N25: from Violence to Non-Violence
By: Tim Gallo
Tags: Artist, Self-awareness, Personal Growth, Self Healing, Nonviolence

N25: from Violence to Non-Violence

baby steps…

© Tim Gallo. It’s a wet, dark, and long tunnel into darkness.,,

I wonder if there is no way of cutting through a circle of violence…

my grandmother used to beat me and close me in a dark cupboard. (though it was in my memory vault till like early 30-s when I finally made myself face my past and made myself remember it).

In kindergarten, teachers used to beat me cause I was different; post-soviet education was a mess at those times. My mixed blood look added to confusion.

All this made me a violent kid, I beat the shit out of my kindergarten and school classmates up until 12–13 y.o. Never felt good about it and hated me for the inability to communicate with people my inner struggle with violence and loneliness.

Parents tired of being called into school. My parents were always great, though, never took any freedom from me.

My father miraculously pulled me from an evil company. Moved me to a different school.

There was a moment when my violence made me lose half of my front tooth. Lying under the light waiting for the dentist to appear, I remember that I was fed up with myself so much that when the doctor finally arrived, to his surprise I asked him to not repair my tooth. I wanted a reminder that this is what it leads to — eventual self-destruction.

At 14, I made a conscious choice to become vegetarian and choose the least violent religion — Hinduism. The Advaita-Vedanta is accepting all there is…it helped me and continues to help me a lot.

I spend a lot of my youth just studying the nonviolent way of life. Becoming vegetarian calmed my heart, made me just a little bit more compassionate.

The next years were very “normal” for me. I prayed. Meditated a lot, otherwise lived an adventurous life. Moved to Japan. Build a career in photography in Tokyo. Then I became a father… that’s when I realized that I never entirely left the circle of violence. The seeds of old were so much deeper and so much stubborn than I imagined.

I unconsciously started to behave towards my son the same way my grandmother used to act towards me. A realization struck me when I told my 3 y.o. boy that I would close him in a room if he didn’t behave himself. I was repeating words of my grandmother…

Its funny how other people voices live inside us, affect us through life. What seemed insignificant when you are grown-up — for a small sensitive child is bigger than the world…

my own anger spiraled me into depression. I became a kid again — angry at the whole world and everything around me.

All those years of meditation and prayer, reading of spiritual books — all crumble in front of a scared, lonely kid that carnivorously inflates inside me. But I cant ignore him anymore. I am looking for ways to embrace him. Embrace my kid for the way he is. Words and creativite should help… if only words and creation worked on sheer will.

I am re-learning to control myself and start with accepting that I have an anger management problem. I le-learn to pray and meditate with heavy and disturbed heart — this is how real spiritual work is done.

Feeling all this struggle inside me made me more sensitive to the violent world we live in. I feel disappointed in the world. I don’t feel patience dealing with the ignorance of others. It's a wet, dark, and long tunnel into darkness.

When one feels disappointed in the world, one loses the ability to enjoy a creative life.

So here I am. Standing in darkness. Going nowhere, facing myself through words and honesty. Not feeling anything creative coming… even writing this is a struggle. But baby steps…