I was in a hostage situation. I opted to stay and distract the guy by talking to him for almost two hours so everyone else could stay safe until the police got there. But I spent the next two years on cycles of benzos and zoplicone because I couldn’t sleep anymore. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. Good under pressure, big come down after pressure.
Damn. Sorry you had to go through that. Also, Much respect. I don’t know many people who would opt for that. Do you feel that you truly got to know yourself better after that situation?
I think I actually realised I had a life threatening sense of duty to others above all pummelled into me as a child and that it was less a reflection of bravery and more a reflection of it not even occurring to me that my life mattered enough to put first. Although it did make me question what “bravery” is and if people who run into burning buildings are actually just a bit psychologically fucked up.
Yeah nothing in this article comes from bravery or lack there of. Though I agree with your take and questioning of bravery. Like in the world I used to live, guys were doing dirt and they had girls or wives with kids. The ladies would always say they would never tell but until they’re threatening to take their kids away, no one really knows how they’ll act.
Kids definitely tap into that survival instinct by extension. I’m not a remotely aggressive person but i am if my children is threatened. A guy yelled at my kid in the supermarket once (my the one year old kid had an earache and he was crying and the guy screamed for him to shut the fuck up) so I hit the guy hard with the a breadstick. Which sounds cartoonish but said guy tried to call the police on me 😂
I was actually reading about the calm parasympathetic response during a crisis you described here the other day because I had to write about it which usually means understanding the biological response for me and apparently it occurs in about 15 percent of people - and usually it signals early trauma responses where panicking was never an option.
This was an amazing read. Loved your take on this. Some think they'll become Jason Statham and whip everyone to the ground, others fear the fear they'll feel when in a fight, and others just don't know, because the 'world' of fights and so on is so far removed from their everyday life and their journey so far.
At the end of the day, it's so hard to predict how each person will react in a fight. I've seen some quiet ones, who might be described as shy or even weak by some people, completely seem to tune in and plant both feet firm on the ground. The outcome of the fight is not important.
It's very interesting to see these different sides of people, based on the context. So, in corporate, a shy person will at some point be described as weak. But in a fight, they may be more brutal that anyone will ever know. And the arrogant, toxic employees, when in a fight might be devoid of all it takes to stand there and deal with a situation.
Sorry, man, rambling on. But this topic has sparked something in me.
For me, it always felt like I was a magnet for fights. Like people would see something on/in me and decide I was fair play. I never had to go looking for one. They found me.
Yeah. That was an uneasy read. A good read, mind you, but it felt a little too familiar. I'm 66 now, and that shit never leaves. With me, it's a childhood survival instinct. Where I grew up, you had a 50-50 chance of either getting in a fight or avoiding one almost every other day. I was 23 by the time I got out of that place. You can hide it, but it never goes away. The really odd thing for me is that I am finding history repeating itself now I am getting older. Middle-aged blokes think they can start patronising me, etc. So it starts with "Who do you think you are to speak to me like that?" and goes South from there. I have now invented a little mantra to avoid it happening in future. Not now. Not this. Not this bloke. I'm currently stress testing it. Seems to be working.
Posh by then. When I was a kid it was rough. But by then it had ‘gentrified’ but not all of it for sure. My pal use dto work in Hackney and he says it was a rough as a badgers arse even up until a few years ago. But that is East. Totally different culture mate! 😎
It’s not weakness to walk away once you know what you’re about. I’m 43. And before prison, I was getting into fights left and right. Got out in 2015 and I’ve had 1 altercation. For me, that’s a fuckin miracle. I say fuck them, keep following your mantra.
Oh man. This really resonated, for a part of my childhood, I was in the Philippines & my dad was, let's say, part of the underworld? So there were a few cases of bad men trying to get to us. & then a few years ago, I was travelling alone in india & also got kidnapped. It's insane, in moments like that you're suddenly so aware of your body & how easy it actually is to be violated & taken out.
Very Raw and no holds barred honesty, You come off very familiar and thorough in your analyst.
I feel like you was talking to me on the trains of New York. Born and raised myself.
This is very good writing and doesn't feel contrived, which I see from so called good writers.
I love the part.... "Your body doesn’t philosophize. It doesn’t negotiate. It responds. How it responds, whether you go cold and clear or whether you freeze and dissociate. Or if your instinct is to protect someone else or pull back, whether the fear makes you sharper or collapses your thinking entirely, that’s data you can’t get any other way."
I'm a nerd when it comes to analyzing my surroundings and my encounters. This piece really resonated with me deeply. From being in my own situations and finding out who I really am when trouble chooses knocks at your door. Yes Fear showed up but bravery said "I got this" and I learned from jump that fear is an important component that allows you to respect the unexpected. The unravelling of self is essential to knowing thyself.
So many gems Bro.
Thank You for this, I was smiling while reading and that says a lot about your writing. Grateful for the connect Brother.
Bro I’m the same way!! Straight nerd when analyzing!! This was great, thank you so much for reading and dropping this comment! Today someone told me no one writes like me, yet I feel a strange similarity in the way we both formulate and structure certain paragraphs. Glad we crossed paths man. Wish I still in Queens.
I have been a bit behind with my reading and I have just come across your piece tonight. This was so intense and so beautifully written. I don't know what it's like to have grown up "in a place that has produced more than its share of legends and cautionary tales". Do you even know what you're made of if you have not been under a stress test? I don't think you do. Sorry about your dad. x
Thank you so much. Where I grew up produced the rappers Nas, as in Nasir Jones, Mobb Deep, Marley Marl, MC Shan, Tragedy Khadafi, as wel as Ron Artest, who is an NBA champion with the Lakers,
What an absolute banger!!! Coming from a place where you never knew if you’d get smacked from turning the wrong corner, I always find it hilarious when someone’s who’s never been in a fight says ‘I’d stay calm’. It’s crazy with just how much conviction they say it 🤣 I’d bet a good 10 dollars they’d run lmao.
I love that you highlighted that the fear of getting physically abused is a whole different animal. The survival mechanisms kick in on a whole different level. That adrenaline don’t come easy 💀
I remembered many situations in my life. I'm a soft person, but when a fighting situation arrives I fight. I don't like it, I don't like the person become. So I avoid fights as much as I can. I don't want to face the hidden part, whatever that may be.
I remember when a car was reversing without looking and almost hit my ex-wife, if not for her, I would've hit the guy with my helmet (motorcycle rider), or the time at school being kicked at my back, getting up and bring the other kid to the floor and then holding myself because a police car was nearby, winning or losing that fight would render a visit to the police dept I didn't want.
And many others, so now I just ignore potential fights, I've nothing to prove to myself or others and I accept the label of coward. It takes courage to hold it.
I really dig this one. I especially like the ending where you mention the fight in whatever form it takes on for you... The whole time I was reading your essay I was thinking about "the fight" FOR yourself WITH yourself and comparing it to what you were talking about with the street fights just bc I think they can both teach you things.
I've never been in an actual fight... (well, one time my mom and I got into a little spat and I ended up running away from her and locking myself in the bathroom. It's actually a hilarious memory now but at the time she scared me. No worries, I had it coming. HAHA.)
I honestly think I'm a weakling so I probably couldn't even throw a very hard punch...but then I wonder what it would look like if it was in the heat of the moment— kinda like the burn for you in how the dude spoke ill of your recently deceased father. There's just some things that can make you do things. I think if it came down to my kids... I'd not hesitate. But then again, who knows. I just know the anger I feel when someone tries to cross them.
Yeah in the end it’s whatever works for you that tests the same data. I’ve met a few girls that had never been in a fight have some shit go down and they come out swinging. You never know until you know
You want to find your equivalent? Try being run through the ringer of an eviction Court where your entire dignity, your home, your stability it's stripped away from you by A system that only cares about the back room handshake between a landowner and the court system for the purposes of extraction. You will learn more about yourself and what you're capable of withstanding and tolerating going through that process than anybody landing a punch on your face.
This is fucked up, absolutely. The main difference though is bodily damage, so I disagree, this is coming from a person that was looking at two life sentences which I’m sure is worse than an eviction. You won’t die from the eviction process, you can die in a fight.
I understand completely what you're saying. And I'm not going to disagree with you. But what do you have to consider is that what you're talking about is physical death, and what I'm talking about is existential death. And to be honest with you, both? I guess I would say both are legitimate right? I understand the intention of your piece was mainly centered around the physical fight. And so I'll give you that.
I agree from the first comment that both are legitimate and both are terrible. No doubt about it. I was just saying that it’s two different types of fears and to me personally, one outweighs the other. Not to take anything away from your situation, because it’s fucked up.
"I know things about myself now that took getting hit to learn."
The first time I folded under the stress test, I hated myself for being weak. I continuously seek out slightly higher pressure situations so that I can get better at navigating through the stress test
Hating yourself for thinking that you’re weak due to the initial load bearing incident is not a good. Continuously seeking out higher pressure situations is comparable to an adrenaline seeker. That can be good or bad since it can lead to possibly serious side effects
"People who’ve been tested carry a different kind of quiet. They don’t need to convince anyone of anything because they’re not trying to convince themselves. The ones who perform the most, who are loudest about what they’d do, most invested in their own mythology, those are almost always people who’ve never had their story checked."
People who have been tested learned not to tell stories and make assumptions about themselves because they know that the Universe will gleefully prove them wrong
"A lot of people will say: okay, but you can learn about yourself in other ways. Under career pressure. Under relationship pressure. Under financial stress."
Can relate to this. I'm no street fighter, but I do have the kind of day job, where often you find yourself in unsafe situations, scenarios where someone is threatening to cause real physical harm, and over the years I have have been physically hurt, and that shit has definitely made me grow in a way that a regular 9-5 would never have done, situations like that really show what you what youre made of, what youre really made of.
I was in a hostage situation. I opted to stay and distract the guy by talking to him for almost two hours so everyone else could stay safe until the police got there. But I spent the next two years on cycles of benzos and zoplicone because I couldn’t sleep anymore. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. Good under pressure, big come down after pressure.
Damn. Sorry you had to go through that. Also, Much respect. I don’t know many people who would opt for that. Do you feel that you truly got to know yourself better after that situation?
I think I actually realised I had a life threatening sense of duty to others above all pummelled into me as a child and that it was less a reflection of bravery and more a reflection of it not even occurring to me that my life mattered enough to put first. Although it did make me question what “bravery” is and if people who run into burning buildings are actually just a bit psychologically fucked up.
Yeah nothing in this article comes from bravery or lack there of. Though I agree with your take and questioning of bravery. Like in the world I used to live, guys were doing dirt and they had girls or wives with kids. The ladies would always say they would never tell but until they’re threatening to take their kids away, no one really knows how they’ll act.
Kids definitely tap into that survival instinct by extension. I’m not a remotely aggressive person but i am if my children is threatened. A guy yelled at my kid in the supermarket once (my the one year old kid had an earache and he was crying and the guy screamed for him to shut the fuck up) so I hit the guy hard with the a breadstick. Which sounds cartoonish but said guy tried to call the police on me 😂
I was actually reading about the calm parasympathetic response during a crisis you described here the other day because I had to write about it which usually means understanding the biological response for me and apparently it occurs in about 15 percent of people - and usually it signals early trauma responses where panicking was never an option.
This was an amazing read. Loved your take on this. Some think they'll become Jason Statham and whip everyone to the ground, others fear the fear they'll feel when in a fight, and others just don't know, because the 'world' of fights and so on is so far removed from their everyday life and their journey so far.
At the end of the day, it's so hard to predict how each person will react in a fight. I've seen some quiet ones, who might be described as shy or even weak by some people, completely seem to tune in and plant both feet firm on the ground. The outcome of the fight is not important.
It's very interesting to see these different sides of people, based on the context. So, in corporate, a shy person will at some point be described as weak. But in a fight, they may be more brutal that anyone will ever know. And the arrogant, toxic employees, when in a fight might be devoid of all it takes to stand there and deal with a situation.
Sorry, man, rambling on. But this topic has sparked something in me.
For me, it always felt like I was a magnet for fights. Like people would see something on/in me and decide I was fair play. I never had to go looking for one. They found me.
Thanks for the mention, also. Appreciate it.
Ramble away my friend. This article exists literally because of you. I’m glad you enjoyed it brother.
Dude, I loved it.
Yeah. That was an uneasy read. A good read, mind you, but it felt a little too familiar. I'm 66 now, and that shit never leaves. With me, it's a childhood survival instinct. Where I grew up, you had a 50-50 chance of either getting in a fight or avoiding one almost every other day. I was 23 by the time I got out of that place. You can hide it, but it never goes away. The really odd thing for me is that I am finding history repeating itself now I am getting older. Middle-aged blokes think they can start patronising me, etc. So it starts with "Who do you think you are to speak to me like that?" and goes South from there. I have now invented a little mantra to avoid it happening in future. Not now. Not this. Not this bloke. I'm currently stress testing it. Seems to be working.
I lived in Hackney for about 16 months back in I think 04 maybe
Posh by then. When I was a kid it was rough. But by then it had ‘gentrified’ but not all of it for sure. My pal use dto work in Hackney and he says it was a rough as a badgers arse even up until a few years ago. But that is East. Totally different culture mate! 😎
Hackney was very similar, in a sense, to where I grew up at in NYC. A place called Queensbridge house.
Can I ask where you grew up at?
West London. A very rough part of an otherwise fashionable neighbourhood.
It’s not weakness to walk away once you know what you’re about. I’m 43. And before prison, I was getting into fights left and right. Got out in 2015 and I’ve had 1 altercation. For me, that’s a fuckin miracle. I say fuck them, keep following your mantra.
Oh man. This really resonated, for a part of my childhood, I was in the Philippines & my dad was, let's say, part of the underworld? So there were a few cases of bad men trying to get to us. & then a few years ago, I was travelling alone in india & also got kidnapped. It's insane, in moments like that you're suddenly so aware of your body & how easy it actually is to be violated & taken out.
Damn Thts wild. Thank God you’re ok
yeah, it's kind of insane but alas, everything is settled now --- & thank god indeed
Very Raw and no holds barred honesty, You come off very familiar and thorough in your analyst.
I feel like you was talking to me on the trains of New York. Born and raised myself.
This is very good writing and doesn't feel contrived, which I see from so called good writers.
I love the part.... "Your body doesn’t philosophize. It doesn’t negotiate. It responds. How it responds, whether you go cold and clear or whether you freeze and dissociate. Or if your instinct is to protect someone else or pull back, whether the fear makes you sharper or collapses your thinking entirely, that’s data you can’t get any other way."
I'm a nerd when it comes to analyzing my surroundings and my encounters. This piece really resonated with me deeply. From being in my own situations and finding out who I really am when trouble chooses knocks at your door. Yes Fear showed up but bravery said "I got this" and I learned from jump that fear is an important component that allows you to respect the unexpected. The unravelling of self is essential to knowing thyself.
So many gems Bro.
Thank You for this, I was smiling while reading and that says a lot about your writing. Grateful for the connect Brother.
Bro I’m the same way!! Straight nerd when analyzing!! This was great, thank you so much for reading and dropping this comment! Today someone told me no one writes like me, yet I feel a strange similarity in the way we both formulate and structure certain paragraphs. Glad we crossed paths man. Wish I still in Queens.
You read my mind, I agree theres a certain flow and fluidity. A stream of concisenesses to it. Similar to the way I let my words out.
My sentiments exactly Brother. Elhamdillah
I have been a bit behind with my reading and I have just come across your piece tonight. This was so intense and so beautifully written. I don't know what it's like to have grown up "in a place that has produced more than its share of legends and cautionary tales". Do you even know what you're made of if you have not been under a stress test? I don't think you do. Sorry about your dad. x
Thank you so much. Where I grew up produced the rappers Nas, as in Nasir Jones, Mobb Deep, Marley Marl, MC Shan, Tragedy Khadafi, as wel as Ron Artest, who is an NBA champion with the Lakers,
What an absolute banger!!! Coming from a place where you never knew if you’d get smacked from turning the wrong corner, I always find it hilarious when someone’s who’s never been in a fight says ‘I’d stay calm’. It’s crazy with just how much conviction they say it 🤣 I’d bet a good 10 dollars they’d run lmao.
I love that you highlighted that the fear of getting physically abused is a whole different animal. The survival mechanisms kick in on a whole different level. That adrenaline don’t come easy 💀
Makes me miss Hackney
LMAO. Nowadays it's full of pussies with knives.
Daaaamn. I was living out there in like 02-04
back when UK was a mentally stable country lmao.
To be fair, Hackney has never known stable bro lol
Blows my mind, sure you’d stay calm, by calm they mean trembling and unable to move
I remembered many situations in my life. I'm a soft person, but when a fighting situation arrives I fight. I don't like it, I don't like the person become. So I avoid fights as much as I can. I don't want to face the hidden part, whatever that may be.
I remember when a car was reversing without looking and almost hit my ex-wife, if not for her, I would've hit the guy with my helmet (motorcycle rider), or the time at school being kicked at my back, getting up and bring the other kid to the floor and then holding myself because a police car was nearby, winning or losing that fight would render a visit to the police dept I didn't want.
And many others, so now I just ignore potential fights, I've nothing to prove to myself or others and I accept the label of coward. It takes courage to hold it.
I feel this for real because I don’t like who I become either, I’m capable of hitting a friend if he gets too close.
I really dig this one. I especially like the ending where you mention the fight in whatever form it takes on for you... The whole time I was reading your essay I was thinking about "the fight" FOR yourself WITH yourself and comparing it to what you were talking about with the street fights just bc I think they can both teach you things.
I've never been in an actual fight... (well, one time my mom and I got into a little spat and I ended up running away from her and locking myself in the bathroom. It's actually a hilarious memory now but at the time she scared me. No worries, I had it coming. HAHA.)
I honestly think I'm a weakling so I probably couldn't even throw a very hard punch...but then I wonder what it would look like if it was in the heat of the moment— kinda like the burn for you in how the dude spoke ill of your recently deceased father. There's just some things that can make you do things. I think if it came down to my kids... I'd not hesitate. But then again, who knows. I just know the anger I feel when someone tries to cross them.
Yeah in the end it’s whatever works for you that tests the same data. I’ve met a few girls that had never been in a fight have some shit go down and they come out swinging. You never know until you know
I may be tiny but I am mighty… or something like that. 😉😂
Lol that’s right
You want to find your equivalent? Try being run through the ringer of an eviction Court where your entire dignity, your home, your stability it's stripped away from you by A system that only cares about the back room handshake between a landowner and the court system for the purposes of extraction. You will learn more about yourself and what you're capable of withstanding and tolerating going through that process than anybody landing a punch on your face.
This is fucked up, absolutely. The main difference though is bodily damage, so I disagree, this is coming from a person that was looking at two life sentences which I’m sure is worse than an eviction. You won’t die from the eviction process, you can die in a fight.
I understand completely what you're saying. And I'm not going to disagree with you. But what do you have to consider is that what you're talking about is physical death, and what I'm talking about is existential death. And to be honest with you, both? I guess I would say both are legitimate right? I understand the intention of your piece was mainly centered around the physical fight. And so I'll give you that.
I agree from the first comment that both are legitimate and both are terrible. No doubt about it. I was just saying that it’s two different types of fears and to me personally, one outweighs the other. Not to take anything away from your situation, because it’s fucked up.
"I know things about myself now that took getting hit to learn."
The first time I folded under the stress test, I hated myself for being weak. I continuously seek out slightly higher pressure situations so that I can get better at navigating through the stress test
Hating yourself for thinking that you’re weak due to the initial load bearing incident is not a good. Continuously seeking out higher pressure situations is comparable to an adrenaline seeker. That can be good or bad since it can lead to possibly serious side effects
Like death lol
This is a good and bad but I completely understand. Sometimes we hold ourselves to near impossible standards, which I also understand
Please share more about the bad. You got me curious
"People who’ve been tested carry a different kind of quiet. They don’t need to convince anyone of anything because they’re not trying to convince themselves. The ones who perform the most, who are loudest about what they’d do, most invested in their own mythology, those are almost always people who’ve never had their story checked."
People who have been tested learned not to tell stories and make assumptions about themselves because they know that the Universe will gleefully prove them wrong
Usually, the people I’ve met that have grand stories about crazy shit tend to not live up to those stories when shit hits the fan.
"A lot of people will say: okay, but you can learn about yourself in other ways. Under career pressure. Under relationship pressure. Under financial stress."
That itself is another fight.
I used to train full contact martial arts which means I pretty much fought every other day. It was fun. Nowadays I just carry.
Yeah I’m too old to fist fight
Can relate to this. I'm no street fighter, but I do have the kind of day job, where often you find yourself in unsafe situations, scenarios where someone is threatening to cause real physical harm, and over the years I have have been physically hurt, and that shit has definitely made me grow in a way that a regular 9-5 would never have done, situations like that really show what you what youre made of, what youre really made of.
Yeah it doesn’t have to be a fight, but something that genuinely presents actual fear that you can’t just walk away from.