"’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself"
Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene II)
How do deal with our enemies? An enemy is not the evil cartoon portrayed in movies, it can be a worthy or unworthy adversary. An enemy is anyone who challenges our position or power.
This could be as simple as someone who wants to destroy what we have created (liar, thief, crook, swindler or saboteur.) or worse still destroy our ability to create (murderer, terrorist, ).
Whatever we do or wherever we go, they are always going to be ememies out there.
We are all fatally flawed. At some point or other we are going to upset others, we are going to be the enemies of others. The facinating thing is that just as it is obvious to think of ememies out there, it is more difficult to think of ourselves as the ememies of others. But we are.
We become an enemy when we challenge or contradict another persons view of themselves, we become an enemy when we obstruct anothers path to their chosen goals. We can do it simply by voting for a government and stand by (and therefore sanction) them to bomb and kill innocent children in our defence.
Sometimes that the harder we try to befriend everyone around us the more suspicion we attract. Work too hard to befriend others and they may project their fear onto our actions and raise their demons out of our sincerity.
The harder we work at building a relationship, the deeper the distrust spreads. Tongues wag. Opinions harden into self evident facts. We cannot afford to ignore their existence, equally we cannot afford to become a victim of thier violence.
Every day, ordinary people are shaped into incurable beasts. It does not take much to tilt the lens and see the monster underneath. Monsters emerge from timid souls, they suckle on fear and self fulfilling lies. It begins with fear of self destruction and eventually we reduce our lives to the dimensiosn of the ememies we fear. Then we have arrived, we are the enemy that creates enemies.
The answer is not to take out a flower and wave a bright flag, pay for peace and smile at everyone we meet. The answer is to wake up to the fact that we ourselves are someone's enemy. T
Burying our frailty only makes us more fragile. Once we have humbled ourselves, forgiven ourselves for being flawed, we are free to move to a higher ground.
This is no easy task, because it is easier to define ourselves in relation to our enemies and b held hostage by our own fears.
Just as a vaccine contains the very germs it is building an imunity to, our fear of terrorists or even the enemies who live next door, the way to deal with an enemies 'out there' is to extract the one that lives in here.
This is not an easy journey. Being silent. Being aware. Rising above our own ignorance to the point that the mirror of our sacred identity cracks and a new person emerges, is a painful act of self less ness.
"Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none:
be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use,
and keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key:
be check’d for silence,
But never tax’d for speech"
All’s Well that Ends Well (Act I, Scene I)
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