| HN Mirror

When you feel unsafe it doesn’t always mean someone else is wrong. It can mean that, but it doesn’t have to. It may just be an artifact of your own emotional reaction.

That’s a nuance which is lost (deliberately sometimes) when the word unsafe or civil or similar are used. And unfortunately, that means these words are being used to censor, to shut down talk, and to control other people.

It’s paradoxical, because the language of safety becomes the instruments of abuse that they are (in such misuse) only pretending to be against. It’s really the interpersonal individual version of the “public safety! national security! Therefore, you need to give up your rights” manipulation of the public.

And paradoxically it’s actually abusive to the people who are invoking the “I feel unsafe” defense. Because when the nuance is lost (that it doesn’t always mean that somebody else is wrong) then the people invoking that “I feel unsafe” card are effectively surrendering their individual agency to be responsible for their own emotional reactions (and to process, investigate and understand their own emotional reactions), and by surrendering their agency and personal responsibility, they’re actually making themselves more vulnerable and more unsafe. Not to mention, abusing others in the process.

One way this abuse occurs, which is very common today, is incorrectly fake blaming other people for your own emotional reactions.

If anyone finds themselves in such situations and feel stuck or comfortable, I encourage you to move beyond vague terms, like ‘unsafe’ or ‘uncomfortable’, (which strictly speaking are not actual emotions they’re more like unresolved low resolution gestalt impressions that conceal the underlying emotions and) which in their vagueness are more open to abuse.

I encourage you to actually try to figure out what in fact are you feeling and ask you self why you might be feeling that. The basic emotions are: fear, anger, joy and sadness. Start there! You can use more words as you gain more awareness, I guess.

The reason I say that is because I believe that that kind of self-knowledge where people are really being honest with themselves, can only create better situations where they’re less likely to try to Weaponize their own emotional confusion as a way to abuse other people.

So I think it’s just generally healthy to be fully across where you are at, in a particular moment and to be in touch with what your internal sensors are giving you. if for no other reason, than that higher resolution enables you to contribute your unique specific perspective in a more detailed and constructive and useful way.