Aggression and domination

Last night as I was walking without a particular course in mind, I ended up near a law office. Their name was “The aggressive law group.”

Perhaps the meaning of aggressive as belligerent, hostile, ready to attack wasn’t what the lawyers had in mind. Perhaps it was more about boldness, being assertive and energetic, to imply domination over someone.

Nevertheless if the “law” was about justice; it wouldn’t be a need to display a violent performance to “win.”

Our society values domination as a way to demonstrate superiority, worth and status.

As we are part of society, those traits are already learned. A competitive society instill those values over anything else.

We may teach Johnny to be “good,” to love his neighbor; but those words will not make a difference, when to “win” is everything in life. To win what?
Anything. The idea is to dominate. Our value is determined by our ability to dominate someone.

There are many ways to dominate people. All of them inflict violence in one way or another.
If I tell you what is good for you, I am trying to dominate you. It is about showing who is the one who knows and the one who doesn’t.

Life does not teach that way. Life allows us to make “mistakes” to experience so we learn.

Those “mistakes” are not really “mistakes” then, but necessary experiences to learn. Once we understand about our unlimited nature, our eternal nature, we can see that obligating someone to act in a particular way for “his own good,” is merely a matter of restricting someone’s life for the sake of our own ideal.

We could give advice if asked to, we could give an opinion if we feel that we must speak; but interfering into someone’s life is to be aggressive, to use violence.

The above holds true for every relationship. Many times a father may feel a sense of “ownership” with his son. The greater that sense of ownership the son feels, the greatest rejection from the son, will be experienced by the father.

If a husband continues pushing his way over a wife; resentment will build up in her to the point of not listening. This is the point where communication could be cut off. When communication is lacking; there is no relationship anymore. It is just existing together.

It is obvious that the word “domination,” needs to be looked at in our own moments of silence. To understand the ramification of that word in ourselves, means the opportunity to free our lives from that tyranny.

In Spirituality, the same “domination” is used to be “good.” In this case, we will divide our personality in the “bad” side and the “good” side. The “bad” side needs reformation, it needs to shape up. Our “good” side needs to dominate the “bad” side. If the “bad” side starts to “win” that is how temptations appear; and that is the moment that we need to emotionally whip ourselves to behave, to be “good” again.

When that aggressivity, that aim to dominate without understanding is gone; that illusory division, that duality between my “good” self and my “bad” self will be gone as well.

Inside every one of us there is a big tiger and a pussy cat. None is “bad” neither “good.” We just need to learn when the tiger is needed to act and when the pussy cat is needed to express and then, learn the forms and ways to express those characters according to time.

A tiger is not sheer violence and aggression. That is our human interpretation of a tiger’s way to survive. A tiger does not kill for the “fun of it” like a human being can, to express dominance over others. A tiger is wits, tenacity, cleverness and patience. On the other hand, A pussy cat is that huggable creature, amiable, easy-going and ….cute 

That is how the duality of “good and bad” could become one. In that oneness there is no inner conflict.