human violence as a tool I have a huge advantage over you”.
- If you think bad energy can’t come into your life because you are putting out only positive energy and that’s what you get in return, then you are the perfect victim!
- Social violence – related to the fifth level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – self-actualization – if you are bad you strive to get to this level because hurting people gives you pleasure and you like it.
- A certain body language – “If I don’t make eye contact and I don’t give him reasons he won’t hurt me” – is the right answer in a social conflict, BUT it’s exactly what stimulates a predator to attack even more! Watch this shocking video of a Russian girl getting literally stomped!
- Attackers pick those who look like they are not likely to provide resistance – those who look weak, small, distracted, meak. So, make sure you don’t look or behave that way!
- Firearm skills – you will probably never use them but if you ever need them you’ll need them in extraordinarily high level!
- Allow yourself to notice and process more data from your immediate environment. Your awareness will increase! (This reminds me of the main point in Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” – a highly recommended book)
- People are attracted to power and there is huge amount of power in violence – if you are good at it (hence why some become attracted to inflicting harm in immense quantities to other humans – they feel powerful).
- None of us contemporary humans are products of ancestors who refused to be violent in order to survive (it’s in our blood to be violent).
Think about some of these bullet points for a brief moment. How did the Russian girl video make you feel? Can violence happen to you? No? Never? I hope so. I sincerely do!
But, help yourself and pull your head out of the sand, acknowledge that human violence exists! Make sure that your senses are open and you don’t ignore your gut feeling. That’s the very minimum you can do. And, if you do just that – and nothing more – it might end up saving your life.
Listen to the podcast, think about it and see in what directions your thoughts will take you. The only bad direction is the direction of ignorance. Every other direction will be of benefit.
And finally, Daniel, thank you for putting together this wonderful recording, and for everything else you do to help cure us of ignorance! (I’ll do a separate post on your work)!