My nails.

Since I was a child I was saying I was a pacifist, I don’t go for physical violence. My brother and I, he’s 3 years younger than me, but was always (a little) bigger build, never fought. Or better said, we’ve never been in a fist and/or physical fight, with the one or two times slapping each other when we were kids, but post-teen years definitely never. Not that he didn’t try, the last time we were even in our twenties.

Yes, things like that, especially physical things that happen to me I cannot forget, especially if its with another person involved. There is a reason I do that and that is that I’ve always protected my body, even by consciously choosing not to do sports and/or activities that can potentially result in (very) serious bodily harm. Accidents can happen and life sometimes throws awful surprises, so I’m (mentally) prepared for everything, but in real life physically try to prevent the worst, as much possible, as I still keep being a human.

This part of who I am and consciously already thought about from child, was all about (protecting) me and that I didn’t want to hurt another human being. I don’t like pain, so I don’t give pain.

As I am sharing this with you, I also need to tell you that what in essence freaked me most internally, which made me ponder for a good while about it, was only recently in my adult years when I realized what that for me really means. The realization came when I realized that I can most probably physically rip a persons artheries from their neck with my nails if they ever physically threaten my life. As a pacifist, I believe in each and everyone’s life to live and that means that I will protect mine when someone endangers my life and I can save mine by taking theirs, as I will never resort to physical violence first. Scientist can’t do this yet, but if they could, I bet that this line of code is encoded in my DNA.

That realization was mind blowing for me. There is no atom in my body that wants to try to really rip a persons neck arteries, knowing that I could and knowing that I would if need be, in essence made me appreciate life more deeply. Our nails are our natural tools that we’ve mostly collectively have banned in society, and of course I realize why that is, because (really) strong nails are dangerous. Just like kids nowadays wouldn’t know what a VHS is and/or what it would look like. Most adults in the world now, don’t realize and can’t imagine the agility in your hands that you get back when you give it its natural tools to work with.

One important thing to mention is that I keep saying physical violence, because there’s also of course other types of violence possible, like verbal or even psychological violence. I’ve lived on an island for 18 years, which mostly is Americanized, which means we islanders usually also speak loud (as Americans do) and especially if we/I get in (heated) arguments, which for example for most mainland-Europeans that can easily come across as agressive. Psychological violence is simply too time and energy consuming, all the while it is something that putrids your soul because you’re constantly feeding it malice. That’s something I wouldn’t even entertain to do to another person for the damage it would do to myself. So, the latter is out of the question for me and the former I do my absolute best not to be weak to let myself do it, I know that there have been moments in my life and probably will be some more in the future, where another person could construe my verbal reaction to them as either aggressive or violent. For that I say my intentions are never to use violence, either physically or verbally, but I do give myself more freedom to let some verbal aggression in times of need, which in most cases would be to give a (serious) warning, or see paragraph 2, last sentence.

End ode to my nails.