tags: #technologicallove/connections #safety related notes: (this is a response to a brief) "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin “Safety is the most basic task of all. Without sense of safety, no growth can take place. Without safety, all energy goes to defense.” - Torey Hayden, SPED teacher, author, and university lecturer Attachment and safety are closely related. Ben Franklin seems to be referring to safety as attachment to the small self and the practice of valuing oneself over the other. Torey Hayden seems to be referring to one's belief about their safety. If you believe you are unsafe, you will defend. Perhaps against real threats. Perhaps only against the ghosts of your mind. There are your beliefs about safety and there is your true safety. When they misalign, you have misunderstanding and the disease it breeds. if you believe you are in more danger than you are, you will be too cautious if you believe you are in less danger than you are, you will get hurt the way to balanced safety is illuminated by accurate understanding Safety is also about attachment to a particular form of the world Fluidity is the way of the world; any attachment to one form over another is bound to end in pain. Attachment is the clinging to a belief about how the world should be. And in the tension of this grasp, we lose sight of how the world is. This creates a gap between what we think is best for us and what actually is. This gap in understanding causes us to take actions that hurt ourselves. The way forward comes from understanding the deeper nature of the self as the whole. The human is not special or superior. A human is simply a part of the world with concentrated power and understanding. Most humans are sick in that their understanding is distorted by attachment to the belief of the superiority of their forms. If we take the holistic perspective, true safety is no longer defined against your current form or identity or ego, but as the safety of whole system. Then the only true way to conceive of safety becomes as health. *safety is health. true safety is the health of the world* But health is not the only thing to value in a world. It is also magic and beauty. This is the reason why we wish to create and to move forward. Because we appreciate magic. And humans are magic too. But let us also learn to understand and appreciate the magic of our world as it is. This understanding will allow us to experience the magic as well as to make more in a healthy way.