“Everything will be fine”
A phrase that, six years ago around this time, began appearing on balconies and being reposted with hashtags across every social network.

A need for reassurance that we carry with us since childhood. The need to feel the strong embrace of a father and the gentle caress of a mother telling us: “everything will be fine”.

Six years later, here we are. The pandemic is behind us, yet we are witnessing a war in the heart of Europe. We are witnesses to atrocious horrors in a land whose past and future may be holy, but whose present is not. And we are spectators of yet another powder keg exploding in the Middle East, the latest in a list of war zones that, even if less emphasized, have existed and continued for years.

We do not presume to speak on behalf of others, but the impression is that something has gone wrong. After all, were we truly sincere when we said “everything will be fine”?

Or was it somehow nothing more than a totem?
An amulet.
An anchor to cling to, while waiting for the storm to pass, hoping it wouldn’t change us?

There is a monologue in John Rambo (2008) in which the protagonist, while preparing for a mission and tormented inside, says to himself:

You know what you are… what you’re made of. War is in your blood. Don’t fight it. You didn’t kill for your country. You killed for yourself. God’s never gonna make that go away. When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing.

Pressure reveals who we are. Anyone who has experienced standing in the eye of that small martial cyclone that is a randori -a free, chaotic attack- or a jiyu waza with multiple attackers knows it very well.

There -and only there- we see particular situations emerge, even more striking when a child experiences them. A child does not know advanced techniques, and even less the technical program for a black belt, yet when left free to act under the pressure of attacks, they execute them. Spontaneously. Powerfully.

In the same way, people who are technically competent in normal practice, freeze or go into emotional shutdown. It happens especially with adults.

We believe that practicing a martial discipline can help us truly say that “everything will be fine.”

But not because problems will magically cease to exist. Nor because, with some supreme technique, we will be able to win every challenge.

Rather, because challenges can become a tool for exploring the unknown -and for realizing how much we fill our explorer’s backpack… with heavy and useless things.

Resisting is not wrong in itself, and “resistance” can even be noble if it expresses a broader vision. But if resisting simply means refusing to change, gritting one’s teeth and waiting for everything to pass… then one wears out. One risks ending up dead inside, trapped with no way out in John Rambo’s dead end, with no alternative to the dilemma: “either me or you.”

It is no coincidence that the attempt to find, on a human level, a third way was made by Morihei Ueshiba, who himself was also a veteran. A veteran of wars, and in his own way a survivor -like every Japanese person- of the nuclear holocaust.

We have been fortunate enough to meet veterans, both inside and outside our family circle. There is something deeply painful in those gazes, but also a sign of an immense capacity to love. A trust, despite everything and everyone, that men and women can find a way to set aside their particular visions and build concord, meaning, perspective.

Peace.

Disclaimer: Picture by Alexander Grey from Pexels