!["THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE" by Zo[1]It’s the shade of red that infiltrates the nape of your neck, crawls along the curve...](https://img4.medioq.com/426/501/685566534265014.jpg)
15/06/2025
"THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE" by Zo
[1]
It’s the shade of red that infiltrates the nape of your neck, crawls along the curve of your spine and saturates every inch beneath your skin with an irresistible, phantasmic itch. But the more closely I scrutinize it, the clearer it becomes to me that it’s not merely a single, static, uniform shade of red; instead, it’s a cacophony of shifting hues of red and gold, blaring like a warning, cautioning me not to come any closer.
In just a minute or two, the red-gold mosaic darkens before my eyes. Thousands of its tiny fragments, each with their jointed little legs and antennae, scramble over one another, to nibble at the tender, bare skin of the hatchling on the ground. As it gets slowly eaten alive by the ant colony, the blind, featherless newborn writhes in silent agony. Lit aglow by the scarlet light from the flames of the Delonix regia, it appears as though the poor baby was being burned alive—an infernal torture depicted in Buddhist tales.
Why did that baby bird have to suffer such a violent fate? Why did the ants inflict such violence upon something so innocent? That afternoon, under the fiery blooms of the royal poinciana lining the pavement where I spent my lunch breaks playing, I found myself frozen, struggling to make sense of the most violent scene I had ever witnessed in my nine years of life. Now, as an adult, over a decade later, I am once again forced to ponder essentially the same questions. However, this time, the fluff is gone, revealing only the bones of the questions. Is violence necessary?
Read the rest of the essay in the following link:
https://hhpresscom.wordpress.com/2025/05/27/necessary-violence/
