Unforgiven - An Examination Of A Film That Changed Film

It could most certainly be called the western to end all others. It is noted as a great film by nearly all who see it. But more than anything else, it simply changes its viewers, transforms their thinking, and their expectations of what a movie like this one is, of what all other movies are. How exactly did Clint Eastwood do it? What is awakened in those who watch it? And why are those who see it forced to look at things differently? When looking at the methods of deconstruction that Eastwood uses throughout his film, and also in the ways he embeds them within the confines of Unforgiven's own story, we're given a chance to question what makes all movies out there believable.

Please note: Entries about media reviewed in this blog are written from the framepoint that the reader has already seen the work in question. Plot twists and endings will sometimes be examined.

Deconstructing the Western

When we talk about the "deconstruction" of a genre, we aim to take the thing apart, look at its inner workings and see how and why it has the effect on us it does. Unforgiven is a very layered movie, and before looking at its particular mechanisms, it might be prudent to briefly look at the genre as it stood before.

With the box office success of "Unforgiven", the western as a genre was deemed to be a bankable commodity once more by the major studios. The western had largely ceased to draw crowds and interest viewers at the time of its release. Sergio Leone had famously revitalized the genre decades earlier with his "Dollars Trilogy" ("Fistful of Dollars", "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", all staring Clint Eastwood in his much younger years) by adding a certain level of realism that simply wasn't present in the westerns of that time. Leone's films had a gritty style, morally ambiguous characters, and harsh landscapes unlike those found in the american westerns of the time. In many ways, the westerns of that time (the 60's) had grown right out of the very dime novels from the era of the source material itself, following a natural progression to full length novels, radio narrations, TV shows, and the movies themselves.

The westerns of the past drew more heavily on a style of storytelling descending from the tall tale and the wildly exaggerated recounts of people from the "old-west" era who actually experienced such events and embellished upon them with each new telling. Added to this was a sense of morality imposed by each new chronicler, re-enforcing what was each felt was right or wrong. By the time of Leone's westerns, many had gotten to the point where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys black, enabling audiences to distinguish at a glance. Needless to say, this reduced a lot of pressure on storytellers themselves, but intelligent men like Leone capitalized on audience expectations by giving them more true to life characters who inhabited the moral gray areas of society, keeping them guessing on what would happen next.

When Unforgiven came around this was all old hat. Leone had readjusted the moral abiguity of the western, but its elements as a tall tale were still very much intact. To be certain, there is plenty of room in literature for the "amazing stories" that make up not only the old dime novels, but much of the pulp and even the sensationalized newspaper articles of today. And a lot of what transpires in westerns is the stuff of mythos: gunfights in the streets, women in distress, and men who step up do what they feel is right. So how exactly did "Unforgiven" accomplish to break all of this down so it could rebuild it? Dashing the story with a little authenticity in several areas was a start, but asking the audience to question it all was its true masterstroke.

Deconstructing Unforgiven

Our story begins with a brutal crime. In the town of Big Whiskey, a spurned cowboy slashes the face of a prostitute, sparking the fury of her fellow ladies of the night. The local sheriff, Little Bill (Gene Hackman), renders his judgement in an absolutist sort of fashion, but handles this case with a less than just decision. He orders the cowboy and his accomplice to pay the Skinny, the saloon and brothel owner since the hooker will no longer be as valuable to him. Unsatisfied with this judgement, but with Bill refusing to listen to any disent, the women scrape together a reward hoping to have the two cowboys killed. This attracts the attention of young gun calling himself the "Schoffield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett) causing him to seek out William Munny (Clint Eastwood). Having heard of Munny's reputation of a violent past, the Kid hopes he will help him kill the cowboys and collect the reward. Munny in turn recruits his old friend Ned (Morgan Freeman), whom he rode with in the past. When the three meet up, Will and Ned discover that the Kid is near-sighted and needs spectacles which he doesn't have.

From this beginning, things are turned on their head in quite a few ways. The cowboys themselves are not the unrepentent bitches one might expect, and one of them even tries his hardest to make amends by offering the mangled prostitute a choice pony. The prostitutes themselves, while looking out for their own, are hardly noble in their quest for justice. They're bitter and want revenge. They even reject the peace offering of the pony without the victimized girl's consent, despite the fact that a pony would do her much more good than two dead cowboys. Little Bill is a tough man and an efficient enforcer, but his rendering is hardly fair. He will soon prove himself to be both merciless and unremitting, but in the meanwhile we often see him in good humour, building a house rather than lounging around the sheriff's office like such a character might in a typical movie. The Kid too, is something of a surprise in that, for all his tough talk, he actually is nearly defenseless in a true gunfight, considering he can't see very far. He hides his disability from others by never mentioning it and pretending he can see fine. He hides his insecurity about it with tough talk and a nickname he clearly has given himself rather than received by others. And William Munny? He's old with two young children, reformed by a dead wife into a strict sobriety, barely scraping by raising hogs -many of which appear sick. He has trouble catching an unruly hog and can't shoot very straight anymore, and even struggles to get back in the saddle when he decides to find the Kid and take him up on his offer.

While all of the above mentioned aspects help the film to turn the paradigm of the western on its end, its most obvious device is the inclusion of a journalist character (Saul Rubinek) who chronicles much of the events as they happen. He is introduced on something of a sideplot; he comes into town along with English Bob (Richard Harris), a gunslinger from England who has also heard about the reward. The journalist (who goes by the name of Beauchamp though I'll simply refer to him as "the journalist" throughout this article) seems completely obsessed with capturing material for his own dime-novel style stories. English Bob provokes a man on the train he takes in to town, and then does manage to demonstrate that he can shoot straighter than average by challenging the man to shoot some pheasants from an open car, helping to re-enforce some of our "old west mythos" to the journalist, and the viewers as well. When Bob gets to town, however, this is shattered immediately by Bill who catches Bob unawares, has him surrounded with his own men and then after disarming the man, proceeds to beat him savagely in the midst of the whole town. While Bob is imprisoned at Bill's office, the latter looks over the journalist's stories, ridicules them, and tells the man about how inaccurate the stories are, as he actually witnessed several of the incidents mentioned, and has been in a few fights himself.

It really is at this point that Unforgiven begins deconstructing things for its audience, inter-cutting between Bill and the journalist on the one hand, a conversation with William Munny and Ned on the other. Questions that aren't generally asked in a western come up. Things like the difficulty and effect on a man's psyche to point a gun at another and then pull the trigger. When Bill challenges the journalist and even puts a in his hand, the journalist can't bring himself to pull the trigger, and hearing the way Munny and Ned remember doing it, they recall it with denial and disbelief saying things like: "We was young and full of beans back then, and drunk most the time too..." and "When I sobered up, I couldn't remember the other guy doin anything so bad it really deserved me to shoot him..."

The journalist leaves Bob's company, deciding instead that he can learn more by following Bill around. Bob is sent away in a carriage, while Munny, Ned, and the Kid arrive in town shortly after. At this point, Bill has set himself up as something of a villain in the story. His and Munny's first meeting is nothing if not unconventional for a tale like this. Munny refuses any alcohol even though it might have helped keep him warm during a spout of bad weather, and arrives in town too cold, sick, and weak to defend himself. He is taken unawares by Bill in the saloon, who in a manner quite similar to that of English Bob, once again beats the man cruelly before kicking him out of town. Ned and the Kid escape unscathed, and the three regroup with the prostitutes later while Munny slowly recovers.

More unconventional still are the scenes of "justice" which follow when the trio ride out to hunt their prey. In many an unrealistic movie, violence is glory, revenge is sweet, and the killings are clean. The same can hardy be said of what occurs next in this story. Munny shoots and kills the kinder and more repentant of the two cowboys (the one who didn't actually cut the girl, and tried to make amends with the pony). The details of this scene are very important. The trio do not confront the cowboys face to face or challenge then to duels or anything like that, but rather ambush them from an elevated vantage point, a move that many would consider cowardly and dishonorable. Munny takes the shot only after Ned backs down, realizing he no longer has it in him to kill a man, demonstrating just how much has changed for these characters since the days when they were killers. Ned no longer finds it easy to take life because he's had time to live a little for himself and knows what he's taking from the boy. At first Munny manages only to cripple the boy with a shot to the leg and then misses several times after while the boy desperately tries to crawl to the safety of cover behind a rock. After shooting him in the stomach the boy cries sadly and begs for water as his life drains away. Listening to it all, Munny feels compasion for the boy and calls out to his companions telling them to bring him some water saying that he won't shoot. And so the movie shows us, taking a life can be awkward, ugly, and clumsy, not to mention difficult work both physically and mentally. Eastwood chooses purposely to have to have the more guilty of the two cowboys follow this one, to further highlight the ugliness of the act. It is after this scene that Ned decides to quit the group and head back home alone, while Munny and the Kid continue.

The killing of the second of the two cowboys can be described with many of the same words as the first. William Munny and the Kid wait for him to leave the house he's holed himself up in to visit the outhouse, and there ambush him literally with his pants down. Again there is no confrontation, only an attack and an escape without warning, but two things strike me about this scene as worthy of mention. First, the cowboy that Munny and the Kid set out to kill knows he's in danger and even has several deputies guarding him at the time. When he has to use the outhouse, one of them even asks him to wait so he can escort him out there, but the cowboys, cocky and rude, makes fun of the man refusing his help. His death is largely his own fault because of this. Second, as two assassins run away Munny tells the Kid to fire his gun at their persuers. Because the Kid cannot see very at all, and yet insists on killing at least one of the cowboys himself they are forced to get close to their target and then run away. As they run, Munny tells the Kid to shoot at the men chasing them. When the Kid objects that he can't see, Munny mentions that he only wants to slow them down by scaring them into taking cover. He knows that their chances of hitting or their persuers is very low, and probably does not even want to since doing so might even cause them more trouble. But escape is tantamount and scaring the men behind them buys them time. How men actually fight, and the fact that fear plays a huge part in it seems to be something that Munny understands intrinsically.


While wating for one of the prostitutes to deliver their reward, the Kid breaks down and cries as the gravity of what he's done begins to settle in. He admits to Munny that up until now he's never killed anyone, despite having said otherwise before. "Killing a man's a hell of a thing," Munny replies, "You take away all he has, and everything he ever will have..." On several occasions throughout the movie, the viewer hears the characters say "They have it coming", when talking about the cowboys, never to any real response. It's only when the Kid says it this time that Munny gives us in the audience a reply: "We all have it coming Kid..."

The final part of the film is set up when the prostitute arrives and the Kid and William Munny, along the viewer, learn that Little Bill and his men captured Ned and later, tortured him to death. Munny, who has staunchly refused to drink any alcohol up to this point in the movie, takes the bottle and begins to do so and we begin to see the way alcohol allows Munny to kill indiscriminately. He then tells the Kid to go back to his homestead alone and give his share the money to his children and Ned's woman, and says that he's going into town alone to confront Little Bill.

When Munny arrives at the saloon, he finds Ned's body in front with a sign attached more or less condemning the man and his accomplices. Munny enters quietly to see Bill rallying up a posse he's assembled with alcohol and talk of their success in capturing Ned. Munny figures out which of the men is Skinny by asking who owns the place, and then shoots him to the shock and horror of all gathered. It's worth noting that Munny doesn't even flinch while doing it. Throughout the film it's talked about how difficult it is to pull the trigger on someone and Munny has not only just done so but semms to lack any remorse or sense of consequence. The people in the room are of course all terrified; they've just seen a man killed right in front of them. The only other person who keeps their cool is Little Bill who becomes enraged and calls Munny a coward for shooting and unarmed man. Munny's response, a very oft-quoted line, is absolute indifference: "He should've armed himself if was gonna decorate his saloon with my friend!" Munny points the gun at Bill and then tells him that he's come to kill him, and then a very curious thing happens. Bill cleverly tells all those gathered in the saloon that Munny has only one barrel left in his gun and to kill Munny after he's fired his shot. I can just imagine that every man in the place would be so terrified up till this point that without Bill saying this, it's altogether likely that Munny might've simply walked in, shot both Skinny and Bill and walked right back out, with everyone who saw the thing happen too petrified to act. Whether or not Munny had planned it that way all along is never said, because this doesn't happen; Munny puls the trigger, but his gun misfires, and Bill wastes no time in telling everyone to shoot. Munny's reaction is unique as well; he throws the empty gun at Bill and uses the time he's bought to draw his pistol and shoot Bill. He gets down on one knee and and shoots the each of the men who've drawn weapons on him. Earlier in the film, Bill describes for the journalist how many men make a common mistake in gun-fighting: by drawing and firing too quickly without aiming properly. The gunfight in this scene is indeed over quickly, but there is nothing stylized or elaborate about it at all. The men nervously draw their guns, fire too quickly or unsteadily and miss, while Munny aims, shoots and kills each in turn. When it's over he tells all bystanders to get out unless they want to die as well. It strikes me how the final showdown of this film plays out much like similar climaxes in other westerns (the main character kills everyone, and walks out alive), but at the same time is completely different as well. The details have been arranged in such a way that it all feels real rather than contrived.

Munny takes a drink from the bar, and then gets into a brief but interesting conversation with the journalist who has lingered because he was trapped under a one of the men who fell on him as he died. He remarks that Munny killed the men in the exact order of how dangerous they were, but Munny is dismissive of the whole thing stating simply that he's always been "lucky when it comes to killing people". He doesn't appear to have put much thought into what makes him good at doing it. The journalist character really does seem like something of a leech, and at this point he appears almost ready to begin following Munny around the way he did Bob and Bill up until he is threatened by Munny to get out of the saloon. The final conversation between Munny and the dying Bill is brief as well. Bill complains that it isn't fair: "I don't deserve this. I was building a house..." Munny's reply is cold as ever: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it.", "I'll see you in Hell, Munny.", "Yeah." Munny is more or less unmoved by any of what he's seen or heard, let alone what he's done. He's cold and mechanical and it almost appears that he does what he does because he's simply supposed to. That is to say, he came back and killed Bill not due to sorrow, or anger, or hatred, but simply because that was what someone should do when a close friend gets killed. Though an overwhelming change occurs in his behavior as soon as he hears of Ned's death, he doesn't seem incensed, just quiet, cold, and completely driven. The closest thing to any emotion he shows is when Bill berates him verbally for killing Skinny. Even then, it has more to do with the fact that he's defending his actions than anything else when he says: "He should've armed himself!" Truth be told, he seems only agitated by the accusation. Within the icy logic of his mind, he's doing something completely justified.

Munny shoots Bob dead after their final words together and then the movie gives us a few final surprises in it's treatment of the plot. Munny shouts out several threats to the townsmen lingering outside to help ensure no one else tries to kill him. "I'm comin out now and if I see anyone I'm gonna kill em! And if anyone takes a shot at me, I'm gonna kill them, AND their family AND burn their damn house down!" It's chilling the choice of words he uses. He knows the value of a threat in this situation, doesn't want another fight, and realizes that running out will only get him chased. As he exits we see a couple men outside hiding and one of them gets ready to fire but he too cowers saying he can't do it, though it's never explained if this is because he's frightened of Munny's threats or if it's for the same reasons that have kept many men from pulling the trigger throughout the film. "My god..." one of the prostitutes remarks softly as he leaves, and we sense that only now has the consequences of her action's full weight come down to be felt by her. Did all of those men need to die? Does any of this death make things right?

Unforgiven as a deconstruction of fiction

Unforgiven is to a certainty a deconstruction of the western as a genre. It looks at the time and place and asks questions as to what life was like for people living there, on a day to day basis and not just in times of extraordinary occurance. It picks apart the pieces of the genre itself, turns them on their side and invites us to look in from a different angle that makes things look completely different. But then, one can't help but wonder as well, don't a lot of other genres use similar elements in their story building? Damsels in distress appear in fantasy yarns as well as westerns, lurid tales of murders and kidnapping are found in a lot of the pulp magazines of the noir period and in modern crime tales too. When we say that something is a "tall tale" are we not simply referring to some of the more sensational aspects of any story?

Now with Unforgiven we have a movie that almost seems aware of itself and asks us to ask questions not only of its plot but those of others. Questions like: "Is the way this person is telling their story accurate, or are they just exaggerating to try and impress us the Bob and the Kid did?", "Can these characters really be believed to be as skilled, hard, or intelligent as they say or is it a farce?", "Is what we're seeing really unfolding in a believable way?" All of these questions relate to the scenario of an unreliable narrator. I've found myself strangely aware of Unforgiven with every western I've seen since it; it's almost impossible not to remember the lessons it teaches and this subsequently reflects on other works we view and, after all, isn't a movie in its own way just another account of some story we're being told. It's practically at a point where one could refer to westerns as "post-Unforgiven" because we more or less expect the film makers to have learned from watching the film. To a point, many of the westerns which followed Unforgiven do seem to be aware of this. Films like "Tombstone" and "Open Range" are its successors. "3:10 to Yuma" and "The Assassination of Jesse James" both made direct reference to the dime-novels, newspaper stories, and fiction printed about notorious men, purposely drawing a line between the fantasy and reality of an outlaw existence. The samurai films, many like to point out, have much in common with those of the western genre, and now even a few modern entries such as "Twilight Samurai" and "Hidden Blade" (Kakushiken) both by Yoji Yamada have engaged in a little deconstruction of their own upon the samurai genre.

On the simple manner of details, Unforgiven makes an interesting point as well. When the Kid tells Munny what the cowboys have done to the girl, he uses all kinds of incorrect information making the whole thing sound much more gruesome than it actually is. The way journalist makes it sound, these warriors have deadly aim, and fire with pinpoint accuracy the moment they become aware of each other, making speed everything. The movie makes short work of this logic by showing us just how messy a real fight can get. But in a way, aren't we in the audience being challenged to think about some of the other films we see? Would anyone really flip three times in the air over a simple obstruction in the midst of a battle? Would anyone really spin their blade around repeatedly thinking it would add power to their slices? Details like this are stylistic flourishes to be sure but they certainly do cheapen the reality of a situation when we see them. I remember watching in suspense when the machine slowly beat in a metal door in the first Terminator movie, and shaking my head in disbelief when another knocked a door flying off its hinges in the fourth movie of that series for no reason other than to show the audience the strength of this new opponent (no reason aside of course the fact that it was never bolted in the way a real door would be and obviously not really made of metal). A film like Unforgiven transcends typical fiction not only in its meaning but in its execution as well.

Unforgiven as a Film

So far I've talked about this film as a collection of its elements: pieces and parts that when put together make a whole. This of course all begs the question: "Is it really any good as a film, or simply valuable as a lesson for what it says?" And if it is a good film, in what way has it benefited from tearing down the very genre it represents?

When we see more of the same we get bored. We feel we know where it's all heading, everything we expect to happen often does, and we have little to get excited over. When things don't happen the way we think they will, it puts us on our toes. I might even dare say it's truer to life this way, since few things in life are more memorable to us than the surprises.

Few people expect Munny to be beaten so onesidedly by Bill in their first encounter, or for Ned to die after giving away Munny's identity. So much time is spent tearing down the ideas that these men are tough or even skilled at all (let alone invincible), that by the time Munny walks slowly through the rain to the saloon to confront Bill, we genuinely fear for his death. He's walking into a situation where he is completely out numbered and up against a man who seems as smart and calculating as he is; the movie has been setting up Munny's ultimate fate one step after another, marching inexoribly towards his death the entire time, hasn't it? It's already torn down the myth of the american gunslinger by this point, doesn't it make sense for him to die onscreen physically now as well? By showing us that he has young children, alone at home, without a mother, only worsens the dread. If Munny dies what will happen to them? By making the situation more real, we feel that much more is at stake in this contest, and the tension of it all enough to stretch any viewer.

Clint Eastwood's Own Legend and Mythos

It strikes me that for all its meditation on the genre, Unforgiven is also destined to join the ranks of the very films it scrutinizes. Unforgiven is, in the end, just another western itself. Oh, but it is also so much more, for all the reasons I've just mentioned and also for one final one that actually has less to do with the film itself than the history of its maker, Clint Eastwood.

I remember watching the film with a few friends once, a few of whom had seen it before and some who hadn't as well. At the end of it all, one of them turned to me to say "Man it would be cool to see a movie about William Munny's past." I remember the first thing I could think of was, maybe we already have. As a star in nearly a dozen film westerns (including the famous "Dollars" Trilogy) and countless TV westerns as well, sometimes I can't help but wonder if the Man with No Name we all became so enthralled with didn't eventually become William Munny. He certainly did in a figurative sense, Eastwood did indeed go from the one part in his earlier career to the other at his end, and looking at it all from this frame of mind it's an interesting thought that with Unforgiven, our legendary character finally arrives at the end of their journey.

The Warrior Spirit: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian

Above: Some of the Conan the Barbarian artwork by Frank Frezetta, whose images immortalized the character

I can still remember the first time I watched "Conan the Barbarian" with my father as a young boy. The brutality and violence stayed with me long after the initial viewing, but more than anything else it was the story, the characters, and the powerful narrative which burrowed its way into my fuzzy memories. I've since gone on to read many of the comics, and even sought out the original works by Robert E. Howard trying to trace things back to their origins, wondering what it is about the character exactly which inspires me so much.

There's something about the whole tale that just feels very ancient and sweeping. Howard's incredible prose has much to do with this, but there are certain thematic elements at work as well which I've noticed more recently. The idea of a person of humble birth rising to the level of general and then king is indeed an inspirational one. Much of what gives the Conan stories their appeal is their mythological feel, and while this concept has been done many times before in countless fairytales with commoners becoming princes (or princesses) and living happily ever after, the story of Conan was one of strength, power, brutality, savagery. All of this came to lend the tale a quality of the oldest stories, a realistic hardness, and a world without rules. When Howard created Conan, the U.S. was in its Depression Era and a sort of bitter harshness reflecting that period pervades many of his other stories as well.

Those stories were originally published in the monthly pulp-magazines of the era with little bits and pieces of each published a few pages at a time in an issue. Every now and then, works that were written as pulp -mere, consumable entertainment for the masses- manage to acheive something higher: a sort of literary and artistic greatness that reaches the attention, appreciation, and analyzation of scholars as well as the common man. Sherlock Holmes provides a good example of another early, cheap magazine to do so; in more recent times, films like Star Wars; and manga like Naussicaa have done so as well. It's strange in a way to think that Conan's fate in the stories (man of lowborn birth becomes a king), mirrors that of the character's success and popularity in the mainstream, literally a common man's form entertainment that has risen to a higher level.

Above: Copy of the original, unabridged Robert E. Howard stories edited into a single book.

Howard was a proliflic writer and he did manage to turn out quite a bit of material on Conan, though this has now been absolutely dwarfed by the combined amount that has now been produced by other writers continuing to give his creation's life. Howard's life itself is another very interesting story as well, but as far as the character's history is concerned, the fact that its phenomenal success occurred after Howard's untimely death is what left publishers in a bind to release more Conan material. Thus free reign was given to others to create more stories and sate the appetites of fans. While there are certainly a lot of purists out there whose loyalty is to Howard, a person could also very well argue that one of the best things about Conan is all the additional work which has been produced over the years since his death that is much in keeping with the spirit of the original.

Yet another unusual parrellel the Conan character shares with many mythological stories throughout history, is that his saga has been passed on from one story teller to another. This is much the same as many trully ancient legends whose origins predate writing, which were passed on orally, and often embellished and added upon with each new storyteller. I remember (reading, ironically enough) a criticism by an oral storyteller on the written word and its effects on relating these stories. They seemed to feel that the written word was lifeless, like it was dead even though it was certainly more accurate than recounting things orally. While not an oral tale, Conan, like many other stories is still an ongoing one; it is continuously being retold differently and being added to as well by new writers and artists and even actors.

Getting back to the character and the story itself though, I once more find myself asking what it is about them I like. Perhaps more than anything else, it's the idea of the path he took in life: the road of the wanderer, the road of the warrior. There are certainly truths of a special sort to be discovered in such a way of life which one might not otherwise know: To learn about life by taking it from others, to find meaning in the struggles and conflicts even as they escalate in to the extremes of violence, to know many friends and lovers and watch them come and go in the thoroughfare of an eventful life, to celebrate in excessiveness and try to find the limits of joy and pleasure in such revelry, to live each day like it might be the last. There's something absolutely primal about the character and the stories that penetrates the soul of the reader and never relinquishes its grip.

* * *

A quick excerpt from the story "The Queen of the Black Coast", my favorite of all of Conan's lines and an excellent example of Howard's poetic, mythical sounding prose:

"I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death... I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and the stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exutation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion, I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

-Conan the Barbarian
from, The Queen of the Black Coast
by Robert E. Howard-

Dreams

I just finished a Japanese lesson which involved me reading an article about dreams, and got my mind running. I've long had a lot of thoughts and opinions about dreams, and as it turns out, I've also had a lot of dreams as well, perhaps more than many others have. I should probably write as much as I can now while the thoughts are still there and before, like so many of the dreams I've had, all is forgotten.

Among the things mentioned in the article were a few I had heard before: we only dream at the "Rapid Eye Movement" (REM) State when we are in the deepest point of our sleep; it is not at all uncommon to have several dreams in one night; we remember very few of our dreams because, unless we awaken shortly after we have them (about 8 minutes after the dream concludes), we aren't likely to remember them. There were a few things I didn't know as well that I read in the article. One was that people who aren't very stressed out have a tendency to have more dreams, while those who don't worry quite as much don't tend to have them quite as much either. It makes a bit of sense when you think about it; the more stressing reality is to a person, the more likely they are to seek escapism, and in sleep I suppose that option is to dream.

It does strike me how often I have them. I suppose this all means that I'm a bit of a stressed out person when it comes down to it. I asked my language partner if she had many dreams and she said, "No, not really. I don't really worry about things much either, so I think that I generally just sleep easily and dreamlessly."

I'm left thinking of another quote from the book "Shantaram". In it, one of the characters said to another that we really don't feel sad when we're asleep; we might feel happy or even frightened, but never really sad. Though I cannot speak for others, I would have to say this is true for myself. At the saddest points in my life, I've often felt like wanting nothing more than for the day to end and simply to rest. I wonder sometimes if we have to be awake to be sad, if it takes consciousness or awareness to realize that things aren't going right for us in life and thus formulate the feelings of sorrow. I also sometimes wonder if sadness is linked to intelligence, that we have to be smart enough to know things are bad and that again our knowledge can sometimes only bring misery. For this reason I also wonder if animals, who are conscious only to a certain extent though perhaps not entirely aware of their existence and surroundings, can truly feel sad either (they certainly seem to have happiness, anger, and fear in them though I'm not sure about actual sadness).

I think that dreams are more or less your mind making vivdly real the random thoughts that swim around in our heads. Over the course of the day we find our minds wandering all over the place, thinking of other places and hypothetical situations. Even when we sleep we don't stop thinking. When we dream, we don't have our consciousness to ground ourselves in reality, and those hypothetical places and situations become real to us as we do so. The logic doesn't make sense, because people in dreams don't act as we do in real life, their actions are as random as any of us changing our minds or having a new thought enter our head. The scenery in a dream has us hopping from place to place, because no sooner do we think of a new one than we are transported there. Sometimes we dream of places we've been but the layout or geography is weird, slightly different than reality because our mind makes it imperfect. Sometimes in dreams, the way to get back where we came from disappears on us.

Though I've never felt sad in a dream, another conclusion I've recently to come to towards the ones I've had is that they tend to leave me feeling a little unsettled. I sometimes think that perhaps I ground my thoughts a bit much in logic or understanding while I am awake, and because I can never seem to understand what is going on or why things are happening as they do while in a dream, I think it leaves me a bit unnerved. I do think it's interesting to try and interpret your own dreams and try to use them figure out your own thought processes. While I certainly cannot disprove it, however, I don't know how much stock I put in the ideas that we can see the future in them or the people who say this.

I once lost my phone and spent half the night looking for it before getting too tired to continue and having to go to sleep. I dreamt I found it in certain a place I hadn't looked and the next day, when I did so was surprised to find it there. A situation like this, however, simply makes me think that I must've still been pondering where I could've lost it when I went to bed -especially after searching so extensively the night before and having it weigh so heavily on my thoughts- and that I simply remembered a place I might've left it while I was asleep rather than awake. Because I was asleep when I did so, I think that it simply became incorperated into my dream. The mind is a funny thing in the end, and I find it interesting the different ways it will manifest external factors into our dreams. I've heard music in my dreams only to wake up to that music playing in real life. I've heard voices calling me in my dreams only to find it was whoever was trying to awaken me. I've used the bathroom countless times in dreams only to be left wondering why I still have to go, until the realization hits me that I'm in a dream and need to wake up and make a visit to a real toilet. In trying to interpret our dreams we can understand more not only about the inner thought processes of our minds, but the external factors in our lives as well and how we feel deep down inside about them.

I remember watching a movie called "Unsung Heroes" when I was younger where one of the main characters was telling the child in the story about his dreams. He was showing him a book, which he said was a record of the dreams he'd had. Kind of a quirky character, he had realized how fast and easily we forget our dreams and so, he said, that every time he woke up from a dream he would quickly run to write it down or draw a picture of it so he wouldn't forget. There are very few of my own which I can remember, but I thought I'd write a few down, some of the more vivid ones just for the hell of it. I woke up very shortly after each of them leaving a fresh impression in my head, though I remember each for very different reasons as well.

I only heard the term "lucid dream" recently while talking with some friends, though I realize I've had several over the course my life. It simply means a dream in which you realize that you are in one, change your behavior, and sometimes even are able to control it to some extent or other. I had one once where I was falling to the bottom a very large canyon. It looked a lot like the Grand Canyon -which I had seen when I was very young- and I think it was my memory of that place which inspired it all. Midway through falling, however, I somehow came to the realization that I was dreaming. Something about the whole thing just felt off, unreal, and for whatever reason I just sort of understood that I was still asleep. I was able to control it somewhat then, to keep myself from falling; the wind blew heavily and it was as if I was now falling forward instead of down. Gradually I drifted away and eventually out of sleep, only to find myself dangling halfway off the top bunk of the bed I was then sharing with my little brother at that point in my childhood.

I haven't had many nightmares at all when I think about it. My parents did their best to keep horror movies away from me and my brother and sister when we were younger which might have played a part in all of this. The worst nightmare I ever had actually occurred when I was just a year into high school. I had a friend at that time who was in a gang and constantly telling exaggerated stories about things he and his friends had done, though nothing to the extent which I saw that night. I think that a few mafia movies and extremely violent video games I'd watched recently -and the fact that I'd also gotten stoned pretty recently leaving my mind wide open to a childlike imagination- probably had more to do with it all. In the nightmare I had, my friend killed a person who mouthed off to him. I remeber that I felt very shocked and horrified, and then for some reason, everything around me just melted away and I was in a warehouse full of body parts stuffed into garbage bags and steel oil drums, a killing factory of sorts. I was surrounded by the carnage, and I don't know why, but I just somehow understood that a bunch of gangsters had done this, human beings mutilating other human beings. I remember shivering not simply from fear, but also because the air around me felt unnaturally cold, damp, and clammy. I awoke so shaken that I couldn't fall back to sleep, couldn't move out of my bed for fear, and so just lay awake there until, after some time had passed, I finally calmed down. It's strange how when we first regain consciousness, there's a lull between, where we're half asleep and sometimes don't realize it was all just a dream and still believe it to be real. Though I'd seen characters in movies and TV shows waking up in cold sweats scared out their wits from nightmares, I'd never actually understood this feeling until then, and to some extent had thought it was simply theatrics. Can only imagine what it must be like for those who really live through wars and true horrors to dream about it later.

The last dream I can really remember vividly was one where I was more or less living out a pulp noir western of sorts. My brother and I went looking for some people (can't remember why exactly) and we found them in some abandoned village in steep, rocky canyon. I remember it looking a lot like an old western ghost town, except the buildings where made of stone like ancient ruins. When we got there, we found the people we were looking for, only to find they weren't willing to come with us. We argued with them briefly before one of them looked out the window and simply said something like: "They've come for us." I remember looking out the window to see a group of men wearing hats and long, gray dusters just arriving into the town. One of them had on a long black coat and a black hat instead as well as a long, dark rifle slung over his back and seemed to be leading them. It felt a lot like being in a movie. I think I remember this dream mostly because it was right at this moment, just as it was getting interesting, that I was awakened by an alarm and reminded that I needed to get up and go to school. I also remember quickly making a futile attempt to go back to sleep, wanting to see what would happen. There was no such luck, though, apparently you can't exactly return to your dreams like a scene on a DVD whenever you want to once you've woken up. I've never had a recurring dream, but if ever there was one I wish I could have this would've been it. How disappointing, it's like never getting to see the conclusion to something you started watching but were very intereted in. Then again though, they are just dreams. Most are destined to be forgotten and each time it happens, it's almost like a small miracle that some even get remembered at all...

PlanetES

Review: PlanetES (Anime Series)


I recently had a chance to revisit the anime series "PlanetES" which I watched for the first time a few years back with room-mates from my old guesthouse. I began re-watching it last year with a room-mate at my current guesthouse, only to stop for a long period of time, and then quickly restart again when we both realized I would soon have to move out again and had better finish it before the chance passed.

I don't watch as much anime as I used to, and usually when I do nowadays it tends to be movies that will at least wrap themselves up somewhat cleanly within a couple of hours. Still, there are some qualities we can only get from watching a series: a longer, more protracted storyline, a certain epicness that otherwise is harder to achieve in movies. PlanetES, one of the last series I watched in its entirety, is named after the word the ancient greeks used which means "wanderers" and is the word we use to describe them as well. True to its name, it takes place in outer space. It's very well written, and doesn't just explore themes of science fiction, but also the psychological mindstates of those who are bold enough to explore, and also some of the political/moral issues which may confront space exploration into the future. At the heart of it all though, are some very memorably characters and a story that will cling to you long after you finish seeing it.

Please note: Entries about media reviewed in this blog are written from the framepoint that the reader has already seen the work in question. Plot twists and endings will sometimes be examined.

The story is set in the near future with space exploration having progressed a bit further than it is in the world we live in today. The space stations are larger, and there are a few of them, including a permanent one on the moon. Most of the story takes place in space, and what glimpses we get of Earth, show it to be much as the one we live in today. Technology in space, however, is much more advanced, reflecting the sort of innovation and invention that would accompany adapting to it. Inventions such as artificial gravity, partial gravity (allowing people to jump much higher and come down softer), newer propulsion systems, and spacecraft have all become a reality.

The main characters are members of the "Debris Section" which is in charge of cleaning up space debris -materials such as loose metallic bolts and shrapnel floating around in the vacuum of space- that have become hazardous to space travel because they can shred traversing vehicles that come into contact with them. Debris Section is often belittled by members of the other sections as being mere garbage collectors, despite the job being both vital and dangerous.




The most central of the main characters are Hachirota Hoshino -often referred to simply by the nickname, "Hachimaki"- and Ai Tanabe. The series centers primarily around the relationship between these two protagonists. Hachi has been at his job for some time and is gruff, impatient, and defensive. He also comes off as being apathetic and a little bit lazy at the beginning of the series. Ai, on the other hand, is the newest member of the team. She is not only inexperienced, but naive and very idealistic in her thinking. Especially in the earlier episodes, I found her to be shrill and insistent to the point where I found myself shaking my head at the screen in disbelief, just like all the other characters within it. Both characters will grow and change a lot as the series progresses.

The show starts off being quite lighthearted, establishing its slightly futuristic setting in space with episodes that have a lot of humor as Ai blunders around while learning the ropes from her new crew, while also confounding them with her stubbornness on certain situations.

The action in the show isn't exactly what one would call action in the terms we've become used to. It isn't fast-paced and doesn't involve much fighting, hand-to-hand or otherwise. What there are a good deal of are realisticly frightening situations that result in some very tension-filled moments and will certainly bring some viewers to the edge of their seats. Very much in the variety of "My hand slipped and I just dropped the wire-cutters into a place I cannot retrieve them while disarming a bomb, time to panic"- kind of tension. Malfunctions, equipment failures, and sabotage that result in characters floating helplessly away into space might not seem like much at first, but when the realization settles in that they're heading out into the vast, cruel, endless void of space and no one will be able to help them in a few short minutes it can get pretty unnerving.

The show takes a much darker shift in its later episodes with increasingly frequent appearances by a terrorist group calling themselves the "Space Defense Front" (SDF), who conduct terror operations in space. To give an idea of the types of things they do: in one of their earlier appearances, they attempt to crash a highjacked ship into another larger ship, creating a storm of debris that will literally rain down metallic shrapnel onto a moon colony containing many civilians. What exactly is the SDF protesting? They feel that richer nations, by mining space for minerals and resources, are widening the disparity of wealth on earth and using that to take their oppression of poorer countries even further. Not incredibly far-fetched when you think about it, and enough to make you think seriously about what ethics problems might develop as space exploration progresses.

Other issues are explored in the series as well. While western audiences are sure to enjoy the universal themes of this series, as a Japanese work, it's also peppered with some very subtle criticisms of the Japanese business culture and ethic that will most likely go unnoticed by those who have never lived in Japan. Many of the employees are forced to work for excessively long periods of time, rarely seeing their families, a situation all too common amongst Japanese salarymen. The desire to make a profit results in crooked ways of doing business in foray that science is still researching. This idea is very effectively demonstrated in some very sleazy characters. One, who is the cocky son of a successful businessman, behaves like everyone has to take orders from him (shades of Japan's problem with hereditary power-passing perhaps). Another is a corrupt businessman himself who tries to order the Debris Section not do a particular job because it'll humiliate him personally, despite the fact that it could put others in harm.

On the other hand, there is one very intriguing character introduced late in the series, named Locksmith, who seems to absolutely fly in the face of what many would consider a character flaw that is found all too often amongst Japanese politicians and businessmen. Unlike others who are driven to succeed for profit he sees his goal -further exploration into space- as unquestionably noble, and doesn't listen to critics. At one point an engine test under his supervision results in an explosion that costs lives and he makes no intention of resigning (an action which many Japanese politicians and executives wouldn't hesitate to do). Unlike a lot of Japanese in leadership positions, he is driven enough to stick with things rather than let ideas of damaged honor or the fact that others call him "shamed" bring him to quit. No attempt is made to hide that he is unrelenting and ruthless. At a couple of points, he allows applicants to fall into real danger during a testing process to see how they'll react if such a situation would occur, whether they'll crack under pressure or work through it. This instance has a sort of dual purpose. It allows us to see the show's philosophy when it comes to the spirit of what kind of men will succeed in exploration. It also serves as something of a challenge to certain aspects of Japanese society such as backbone and complacency i.e. Are there people in there who have what it takes to break conventions in order to succeed?

Finally, however, there are the inner issues that confront the main characters. During the course of the series, Ai will have her faith in the overall goodness of humanity thrown into question, and while she might be unrelenting to the point of annoyance as the series starts, she becomes its voice of conscience by its end. The show truly loves its subject matter, and makes no secret that many characters have nothing less than a love affair with space itself and want to stay even though conditions like brittle bones from low gravity and sickness from space's high radiation threaten to kill them. Hachimaki, at one point, suffers from space dementia after an accident nearly leaves him stranded in space, and learns that the panic attacks he suffers afterward, might end up ripping him from outer space, the place he loves so much. He's confronted by an inner version of himself who mocks him saying that deep down inside he doesn't want to recover and that this will just become the excuse he needs give up on his dreams. While, as I mentioned before, Hachimaki starts off as seeming very apathetic, even broken down and beaten by life's realities, he will transform over the course of the series into someone capable of meeting the uncompromising standards of men like Locksmith.

Ultimately, however, the show really belongs to its characters. They're people we come to care about, and its their relationships and these personal challenges that form the most interesting part of the plot, and the soul of the story itself. I can't recommend it enough.






If you liked what you read, or would like to leave a comment, please do. I'd be happy to hear from you.

Unstoried People

Metropolis

The city which breathes like an organism
neon-bathed alleys, steel and concrete for skin
and still other creatures that crawl round within

And move silently through its veins like a cell
Through the hubs and the ports that with people do swell
like arteries from hearts to places unwell.

For dark are these corners where the diseases do dwell
and anything that anybody could want they will sell.
Inside each creature both a heaven and hell.


Unstoried People

In joy do we dance, and In anger do rage
In passion's fit burn the world, and dance round it's flames

And watch damned knowledge be lost
Before damned knowledge transferred
And all lessons cut short
Before anything learned
While the flames dance on high
While our heritage burns
While our hopes for new future in the same breath are birthed
For a legacy til now that's been nothing but cursed
Owes a fate secretly desired that's moreover been earned

Culture And All Its Compromises

From a memetic way of looking at things I sometimes wonder where culture lies. Does any one particular culture stand to gain anything by wiping out or minimizing other contenders, or do they, like genes, flourish from a diversity that whittles things down leaving only those which work well with others standing? Cultures most certainly contain a mixture of elements and are always changing in their make up, much as any organism does. But considering many cultures contain portions which people consider intrinsically linked, and as whole we've come to a point where so much care is taken to avoid offending one culture or another, I wonder sometimes if perhaps we have lost some form or another of valuable criticism. How are things ever to change if we really believe everything created by everyone is equal and are too polite to ever say when we see what might be a problem?

"Universal" Culture

The idea that all cultures are equal, that none is superior or inferior, but rather just different from one another is called "Cultural Relativism". The major problem with such a concept is, as I said earlier; that if every culture is equal, what right does anyone have to even suggest changes to let alone forcibly impose it? If, for example, the Nazis were a culture that was equal to all others, what right would anyone have had to intervene in their genocide of the Jews? Of course, one would most certainly argue that the Nazis clearly didn't believe all cultures were equal to be doing such a thing in the first place, but doesn't then considering every culture out there an equal become nothing more than a disadvantage to those who believe it? Classic nice guy dilemna, you finish last if others are willing to play mean and history's full of examples: the most influential cultures haven't just been wealthy, advanced, and powerful, but also willing to push others around. Kind of makes you wonder if in the end, nice cultures finish last too. The way things have changed in modern times, however, it's beginning to seem a bit like playing mean now carries the real consequence of others losing trust in you.

If there are any universal cultural traits out there, I really can think of only two. Every culture seems to have a problem with indiscriminate killing. This, for the obvious reason that people cannot perpetuate when there is no stability in life even continuing. Situations that resemble this one (The Reign of Terror, The Khmer Rouge Regime, and to some extent, China's Cultural Revolution) have generally not lasted long before some other, more stable system replaced them.

The other trait I mentioned is lying. We need to be able to believe what others are saying to us. Without some level of trust, even the smallest of societies looses cohesion and productivity. Completely outside of the religious reasons that it's "wrong" to do so, we castigate people who break these rules for a very good reason. They bring everybody else down.

It is of some small relief that every culture in the world recognizes these principles, and can never be made entirely of cheats who break these "rules", and yet very unsettling the idea that it's often those who do so that tend to rise to the peaks of their societies and then screw up others' as well.

In his book "The Selfish Gene" Dawkins at one point mentions a computer simulation repeatedly running different various strategies in a never ending loop of "prisoners dilemna". One surprising result was that very often the so-called "nice" strategies finished first. By "nice" we mean simply the programs which didn't do things like "attack" first unprovoked, break trust, screw over opponents/partners. Viewing the whole thing as not being a zero-sum game, where working with others, and not playing them false can get one ahead, it would seem, is actually a very sound strategy. Cheats have always gotten by in societies that are large enough to afford some, but not too many.

Now the world, it appears, has become like one giant society, one in which the different cultures interact with one another much as members in a small village do, and with technology increasing as it is, the village is getting smaller. When one person does something to another in a place this small, other people hear about it.

On "Policing" the World

Many people out there seem to view the current foreign policy of the U.S. as one of an unwanted watchdog to world. John McCain once said he felt that while everyone complains of the U.S. policing the world, he thought deep down inside people were really more afraid of the reverse: the idea that if no one did so, there would be all kinds of states ready to act greedily on their own behalf at the expense of others. In short: if america didn't do it, who would?

While I agree with the basic assumption that being a law enforcer is tough work, and sometimes a dirty job that someone has to do, I also have a major problem with the idea that those who do it can ever be considered truly altruistic. In many circumstances, law enforcers reap rewards by basically being above or beyond the law. They choose how and when they enforce it, and often times this leads to exemptions when faced with judging their own and every group of enforcers from knights and samurais all the way to our modern day cops has had its examples of corrupt members and bullies. Most every country out there wants to be the one to enforce things as they see fit but only those with power seem able to do so and once again we come to the disappointment that the most successful of countries is willing to push around others.

But the world is changing, as I said earlier, and with many a nation able to see what another one does, reputation on a world scale seems to be growing in importance in such a way that blatant flaunting will put the cheater behind. America's war in Iraq has been analyzed to death on moral grounds from both sides of the aisle (and it was idealogical reasons that needed to be used to gain approval), but the final result might just be a matter of the U.S. falling behind for what was merely a short term gain in the long run of things as many countries lost their trust in it.

Somehow I doubt that the use of force to get things will ever go out of style. Strength is, after all, admired in societies because it makes all other things possible, or rather the stability it provides does. It seems every culture out there that has become remotely successful on a world scale has some lingering legacy of a strong warrior caste somewhere in its ancestry. The world society at large has since become more connected, more educated, and more weary of violence and turmoil. No group seems able to dominate on the level possible before, the victors no longer kill the losers, and the perpetuation of the written word has left the idealogies of those defeated to persist long after they depart.

Threat of Violence

On December 10th, 2009 U.S. President Obama received the Noble Peace Prize on grounds many found fragile. While his message of hope had inspired many to take steps towards real and positive change, a common attitude of his detractors was that in terms of actual acheivement Obama had still yet to prove himself. Regardless of whether he deserved the award or not, one thing that struck me more than anything else was something he said in his speech, and has led me to a question I've had trouble coming to grips with. He mentioned at one point his admiration for men like Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. with their non-violent approach to confrontation, but then (in what surely amounted to the most tension filled part of his acceptance speech) maintained that a strong leader for a country like the U.S. needed to know when to be strong and when to use force if necessary.

To be fair, Obama was (and still is iat the time of this writing) involved in two wars (in Afganistan and Iraq) which certainly could not be ignored as he received a prize for peace. Still, the whole idea of it all, at first seemed very much a contradiction to me. Gandhi and King Jr. were both willing to die as martyrs for their causes and more or less unwilling to take lives in doing so. I've thought quite a bit about this and realized that while their messages preached peace, brutality raged all around them, and that at least some of it was coming from people on their own side. They preached against this destructiveness on their behalf, of course, but the danger of it was still always there. Both men did indeed die for their causes, and upon their deaths tensions boiled over in a tide of violence that rocked their societies to their cores. I don't mean to criticize these men or their methods, but never before did I realize that despite what is a message of peace is carried a threat of violence should the other side ever go too far. I shudder to think of what might happen to America if Obama were ever assassinated, not only for the loss of a message and symbol but also of what backlash might occur. Something tells me the Tea Partyers would count themselves lucky to still have the skin on their backs let alone get off with mere reprimands in such a situation.

So whose memes are the strongest?

I remember hearing once that an ancient king whose lands stretched far and wide and encompassed many peoples decided one day that he wanted to learn more about the customs of those different groups within his borders. He sent out envoys and ambassadors on what might be described as an early type of anthropolgy project and discovered to his surprise that some of his subjects, of a small and remote group, ate their ancestors when they died as a sign of respect. This ran contrary to the practice of burning the dead which was common in the king's main territories, and true enough, when these people heard the notion of burning their dead, they were shocked and appalled. "Why would you burn your dead?!!" they cried, "How horrible and disrespectful can you be to leave your loved ones uneaten when they die!" The point, I suppose, was that looking through the prism of another culture almost anything could be seen as either ok or barbaric depending on whose point of view you started with.

It strikes me that today there are no groups out I can think of that eat their dead, despite the sort of ambiguity of the above tale. Indeed, a genetic study a few years back, delving into the causes of mad cow disease, revealed that cannibalization of almost any sort begins to set in motion a sort of mutation that causes the sickness. Makes sense from a genetic point of view. When there's nothing left to eat but your own kind, the body begins to believe something is wrong out there and begins mutation as a defense mechanism hoping to survive. Eating one's dead as a custom didn't make it to the modern age because there was something wrong with it, something incompatible, unworkable.

Cultures and societies have a habit of dropping the parts that don't work, much as most creatures do (to re-use an earlier analogy) with genes that bog them down. The major difference of course is that social groups have a choice in what to let go, and it doesn't take a specimen dying per say to put an end to detrimental memes as it does with genes. There are plenty of examples aside from those major ones I mentioned eariler: killing and lying, though I'm of the thought that most have ties to these two. Falsehoods and half-truths have a habit of slowing down and screwing up the groups which hold onto them, especially those that advocate the taking of lives.

Many Muslims in the world today do their best to disassociate themselves with Islamic Jihadists. It might not simply be that they find the acts they commit reprehensible, there just doesn't seem to be much at the end of the road for violent extremists; they rarely get what they want in this world because people stop listening to them.

Somehow I doubt that the use of force to get things will ever go out of style. Strength is, after all, admired in societies because it makes all other things possible, or rather the stability it provides does. It seems every culture out there that has become remotely successful on a world scale has some lingering legacy of a strong warrior caste somewhere in its ancestry.
Within every society lies the abilty to drop the contents which do not work. To survive is to change, to improve is let go the things which do more harm than good. No part of our culture is completely unremovable. The strength that traditions have lies within the cohesion they create as much as the lessons they provide. Their detraction lies in inflexibility when change demands it. Within the history of any group comes the time to compromise what we've grown accustomed to in the past, with what is necessary for the future. In these times of incredible change it might all seem to be happening too fast, but time has a habit seperating what can survive from what can't, and only it will tell which of our traits make it to the next round.

Traveling, Moving, Standing

It hard not to marvel about it all, watching the scenery pass by from the window of a moving vehicle. The mind just wanders from here to there the same way the vehicle does, and there's something about being in motion that just makes you feel like you're making forward progress; moving forward through time and through life just like your car or train or airplane is.

I'm reminded of the end of "Michael Clayton", a recent movie, where after everything that happens to the guy, he just gets into a taxi cab and when asked by the driver, "What are we doing here?", gives the guy a bill and simply says, "Here's 50 bucks worth, just drive." It's a sentiment I can understand, though I've found myself wondering about it recently. Thinking of why a person would do such a thing, the only idea I have is that the guy simply wanted to get as far away from it all as he could (both literally and figuratively), and barring the actual ability to just fly away from it he did the next best thing he could and hopped in a cab.

It's a strange thing to consider, but sometimes we just want to be moving, want to be in motion, want to feel like we're leaving the past behind us. When we cross a new threshold in life, the feeling of motion can just put a person at ease in a way nothing else can. I've recently begun to think about this more and more. Especially when I travel. But what in my past do I want to get away from? And what future am I moving towards?

It's useful at different periods in our lives to have some indicator of how much time is going by. When we're young it's easy. Not only have we lived for much shorter a period of time, making it easier to keep track of it all, but every year is a new grade at school, and often we have a new teacher and different classmates to help us differentiate from the last. As we get older and leave school behind, it becomes a little more difficult. We now have longer personal histories to remember and the years begin to add up and trail into one another. I often have trouble remembering how old I was when I did one thing or another and it's only after some thought about the other crucial events in my life that I'm able to figure it out. Generally I have to ask myself a question like: Where was I living when that happened? (since I've moved generally every 1-3 years), or Who was I dating?, or Where was I working? In some way or another, I think we all use some sort of an important event in our lives as an indicator of time within our personal histories. One set of indicators I realize I don't have that many others do has to do with what children they have, and in keeping track of their kids' ages or grades in school they find themselves anchored a bit more. Looking at the last three questions which I have a habit of asking myself has made me think that up to this point, my life has really not been all that stable considering my girlfriend, job, and place of residence all seem to change within about 1-3 years.

Now I've begun to think, as well, that the trips I take abroad are beginning to occupy that same function, and I sometimes find myself asking if I'd travelled to this place or that before event A or B or whatever occurred. When I went to Australia for the first time, I felt like a burden had been lifted off me. It was the first time I travelled since I had left Parkside House. Since moving, since Rich and everything else. Those were low times. I felt like I was moving away from it all then, leaving it all behind me. I've never realized before how cathartic an effect it all has for just this reason.

While many people have a habit of taking a vacation back to their favorite place, I've generally always looked to try and go to new ones, usually as different as possible. I like the element of discovery and exploration which doesn't tend to come so often when you've already been to a place. Being in a familiar place puts one at ease, but while you might be sacrificing that ease for a sort of tension in a new environ, you also sometimes gain surprise and delight. But all this isn't to say that you can't also feel free and relieved anyways. Regardless of if you're going to a familiar place or a new one, you're still miles away from your problems and from all the trappings of your regular, everyday life.

I've been trying to write about what realizations I've had with each new travel, and one other thing that's come to mind on my recent trip to India is how seeing so much more of this world has left me wondering just where I stand in all of it now. For a long time now I've had a different sense of morality than many others might, but sometimes I've really gotta wonder: Just what sort of sense of right and wrong am I even left with?

Sometimes when a person travels, they'll see things that would absolutely repulse other people. India actually has quite a few things I can think of right off the bat; It has the highest number of truly "arranged marriages" in the world; It is pretty much the only country to industrialize to some degree and still remain polytheistic (on the whole, nearly every other culture on the planet believes in only one god though they differ on which -Yaweh, Buddha, Allah, the Christian God); Impoverished people are looked down upon, reduced to begging, and roam the streets with animals that do the same yet are considered sacred; The children of the impoverished are slaved to an extent that rivals any other country out there -including perhaps China. And yet, all I can think sometimes is: This is how they live, and it's been this way for untold amounts of time, who the hell are we to pass judgement on another's culture? Perhaps it really is true that seeing India will change a person. And it really only becomes more difficult when I think of the other places I've seen as well, more than a few of them have shown me something or another to put me at unease. Sometimes I really do feel like the more I see the less I know, and seeing more of this world is simply giving counterpoint to everything I thought I knew.