Brutal Binary
I looked up the meaning of ‘brutalise’. I discovered it means two things.
1. To make brutal
2. To be brutal
And everywhere I looked, the first came with more explanation. We assume the quality of brutality is not inherent in people, that it is caused by having experienced such behaviour oneself. I don’t like to think there are no monsters, only victims.
When you have been treated with brutality, you have the dual challenge of healing & learning to empathise with who or what brutalised you. If not, you risk becoming the brutaliser (because the lack of empathy is what makes one a brute).
If you have bled, have you stopped the bleeding or have you drained out of all blood? In being brutalised, have you succumbed to brutality? Being brutalised & being brutal, these are separate. So does being brutalised split us into infinite fragments of brutality?
Maybe it is not a dual challenge – healing & empathising. In being broken, the only way forward is to rejoin, not to break others. The real strength then is not let brutality find a permanent mark in us.
The quality of empathy is fluid. It cannot be contained to just some situations & people & times. It is who you are. The fluid cannot be broken. Only briefly diverted & it can always reunite with itself again.
#Ideart: Cyberpunk/Fantasy Freak face art as an interpretation of #SpeakGeek
