The Monster Inside Us: Understanding Violence and Self-Control

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ: There are monsters lurking beneath our surface. Yes, beneath our surface. Every single one of us.

If we don't understand how to tame the monster of violence, then we have no business telling other people how to do so.

Violence Begins When We Stop Listening

When I look around at most of the violence in the world today, it's senseless. Not because people shouldn't protect themselves, because that's actually understandable. It's because so much of the violence occurs when people can't listen.

People can't handle their own insecurities. They can't find balance in their own lives, so they topple into each other like dominoes, creating more friction and destruction along the way.

When Fantasy Replaces Reality

It has nothing to do with video games. It has nothing to do with social media. It has everything to do with how we view video games and social media.

It has to do with our addiction to fantasy.

We have gone so inward, into our heads with these little screens and these games, that we no longer know the difference between fantasy and reality.

You can see it in politics. You can see it in finance. You can see it in the violence. You can see it in the comment section of every social media platform.

We have lost the moorings of reality in our society.

We have given up on reality because it's not as much "fun" as fantasy.

When we fall deeply in love with fantasy, we lose all perspective.

Markets go up without reason. Politicians rise to power without reason. And people get shot for no reason.

This is the danger of not understanding the monster that lurks beneath us.

Confronting the Monster Within

Reach down inside yourself.

Find the courage to pull that monster up.

Look it in the face, and start having a conversation with it, or it will own you.

It's your choice.