The other day, I realised that I could lose myself for hours in r/AskReddit, reading people’s stories on various things. It’s actually a pretty great place to go for writing prompts, I’d wager. But it’s also great for some perspective, at times. The other day on the website, for example, somebody asked users over fifty what the greatest decade of their life had been so far.
Hardly any of them said it was their twenties.
I mean, obviously I know that life goes on after university, but the wall of uncertainty is, at least for me, so large that it’s hard to see into the future. Job interviewers will often ask you where you see yourself in ten years, to which I’m sure many people’s honest answer would be “You think I’d be here if I knew?” Depending, of course, on whether it was their dream job or not.
The thing is that many young people, like me, don’t typically dedicate much thought to old age. And I suppose that by the time I’m in my twilight years, I’ll have either forgotten all about this blog or have no means of access to it; if I do, I may have great intrigue on discovering what twenty year old me thought of the world with such great naivete. I’d be tempted to put a silly message to my future self here, but that kind of stuff usually never ends up being read, anyway.
I find that Reddit thread greatly inspiring. It’s reminded me that even if I screw up now, I have an entire lifetime to put things right, no matter how wrong, and to readjust. I also find it somewhat worrying, however, to find the odd comment saying “Life has been a downhill spiral since my twenties”. Obviously, life is a different experience for everyone, but I’d desperately like not to be that person. So I guess that I’d better make that the challenge of the present before it becomes a lament of the past.
Oh, and sorry for the blog title. I couldn’t resist.
This evening I was going to write a very long, heartfelt blog post about peace, but in my current state of mind there is nothing I can write which will be any different, or any better worded than the following clip of Doctor Who, of all things. Therefore, tonight’s post will be about how the most unexpected of fiction can change your philosophy on life. For now, though, here is the clip; and I must say, spoilers for The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion, two recent season 9 episodes.
When this scene aired on TV I had to stop my jaw from dropping, for it took my pacifism and worded it so brilliantly and so perfectly, it was as if some ridiculously more skilled version of myself wrote them out and acted them. Unfortunately, the clip shown here leaves out the minute before the main speech takes off, where he talks about cruelty begetting cruelty, but the main course of the meal is there. And, of course, I didn’t come around to this way of thinking of my own accord. I got it from another unexpected fiction.
Naruto.
Yes, Naruto, that anime that you probably saw on Toonami with the twelve year old ninja kids running around throwing knives at each other. And, in my defense, I watched the original Japanese version in English subtitles, which allowed me to take it far more seriously; nor did I feel much of a connection to the series until the time skip which aged all the characters up to around sixteen. But that’s besides the point.
Naruto is an anime (originally a manga) which starts out with a seemingly goofy orphaned protagonist who wants to be the Hokage (…basically, King of his village, one of the five leaders of the ninja world) to earn the respect of everyone, who abhors him for being the host of a demon fox which destroyed the village years previously. He acts up in class, he’s dumb, all that fun stuff. But as the anime goes on, the themes of war become more and more prevalent, and Naruto’s character growth is marked by his understanding of war and his determination to stop the pain.
Speaking of which, if you don’t mind spoilers, look up the “Naruto vs Pain fight” online. I don’t know how much this would speak to you without the context of the previous 400 episodes, but the climax of the fight is what first opened my eyes to this view in the world. The rest of the anime complemented this theme and I soon found myself with a passion for the subject matter, as despite it being an anime about kid ninjas, it so worryingly mirrors our own world with its injustices and its ignorant cruelty.
(Here’s some more information for if you want to view it: if, as I’d recommend, you’d rather watch an official source of the full episodes of the fight, it begins with episode 163 – free to watch. Where it ends is more problematic; the official ending is on episode 175, although this includes a few analeptic episodes that reveal the antagonist’s past. Ignore episodes 170 and 171, they’re irrelevant filler episodes. That leaves over three hours of footage, so er, grab some popcorn if you’re truly committed to seeing my point through.)
What really resonated with me was the struggle to overcome one’s often impassable, visceral emotions when faced with such overwhelming cruelty and grief. If somebody killed your friend, your emotions would likely insist that you take their life to right this impossible wrong, furthering the cycle of hatred, possibly to no fault of your own. And it’s what the global powers do, only their snake-like tongues wrap everyone else around to their way of thinking, or at least subdue them to the point of not fighting them.
If you are going to watch that Naruto story arc, though, please take note that I haven’t seen it since I was sixteen; if there are any glaring flaws in there, I probably blindly followed them back then. I was in my “I can save the world!” phase. Boy, that was a comedown.
What I’m trying to get at here – albeit in a messily structured, writing this at sleep’s horizon way – is that fiction has the power to sway perception, and that is not a power to be taken lightly. Whether in novels, television or anime; no matter how unlikely the source, if it has a message that demands to be taken seriously, it should be. And as writers, it is imperative that we do not use this to spread darkness in the world, for I think we can all agree that there is already enough of that.
In the past few thousand years, humanity has evolved through civilisations to understand evil and the necessity of love and care. We live in a society where the greatest evils are typically perceived to be the corrupt politicians and prejudiced groups of people. Where barbarism exists at the edges of our vision, not seen as unimportant but as very far away. It comes as a shock, then, when that evil manifests itself within our culture and kills over a hundred innocent people. It sickens us to our stomachs, reminds us of our mortality and fuels our fires against the perpetrators. And more often that not, it throws a thick blanket of darkness over our perception of reality.
This is precisely what they want. Terrorists, under the guise of religious intent, enter our civilisations and bring with them the barbarism which exists within their mind for whatever purpose. They kill, and destroy, and act self-righteous when claiming responsibility. But their real goal is not to kill a few people and try and get into the news; it is not to spread the word of their perverted cause. It is to get us to see ourselves as vulnerable, and to stop us from living our lives. It is to make us hate as they hate, so that we may rip ourselves to shreds from the inside out. It is to inspire prejudice against the religion they claim to fight for, which they contradict so heavily in their actions.
If you share these prejudices in an effort to attack them, you may as well be their foot soldier. You’re the ammunition in their weapon; you’re attacking the scapegoat they so carefully place for the ignorant. If you spread word of the negativity of those without hearts, you’re spreading the horrors that they revel in. You’re proving them right. And I would even advise to keep reactionary interaction on social media to a low. With every breath that you take to insult them, you are inflating their lungs. Support the victims; support the nation. That, I can say, we have risen to as a race, and for that I am proud.
I am a pacifist. I believe that war simply spreads hatred and death, no matter whose side you’re on. But there’s always the problematic issue of the need for defense. That it is right to go after those who attacked, I have no doubt. But the manner in which it is done – the collateral damage, the reckless waste of life in the name of revenge – this is where I become doubtful. I believe that, if possible, these agents of evil should be captured. I would love to be able to talk to one of these people at length to find out exactly what drives them. It’s possible that they really do have conviction in their warped, extremist beliefs. It could be that they’ve been brainwashed since childhood and know nothing better of the world. Do not underestimate how one’s mind can be bent if they are started young, for what you see as you grow is taken for granted as how the world works; it is your first experience of the world, what evidence is there for it to be wrong? Especially when your perception of right and wrong has already been decided. I yearn to hear of their perspective, why they think this is right, and to see if we could convince them otherwise. Do psychiatric assessments, prevent this from happening in the future. Imprison them for life, strive to understand the logic behind the evil.
But we’ll just blow them to bits, high five each other, and wait patiently for the next breed of hatred to infest the world… whether it comes as a new group of people, or those who took out the previous threat.
I believe it is also incredibly important to counteract this monstrosity by emphasizing how much good there is in the world. Whilst the terrorists were firing their guns, many more better people were donating to Children In Need this year in order to reach a grand donation of £37,100,687. And, related directly to the events in Paris last night, uncountable numbers have flocked to social media to express their support with hashtags such as #PrayForParis and #MuslimsAreNotTerrorists. Many world powers and leaders have expressed their support. Humanity as a whole is more than its demons.
To lose a loved one is a pain of unimaginable magnitude; to lose them to an act of senseless violence, I cannot even imagine. There is no combination of words which fit together adequately enough to ease the pain from what has happened, but my – and the world’s – thoughts are with Paris.
This doesn’t mean I’m “sitting on the fence” or that I’m afraid to make a decision. It means that I have no faith that I truly believe in, but I’m open minded to the idea of a higher power. I am not using this as some half-baked justification for the meaning of life. I personally believe that the universe’s existence could very well have been designed with purpose, and that the universe itself could be that perceived higher consciousness (for is that not what omnipotence is?). If there was such a higher being, I’m not sure it’d exist in any form we could fathom.
I’m certainly not saying that you have to be at least agnostic to respect other people’s faiths. Some people – and I won’t say atheists, for that in itself is a label of sorts – some people are just rude. Some people take personal offense to religion, as if those who have faiths are telling them that their children died for a reason and that they shouldn’t be sad. And that, I suppose I can understand, even if I don’t agree with it; grief can become this complex monstrosity that warps the world around you. In that hell of a state of mind, some things just twist you the wrong way.
What I cannot stand is when people look at those who follow a religion and look down on them as a lesser person. Those who look at someone with complete conviction and tell them they’re fools, they’re just desperate beings attempting to rationalise their lives, that only science holds the true key. Who are you to tell somebody what to believe? Who are you to insult their very core? And, of course, the heart of discussions such as these; if you’re telling them they can’t prove it, can you disprove it? Science is all about the search for facts, and the open-mindedness that your theories can be wrong, and attempting to disprove yourself in order to strengthen your findings. And here is somebody who lives their life like they want, believing in their faith as wholly and trustingly as you do your science, and you have the nerve to tell this person that they are not only wrong, but somehow less intelligent for having the strength – and I maintain that it is a strength – to follow something which has not presented itself in fact? It’s called faith for a reason. The idea is that your faith is a bond of trust, that physical proof isn’t required to acknowledge the way the world is and that you’re stronger, purer, kinder for it.
Sidenote: Who even says that science and faith can’t be mutually exclusive? There are plenty of scientists who are also religious.
Do not get me wrong, people can believe what they want. If you’re an atheist, that’s to be respected as much as if you’re religious. I’m not speaking to groups of people here, but individuals. Evil has been born in both religious and non-religious people, for it is not our beliefs that define us. That’s a whole other kettle of tea. You are not purely atheist or purely religious, for there is so much more context to our identities than that. What ultimately drives us to do what we do is something only we can answer on an individual basis, and to judge any group of people by the actions of one who belongs, or believes themselves to belong to it is what we call “prejudice”.
I just wish people wouldn’t be hostile to each other, and I personally see far more of it from people of no faith to people with it than vice-verca. What always gets me is that the reason some people lash out at those of religious belief is because they claim that they are ignorant. But these people are attacking others without stopping to consider the wider context of what faith is, what prejudice is, who this person is and what they’re saying to them, and that is the very definition of ignorance.
Sometimes, when I’m staring out into the grey abyss of rainy Britain from the confines of an overcrowded bus, I think to myself… Romans stood here.
I stare into the sea of black umbrellas and people gazing eagerly into their smartphones, latecomers scurrying into their bus stops and think, Romans, real Romans with real swords and shields stood here. The only barrier between these two outstandingly different realities is the passage of time.
I think that when we think about Romans or Greeks, or Vikings, we consider them in a kind of fictional way. We don’t doubt that these peoples existed and that they did what they did, but how often do you stop to think about the fact that it happened in this place? From this race? The brave and the foolhardy lived by codes of honour and conviction of faith. The King reigned over all and, let’s be honest, those times aren’t exactly missed. Democracy may not be exactly what it says on the tin as of late but there’s certainly no preferable alternative, at least not that I can see.
It never ceases to interest me how we view our ancient history. We are of the same race, of the same lineage. Humans were and are capable of that kind of cruelty. But civilisation and technology, evolving in the ways it has, has encouraged communication above all else. In this regard, I believe the Internet to be one of the most revolutionary inventions in the whole of human history to date. In the wider perspective of time as a species it’s still very much a new phenomenon, and I think we’ve yet to see just how it will effect humanity in the long run; for better or for worse.
What really gets me intrigued is when I hear little things that the history books don’t tell you, things you’d never have expected of a Roman that ties them to contemporary cultures. For instance, ancient graffiti, rife with colloquialisms and rid of the stuffy conventions of high society we’re so often presented with. “Aufidius was here. Goodbye.” Smiffy woz ere 08, anyone? The presentation of the message may seem absurdly different to us, but it’s essentially the same; two human beings wishing to make their mark on the world by painting messages on walls confirming their presence. It is a small link, I’ll grant that, but for me I was immediately that apart from that infernal passage of time, the ancient and the modern are closer than we think.
A thousand years from now, how will we be viewed? For us British, will we be viewed as Elizabethans again? Will we be confused with the earlier era of Elizabethans in textbooks – should they still use textbooks – and cause frustration? Will our ways be considered barbaric, our lifestyles unhealthy, our society archaic? We like to think that the emergence of digital databases and the like will document this period of history better than before, but I’m sure the Egyptians thought the same about writing and books, and look how mythical they are in our eyes. Or my eyes. I cannot see through your eyes and I think you’d be rather annoyed if I stole them to give it a try.
I wonder what elements of our lifestyle that we take for granted will be treated as old and deeply flawed? I personally believe – or hope – that the idea of growing up educated for the purposes of working for a pittance until death will, by then, be viewed as a horrific treatment of human life, one which bred existentialism and quashed creativity and freedom. Of course, one can never estimate what such a large passage of time will hold for humanity. Perhaps we’ll all be dead. Perhaps we’ll have dispersed among the stars and races, and the idea of “humanity” as a collective will vanish. Perhaps this will be the peak of our evolution and a thousand years from now we’ll all be Romans again.
When presented with the question as to whether you’d visit the past or the future when given a TARDIS, most people seem to choose the past. I believe I’ve detailed my reason for choosing the future.
Perpetually Perturbed 