"Well, I'm not a violent person. You have to back off. People sometimes will try you and try you until you try not to, but you have to react. Normally, I just walk away"

A calm refusal to be defined by aggression runs through these words. The speaker draws a firm line between capacity and choice: strength is present, yet violence is not the default. The first sentence establishes identity, nonviolent by disposition, while the next insists on boundaries: “You have to back off.” That imperative isn’t bravado; it is boundary-setting, a reminder that respect is not optional. The recognition that “people sometimes will try you” captures the social dynamic of provocation, where others test limits to coax a reaction. The repetition, “try you and try you”, evokes pressure building in waves, a cumulative strain that makes restraint harder with each attempt.

There’s tension between patience and self-preservation. The aim is to avoid escalation, “you try not to”, yet there’s acknowledgment that situations can demand a response: “you have to react.” That reaction is framed not as vengeance but as necessary defense, a last resort when appeals to space and respect fail. The final line resolves the tension with a preferred strategy: disengagement. “Normally, I just walk away” carries no defeat; it is a posture of control. Walking away is depicted as the strongest form of reaction because it denies provocateurs the reward of spectacle and maintains ownership of one’s conduct.

Read this way, the passage becomes a small manual for dignity under pressure: set clear limits, de-escalate, reserve force for genuine necessity, and favor exit over escalation. It also nods to the burdens placed on visible or physically imposing figures, who may be goaded precisely because of their size or status, and thus must perform self-control more vigilantly than others. The moral center is steady: peace as a deliberate practice, boundaries as nonnegotiable, and reaction as measured, not impulsive. Courage appears not in the swing, but in the step away.