The impossible dream

I spent half an hour watching an 11yr old play Assassin on PlayStation with a pretty much continuous commentary on what he was doing, why he was doing it and how cool the game is. Ok it is called Assassin and so it is dedicated to killing people as most games are: this post is not about that. I was more interested in watching my own reaction as the graphical character leapt off walls, ambushed unsuspecting guards and slit their throats.

I was enjoying it, I was stimulated and soon found myself drifting off into a reality where I could drop off an impossibly high wall backwards, coat flying, hood positioned just so, sword strapped to my back – looking deliciously deadly and competent. This is probably personal preference as I have a well know love of fantasy but so must the majority of the world if our movie genres are anything to go by. And so I started pondering (which I am also well known to do)

Perhaps we are striving for an impossible dream, perhaps in trying for world peace we are in actuality perpetrating violence itself. Perhaps we are meant to be in constant conflict, perhaps survival of the fittest is a natural part of Earth Life and we should accept it rather than change it.

Mayhaps it is our own intelligence that has contributed to our desire to ‘right all wrongs’. Because the human race cannot exist without categorising every action into right or wrong. Do lions have a crisis of faith when attacking a rival or eating a deer? Does any in the animal kingdom?

One of the greatest causes of mass self-loathing, religious hatred and societal wrongs is something called the ‘shadow self’. It is essentially a part of ourselves (either individually or collectively) that we have judged to be wrong and therefore try to deny it even exists. All of these little naughties are suppressed deep within us and deep within society, until they fight their way to the light of day in a moment of weakness or copious alcohol.

Perhaps our inherent violence is one of these suppressed items? Perhaps if we allowed it a place in our society it would not be so powerful? Perhaps it must first come into the light before it can be part of it?

But then again, in seeking to rise above such base instincts is that not the definition of humanity itself?

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