It has finally occurred to me the reason behind this. The trigger was quite innocuous, a quick conversation with Warlock a couple of weeks ago. For a great many years, I have been fascinated by all things evil. Villains in movies and comics, demonic representations in video games, the ever-cool Lucifer (Doom! Doom! Dooooom!!!) in our DotA games, Magneto (Overlord of Fatal Attraction), M.Bison (psycho power and all), The Dark Lord Sauron (in Mordor where shadows lie) and Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur to those in the know). To me they are the embodiment of cool, something that on some basic level, I wish I could be.
The question is why? Those that know me almost immediately identify me as the guy most likely to pick a leathery winged, horned avatar (the flaming sword is optional). Yet I am not preoccupied with thoughts of causing harm to living things, except when I utilise public transportation in Kuala Lumpur. So what is the basis for my fascination with evil, or rather personifications of this particular moral state?
The beginnings of my journey began quite simply with the conversation I alluded to earlier. Warlock told me that perhaps it is not evil that I am enraptured with, but rather I identify with the archetype (how very Jungian of him I know), that it is the capacity to commit evil that is appealing, though the act of committing evil may never occur.
Capacity. How many or us feel constrained by definitions of good? Being subject to religious or societal moral codes more often that not leave a bitter feel within most of us. We are taught to feel shame, humiliation, sadness, self-loathing, and so on and so forth. More often than not being what I shall term “good” causes us to feel all manner or negative emotions when we do not adhere to its tenets. It is a prison that prevents us from expressing our hearts desires, who we really are.
We’ve all read or heard of this at some point, that light cannot exist without darkness, no good without evil. Yet being good forces us into a position of being mortified of our evil. How many of us have wished at some time to be able to harm another, to bend and force people to submit to our will, to take revenge against perceived injustices, to satisfy our very base desires for material pleasure. To deny these things would be to deny yourself.
So why does evil appeal? Why is the anti-hero more popular that the boy scout do-gooder? Because evil is freedom. Evil is not the denial or shunning of things good, but rather embracing who you are, the freedom to express yourself, to wear whatever you want to, to do whatever you want to, to whomever you want to. Yet is does not prevent you from doing good, from helping others. Yet you no longer feel like you are doing something “wrong” when you pursue you own self-interest.
I know, it all seems like a bit of a preaching session, but here is an example of evil in operation. You love planting flowers (oh so evil I know), it is your passion, what you want to do with your life, never mind the why behind it, its just what you love. Your parents want you to become a doctor, they love you oh so much and want what’s best for you, fight with you and scold you, push you in that direction with emotional blackmail. They’re doing what any “good” parent would of course.
It boils down to you, do you cave in, do the right thing and study medicine so as not to break your poor parents’ misguided hearts (the good thing to do)? After all, you can always graduate, work a few years to pay off the education loan, then go back to planting flowers. This is what most people do, and it sickens me to the core.
The alternative, is to do what you really want, and keep planting flowers. You may never be rich, but you would not waste the incredibly short span of time that is your life on pursuits that you neither give a damn about nor like doing. They might brand you as a bad person, and they’re probably right, but you’re free.
My parting words on the subject are that I hope those reading will examine their darkest thoughts, their shadows, that part of you that you reject yet can never be rid off, that surfaces every time someone annoys you. Embrace it, for only in confronting the duality of your nature will you ever truly discover who you are, instead of living a half-life trying to be something you know you’re not.
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'To the clean are all things clean' — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): 'The world itself is a filthy monster.' For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen! TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true! There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra |
At 2:25 PM,
Dude ... deep , really deep.
I mean ... DUDE
Profoundly inspiring post .. makes me want to grow horns and bat wings too ...