I counted quickly and we were all there, the four of us. Bruises, bumps, cuts on lips and eyebrows but also bloody knuckles showing us that our punishment in an uneven fight of four against many wasn’t free for them. Suddenly between heavy breathings I realize something: everyone was smiling, the pain would appear the next day but in that precise moment the euphoria of the fight was still in the air… fading away… a small moment of pleasure.
It’s deep inside our DNA, our bodies are programmed to give us pleasure with some actions. Sex gives us pleasure; it’s our body encouraging the reproduction of our species. We find proteic food extremely tasty, our body is rewarding us for finding something that would give us, mere homo sapiens, some extra days of energy in an hostile world. Fighting is not far from that basic human program. In that tiny instant before the fight, the body prepares itself for the battle to come, we are animals again, those animals that unconsciously we miss so hard to be … Our adrenal glands start producing adrenaline… We get goose bumps in an attempt to appear larger… Hands turn into fists… Our brain decreases reasoning power to act faster, time expands, the first hit travels trough the air… The fight happens… The fight ends… Someone loses… Someone wins… But the euphoria comes despite the result. That feeling so close to pleasure is rewarding us for something.
Luckily we aren’t just animals anymore, we discovered the warmth of fire, the deadliness of weapons and the maps hidden in the stars to conquer the whole world. We learned to farm and to write, we created history, societies, empires and religions… Some people may say we evolved … We changed our primal orders for other kind of orders, orders from kings, gods and laws written by other men. But in these last years we are starting to listen to our senses, instincts and pleasures again. This new movement includes nourishment, sex and decision-making among many other actions in life… But we won’t find fighting in that list. That’s a mistake, if we don’t hear our inner animal as a whole we are not hearing it at all. We would be healthier societies if we fought more…
Drops of blood dye the dust in the Bolivian altiplano, a body falls to the ground… The victor helps the defeated to stand on his feet again, then the two fighters fuse in a hug, the sacrifice is done. Pachamama, the mother earth, accepts the offering on the ritual of Tinku…. Far away snow, mud or sand are dyed again and again… Sumo, waylia takanakuy, chiraje… The ancient cultures knew it… To shed a little blood prevents us from bloodbaths…maybe…just maybe our body is rewarding that.
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