Tuesday, December 10, 2013
This blog is no longer being updated
This blog is no longer being updated. To follow my active blog, check out www.terrapinhollowpress.com.
Thanks,
Steven
Sunday, February 22, 2009
A Non-Violent Redemption
A crowd’s gathered thick, blocking the hall. From the other side of the on-looking human wall, I can hear a muted clap. Grunting. Several boys leap back like a curtain caught in the wind, and I catch sight of the storm. Gary falls hard, Damon on top. Damon sits up some, just enough to give his right arm leverage, then brings it slamming down against the side of Gary’s beet-red face.
My stomach curdles. Someone shouts, “Bitch slap the fag!” A few zealous fans shout similar demands. Gary’s face contorts with pain, like he’s about to cry.
I dare not avert my eyes. I’m supposed to look unto Damon with admiration for being strong and decisive; Gary with contempt for being different, weak. This is normal, healthy human interaction. This is the way we do things. Accept it, Steven.
Celebrate it.
I remember feeling sorry for the bad guys on Saturday morning cartoons. I was one of the only kids who tried to get Mario through the worlds without squishing any koombas. But my socialization seems to have come off with relatively few hitches. I got over killing the aliens in Contra. Gannon’s minions in Zelda. The challenges were fun enough to justify the slaughter. Besides, it wasn’t real.
Not to forget all those movies. I watched countless episodes glorifying the deeds of the mighty hero, whether armed with a rifle, a sword or a light saber. Repeatedly the lesson was imparted: there are some obstacles that can only be overcome by the swift and decisive application of an ass whoopin’. Armed with toy guns and wooden swords, my friends and I practiced for the galaxy of confrontations that we were surely destined to have.
But the world looks different when we’re all grown up.
My four-year old son is fixated on killing all the enemies in war. Or, if anyone breaks into the house, he promises to keep us all safe by shooting the bad guys with a gun. There is a part of me that wants to encourage these fantasies of his, because violence as a means of conflict resolution is par for the course. This is the way we do things. It’s normal, healthy human interaction. The sooner he accepts it, the better.
I should encourage him to celebrate it.
At some point my perception began to shift. Long ago, I had to learn to love acts of violence. I had to accept them as entertainment before I could accept them as viable tools for social interaction. But as I began reading into Satyagraha (non-violence, the force of truth), I found that the philosophies of non-violence resonated with what I felt deep inside for so many years. Like most people, I want my children to inherit a world better than the one we have now. I believe that our addiction to violence (physical, psychological, social) is the root cause of so many problems we face today.
But just as satyagraha resonates within me, it becomes painfully discordant with my socially conditioned love for violence. I want to watch The Hobbit movie when it comes out. I want to watch Lost on TV. I want to play video games with dragons and swords and wizards who shoot fire out of their hands. But my definition of entertainment is grossly out of integrity with who I want to become, and the change that I wish to facilitate. For how can I advocate ahimsa, when I still dance in its brutal shadow?
Why is it okay for me to watch ten thousand orcs, elves and men die in battle, but still I wince at the memory of Gary’s humiliation, his pain, his fear? Is it because one is merely a fantasy, while the other isn’t? I’m reminded of Morpheus in The Matrix: “The mind doesn’t know the difference…”
Our reality extends beyond the flesh and blood. Beyond the tangible. We live in a world in which the figments of an industry’s imagination are just as real as the food we eat. We take it all in. We build ourselves from everything we come in contact with. And now I wish to change the material of my composition. I wish to reclaim the secure corner-stones of truth that once seemed more natural to me than anything humans erect.
At times it feels that the young Steven, watching on as Gary got schooled by the mighty Damon, was closer to truly understanding satyagraha than the man that I have become today. And sometimes it feels as if I’ve let that boy down. Pressured by fear and the need for inclusion, I’ve slowly allowed my morality to be compromised.
So this is the trial that lies before me. How to reconcile the way that I live with the way that in my heart feels right… I must rediscover, reintegrate, the moral truths of long ago. It’s time for a non-violent redemption.
My stomach curdles. Someone shouts, “Bitch slap the fag!” A few zealous fans shout similar demands. Gary’s face contorts with pain, like he’s about to cry.
I dare not avert my eyes. I’m supposed to look unto Damon with admiration for being strong and decisive; Gary with contempt for being different, weak. This is normal, healthy human interaction. This is the way we do things. Accept it, Steven.
Celebrate it.
I remember feeling sorry for the bad guys on Saturday morning cartoons. I was one of the only kids who tried to get Mario through the worlds without squishing any koombas. But my socialization seems to have come off with relatively few hitches. I got over killing the aliens in Contra. Gannon’s minions in Zelda. The challenges were fun enough to justify the slaughter. Besides, it wasn’t real.
Not to forget all those movies. I watched countless episodes glorifying the deeds of the mighty hero, whether armed with a rifle, a sword or a light saber. Repeatedly the lesson was imparted: there are some obstacles that can only be overcome by the swift and decisive application of an ass whoopin’. Armed with toy guns and wooden swords, my friends and I practiced for the galaxy of confrontations that we were surely destined to have.
But the world looks different when we’re all grown up.
My four-year old son is fixated on killing all the enemies in war. Or, if anyone breaks into the house, he promises to keep us all safe by shooting the bad guys with a gun. There is a part of me that wants to encourage these fantasies of his, because violence as a means of conflict resolution is par for the course. This is the way we do things. It’s normal, healthy human interaction. The sooner he accepts it, the better.
I should encourage him to celebrate it.
At some point my perception began to shift. Long ago, I had to learn to love acts of violence. I had to accept them as entertainment before I could accept them as viable tools for social interaction. But as I began reading into Satyagraha (non-violence, the force of truth), I found that the philosophies of non-violence resonated with what I felt deep inside for so many years. Like most people, I want my children to inherit a world better than the one we have now. I believe that our addiction to violence (physical, psychological, social) is the root cause of so many problems we face today.
But just as satyagraha resonates within me, it becomes painfully discordant with my socially conditioned love for violence. I want to watch The Hobbit movie when it comes out. I want to watch Lost on TV. I want to play video games with dragons and swords and wizards who shoot fire out of their hands. But my definition of entertainment is grossly out of integrity with who I want to become, and the change that I wish to facilitate. For how can I advocate ahimsa, when I still dance in its brutal shadow?
Why is it okay for me to watch ten thousand orcs, elves and men die in battle, but still I wince at the memory of Gary’s humiliation, his pain, his fear? Is it because one is merely a fantasy, while the other isn’t? I’m reminded of Morpheus in The Matrix: “The mind doesn’t know the difference…”
Our reality extends beyond the flesh and blood. Beyond the tangible. We live in a world in which the figments of an industry’s imagination are just as real as the food we eat. We take it all in. We build ourselves from everything we come in contact with. And now I wish to change the material of my composition. I wish to reclaim the secure corner-stones of truth that once seemed more natural to me than anything humans erect.
At times it feels that the young Steven, watching on as Gary got schooled by the mighty Damon, was closer to truly understanding satyagraha than the man that I have become today. And sometimes it feels as if I’ve let that boy down. Pressured by fear and the need for inclusion, I’ve slowly allowed my morality to be compromised.
So this is the trial that lies before me. How to reconcile the way that I live with the way that in my heart feels right… I must rediscover, reintegrate, the moral truths of long ago. It’s time for a non-violent redemption.
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