the bigger picture

The most attractive feature of non-violence is that it is only interested in the bigger picture. That’s why it has no sense of timing. It can pop up at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of a heated argument which is verging on a quarrel – someone outside breaks in to suggest that we “calm down”. We push them aside because we are convinced that the importance of our ‘good idea’ outweighs any need for good manners. But as time passes, if things escalate into a personal slanging match, it’s only that call for calm which might avert disaster. Only by applying the brakes in time, can we let the calming factor do its work. If we exclude it, violence ups the ante until an explosion is inevitable. After that it’s a long up-hill struggle to restore things. The calming element brings high emotions under control. It’s a sort of count-to-ten principle which is not meant to spoil our fun but to keep our dynamic urges under some sort of control. So, how dynamic should our non-violence be? Certainly we must never let it act as a dampener or for us to be afraid of robust interaction.