Vachon Imagined

Violence is part of life in the same way force is part of nature.

It exists before language, before morality, before anyone names it as good or bad.

Only later do we learn to label it, contain it, suppress it, or deny it.

But the capacity itself is already there.

Life carries intensity. Energy. Pressure. Reaction. Survival. Competing impulses.

And humans are no exception.

We are taught where violence is acceptable and where it is not. We are trained to express it in sanctioned forms—on fields, in games, in performance, in stories. Sport, in particular, channels aggression into structure. It allows intensity to be seen, measured, contained, and released.

But what is expressed in one place does not disappear elsewhere.

It often continues in quieter forms.

In tone.

In control.

In withdrawal.

In dominance that doesn’t announce itself.

The mistake is assuming that because something is not visible, it is not present.

Human beings are not divided into “violent” and “non-violent” types.

We are expressions of capacity, shaped by environment, discipline, fear, culture, and awareness.

What changes is not whether the impulse exists, but how consciously it is held.

To deny it completely is not freedom.

It is suppression.

To recognize it is not permission.

It is awareness.

And awareness changes everything.

Because what is seen clearly does not need to leak unconsciously into other forms.

It can be understood.

Held.

Redirected.

Or released.

The danger is not that violence exists within human beings.

The danger is when it operates unseen, unnamed, and unexamined.

Because then it is not chosen.

It is expressed blindly.