(Note: none of what is said here negates the urgent need for common sense gun regulation.)To what degree do recent school shootings relate to sensitivity... both a lack of it... and an abundance of it?
As a starting point, it is no secret that some portion of us, sensitive by nature, may have at some point felt overwhelmed, alienated, out of place & out of balance... this may have been further complicated by varying degrees of harassment by one's peers.
This may speak to nutritional imbalance as well, as this may have fed further psychological imbalance. So forces from both the inside and the outside may be infringing upon the individual, essentially chasing the individual out of his/her home base.
This portion of us may then may fold back into what they perceive as an aggressive system, with an explosive result, thereby reversing the perceived roles. This quote from a recent movie trailer comes to mind: "the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel".
When a person feels overfull, unable to center, in a state of fear, what is the rebound of that? When something is filled to the point of exploding, sometimes it explodes.
When something is taken, pushed to one extreme... even escaping into an extreme of passivity, it may bounce off the final wall of that and rush back, this time with the weaponry of disconnection and the power of having little to no fear of being annihilated. It may become less painful to jump out the window than to stay in the burning building. The unthinkable becomes the preferred option.
There may seem a great divide between the so called normal person & a person of heightened sensitivity. Yet, what would the landscape be like if sensitivity were cultivated in our culture?... Would we be like Luke... learning the ways of the force & transforming in the process?....
This reminds me of that awareness exercise where a person slowly chews a food and takes note as the flavor (underneath the dominant flavor) gradually reveals itself. Sometimes the chewy center is a synthetic one, and we don't know it till we take the time to get there.
If only we would feel content to truly take in our environments at a finer level... to evaluate the towns and cities in which we dwell... If only we were to take some note of ourselves as participants in psycho-drama rather than simply bearing witness (or being victim) to it as it plays out.
If we were to pay attention to how a room feels when the furniture is rearranged... if we were to edge even a bit closer to the canary in the coal mine types. If society were more patient, more sensitive... less reactive... less extreme in both its punishment and praise.
People like Temple Grandin, an autistic woman with the ability to cast light on otherwise invisible triggers, are available to help us bridge the worlds. Certain practices will cultivate sensitivity in a society... and those familiar with numerous martial arts practices will know that sensitivity need not dilute power.
An interesting exercise is to create an overstimulating environment & gradually remove the loud music, then the synthetic colors, then the clutter and to follow a person's mental transition in that changing space as quiet reveals the more subtle noise.
When all the plastic & flashy colors are removed, the realness of an area can sink in. When in the throws of conventional society, it can be a challenge (for many) to reach ground state... with such an overlay of sharpness... a composition of synthetic colors, lights and sounds, sharp and jarring people interactions... This could apply to anyone... to an exponential degree for some.
On the other hand, not everyone is going to understand or compromise to the fullest extent... The sensitive individual would of course benefit by considering the proper training for his/her case, which includes knowledge of how to balance nutrition specific to self... how to use proper supplements, perhaps to include essential fatty acids & tryptophan/5htp (if not drawn from diet).
This person may dedicate time to learning how to create an ideal living space as a home base, a sanctuary. Other tools include: a regular meditation/yoga practice, biofeedback, energy balancing techniques, coping skills such as Emotional Freedom Technique, communication skills for group situations, knowing when to leave the room, a pass to leave the classroom, a personal tool box for emergencies, etc).
To simply reach for a pharmaceutical is tricky business, as the same sensitivity, inflamed by impurities, is given another impurity. Consider this.
With the right training, a sensitive person, once grossly out of balance, might reach the point where it has become a bit easier to visit or partner up with society at large... or to act as a student or teacher in in (and most importantly, to be able to observe the self and its reactions under extraordinary circumstances).
Of course this takes resources, which may be a big factor, in at least some cases. And what if he or she never truly gels on a peer based level, other than at the level of compassion?
That level of compassion becomes even more important then, but what do we do if compassion hasn't taken hold or is overshadowed?... producing an ironic insensitivity to the ever distant other. These environmental and social factors become ever more important... and stand to push individuals to the tipping point. Small details become very powerful here. In someone's world these are not small details.
To create an environment with sensitivity in mind... that is to cater somewhat to the minority... the canaries in the coal mine... this may be to cater to the majority as well, as these more easily triggered individuals may be exaggerations of all of us and reveal hidden impurities in the system. All of these seemingly small details may add up to a draw on everyone's optimal well being...
This may be akin on an individual body level to recognizing food sensitivities... these are not overt allergies, as there is no anti-body present... but the system may still be challenged somewhat and dragged down slightly by multiple infringements. We may water ourselves down over the generations by accumulation of seemingly small low level stresses.
By optimizing our environments to the finer level of sensitivity, we may approach what is inherently natural for our body types & raise everyone up. We offer fluidity in spaces, that really mimic what our ancestors had built in by default. We offer the same fractal patterns inherent in nature that keep us in parasympathetic immune response.
The collective weight of subtle things, foreign things in terms of our heritage, may reduce everyone's performance. And certainly the heightened reactivity of a sensitive individual can come down in a hard way. Not because people deserve it or because it is right or that it should be tolerated... or that an individual does not bear responsibility for his/her person, but simply because it is. Simply because it is.
And to ignore the opportunities to move a space towards balance may be to ignore a potential future disaster. (Even simple things such as natural vs. synthetic lighting, wild nature vs. synthetics, clean air vs. air full of indoor pollutants from offgassing of synthetic carpets & dry erase markers). Which future will we move toward in that case? What types of spaces will we create & how will they fold back in to impact each of our individual lives? If we were to consider our environment a human zoo... like any other zoo, generally a pale comparison to default natural conditions.
What other backdrop issues intertwine intimately with the matter at hand?... ecological issues, environmental justice issues, agricultural issues, issues of wealth inequality, education curriculum issues, all of these potentially interlaced with residual tensions involving race, gender, sexual orientation... just to throw out ideas here. Many of the preventative treatments require resources, economic and otherwise.
What if we were to take a time machine through the past & offer some of the worst figures in history the proper nutrition, the proper social support & tolerance, the proper acknowledgement of that person's tasks, however seemingly menial... if we were to cultivate a buffer zone for that person to dwell in, between internal and external factors. (And what if we were to offer the masses the same?) From a cold, economic standpoint, how much money have we invested in wars springing from these imbalances? Of course, what if the individual is nonetheless psychopathic?
True we can not lock down everything and human beings will have to calibrate to what is going on, even intense chaotic moments completely unexpected... however, with the right groundwork laid and the right state of mind cultivated... a better response can cling to automation... and there is a reserve to draw from... and an awareness to come from... when emergencies happen, when the bottom drops out, when the self is reacting like crazy... the tool of awareness is all there is.
Each person is coming from a space of course, and that is a big twist in society... we all come together to impact one another, and just as one person's disturbance may domino effect into the society at large... one person's happiness, fluidity, good functioning in the collective space... may alleviate a stress on society... and may even lift society up as a whole.
And that is where we are at, with so much instability in the world... How can we lay the groundwork for people to not live in fear, to not be in fight or flight, to not be condescended to, based on one's role in society... to create a society that elevates rather than depresses... a society that people can grow out of & back into in a positive way... so we free ourselves up to address other pressing issues such as climate change.
[Insert my support of Bernie Sanders here]
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