So, recalling my analogy between a homeowner and a restless dog, I decided to examine the cause of his aggression
It is a mistake to assume that aggression is always a manifestation of inner cruelty. Such a judgment stems from the desire to reduce the most complex psychological mechanisms to a primitive dichotomy of good and evil, as if human behavior allowed for such a crude simplification. In reality, aggression is often not a desire to cause suffering to another, but a desperate attempt to prevent one’s own.That is precisely why the homeowner gives the impression of being a restless dog.Not the one that derives pleasure from biting, but the one whose nervous system has been forced to exist in a state of constant threat for so long that the very concept of safety has ceased to be a psychological reality for her. In ethology, there is a concept of animals whose reactivity is irreversibly altered as a result of chronic stress: they do not become more aggressive by nature—they become incapable of interpreting uncertainty as something neutral. Any uncertainty begins to be perceived as a potential danger.Its consciousness no longer belongs to the present moment. It is constantly projected into the future, calculating the probability of a threat before the threat itself has a chance to materialize. Such an existence resembles not life, but an endless wait for a blow that may never come; yet the psyche no longer has the luxury of verifying this probability empirically. The cost of trust is simply too high.Therefore, the homeowner does not so much choose suspicion as find himself a prisoner of it.Like a restless dog, he first growls and only then tries to figure out whether he is truly facing an enemy. The growl becomes a language of preemptive defense—the last line of defense between vulnerability and annihilation. And if those around him hear hatred in that sound, it is only because they have never heard fear pushed to its logical extreme.There is a philosophical idea according to which every being strives not for happiness, but first and foremost for the preservation of its own existence. Only by securing the possibility of its own existence is it capable of contemplating mercy, love, or trust. Deprived of this fundamental certainty, a person inevitably begins to perceive the world through the prism of ontological anxiety—not as a space of possibilities, but as a space of potential annihilation.That is precisely why a homeowner’s aggression is almost never offensive.It is not expansive, but rather defensive.It does not encroach on others’ boundaries—it painstakingly protects its own.This is the fundamental difference between violence as a means of self-assertion and aggression as the ultimate form of self-preservation. The former stems from the desire for power. The latter—from the inability to endure pain again.A person whom life has convinced, over a long enough period, that any expression of trust can end in tragedy ceases to perceive closeness as a blessing. Intimacy becomes a risk. And the more significant the other person is, the more agonizing the prospect of losing them becomes. Therefore, they would rather appear rude, cold, and unbearable—just to prevent anyone from getting close enough for yet another loss to shatter what remains of their inner world.This is the paradox of trauma: it does not destroy the ability to love—it transforms love into a source of existential terror. Not because it becomes impossible to love, but because every attachment begins to harbor a premonition of one’s own demise
titsay
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
gummygunk
izzy806
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
