Surviving a hostile environment?
There are no easy rides through life, it is not freewheeling down a gentle incline forever, you have to put in the hard work to coast for a while and as pleasant as it is, it is in the uphill section that you build the muscles that is character and experience. Where character is really the shorthand for the repeated actions and practice of being in align with your best self (or the most plausible version to you of your best self). Which is really having the competence and confidence to act as if you had a good character, to act from a place of love rather than fear, and we are all faking it to some extent or at least stretching into that better version that we could be. However we can not help but be effected by the environment around us, nurture and nature always work hand in hand, and in some places it is hard to be your best self because of what is expected of you or others expectations, and that is assuming that you have the power and control over your actions to be fully responsible for them.
Not that I ever like to blame anything else for my actions even when it might be true, as what is not my responsibility is not in my control and that makes me feel powerless, when the truth is always in-between, why would I not act as if every was in my control at some level, at least then I have the hope that I can make things better, and hope goes a long way. Through we will encounter hostile environments in life, people will just not like us, judge us, try to take our voice away, to reduce our impact on the world, dismiss us to the corner and tell us we do not matter, we are not important and we should be quiet. The temptation in that situation is to immediately push back, kick up a stink, over react with all your strength, to stand up to the strong and protect the weak is noble if not always wise.
However if you are going to fight a war, only fight when you can win, and it is the height of wisdom to wait until you have the confidence to win, and this is not cowardice. Retreating to safe ground might not be romantic but it is very effective, it gives you distance and time to make better choices, though it does have to be an active choice not a default inaction, you should not be shoved, you should have taken the step backwards to protect yourself as a skillful general not routing with your back exposed, that way you make yourself an easy target for the predators that wait for that kind of weakness. You retreat slowly, deliberately, step by step, that way you are able to counter attack if your enemy over extends themselves, it by control that you win not panic.
It gives you the chance to call on allies, access what your strengths are and the weaknesses of your enemy and make no mistake if someone or thing is creating a hostile environment for you, they are your enemy, your problem that has to be neutralized or at least sidestepped (going around is fine, if you know where you want to go and you are not being forced there). More importantly time gives you the chance to accept whatever is the truth of the situation you are facing and the awareness of the resources, knowledge and skills that you need to defeat them. It might mean you have to play the long game, you might have to be hostile in return or if you can rise above and play a game of your own choosing that is even better, and I am trying not to use examples as they are so limiting to the number of options on the table.
People have such a history of playing games and trying to win that is it part of who we are, we are the product of survival, just since the end of the Roman empire, 75 generations of people have survived so that you can be alive today so that you can survive too, and you even have the chance to prosper, to be the best version of you. To be clear that 75 generations went through many wars, famine, plague, witch burning, religious hatred of all kinds, economic exploration, each one a toss of the coin as to whether they would survive, they have been through hell, and now it is your turn. Safety, fairness and excess resources are new phenomenons and should be welcomed as revolutionary and amazing, but there is not a single moment when everything is good now, it has to emerge from our history in pieces, one step forwards might seems backwards given enough time. What seemed like mercy becomes cruel and that is progress, we get better and we want more, we are greed for a better live even when we have a good one.
When societies can just slide backwards and give up on something because it is too hard or too many people see it as unimportant or damaging to their lives, they like the benefit but it cost them too much in another area, something that seems hostile to them, and that they react with rage to. We all want different things, and our ability to mind our own business is only in proportion to our humbleness, you have to know that you can be wrong before meaningful change can happen in your world, it is only by being wrong that you can grow, learn and understand, it is by time and distance that is possible to have a middle ground and change the environment into a more pleasant land where we all get to live in peace.
However to hold that middle ground it is necessary for everyone to leave a space for dialog and mutual interests to arise and become important to all of us. That is why we have to all put our swords down, we have to try and use empathy instead of weapons that are designed to hurt and exclude, anything that we choose to do, we have to be prepared to have done to us. If we humiliate our enemies, exclude them, cancel them, push them into the shadow, do not be surprised when they take that time and distance to formulate a new kind of evil, a more destructive response to what they perceive as a hostile environment too, as everyone has their own view, their own problems, wants and needs, we are the same and all different too, so the question is really what would a good environment for all of us look like and if you can do that for your enemy too that is the kind of peace we can all live with.
We live in a hostile time, but we always have done, trouble can come looking for you at any moment, and this is true for everyone. Just because someone looks privileged from your point of view, does not mean that they feel it, Queen Victoria might have been the most privileged person on the planet, but that does not mean that she felt it, she felt loss for her husband, people she loved died, there was fear of disease, poverty, foul morality, she was restricted by her position, she was not free in anyway that we would recognise today. There is no way I would swap my life for hers or the times she lived in, but there are ways that I felt my life is full of more hostility than her, that is the nature of individual experience, we are all sensitive to the hostility in our own lives.
If you want a good life, It necessary to live your life in the way that makes the world as joyful as possible for you, and part of that is making it as joyful for others as possible. For me that means minding my own business as much as possible, looking for area of mutual interest and co-operation with others, starting from a position that I am probably wrong but that my opinion is valid and worthwhile, even if I only share it with people I trust not to judge me unkindly, and where I am consistent with my public ones even where they are unpopular. It is only by stating repeatedly that everyone is allow to be themselves but that they do not get to tell others what they can do, even if it offends you, that way you get to be yourself even if it offends someone else. Which is at least the start of understanding and tolerance for all, if not the ending of the conversation that leads to it.
