Searching for a Soul.
Eyes are the windows to the soul….
But what if you have no soul, what if the darkness within is so all-consuming as to dwarf all else in its magnitude? What would you see? Would you even care that you were soulless, or would you wander for eternity, searching the endless sands for the thing you missed?
I’ve met two men in my life who scared me, men who each stared at me with a gaze so haunting as to chill me deep within. I am not known as one to be easily shaken, but these men left me without doubt of what would happen if we were to clash – and all from a simple look. Both men were fighters of different backgrounds: one middle-aged, enormously muscled, trained in all manner of martial arts and self defense; the other short, wrinkled, and cold.
It was like each one saw every part of me with those eyes, every flaw and weakness, and to stand before either would see me destroyed within moments. This was something I knew.
Were these men, two individuals who had never met and likely never would, aware of their power, or were they merely so far down a road of violence that it had finally consumed them completely? I’ll never know. But the memory of those eyes helps keep me strong when I yearn to turn back to what I once was, because I have felt something akin to what they suffered pulse through me once or twice, and it terrified me with its intensity.
How could these men live with such emptiness inside? Each day rising without emotion merely to go through the actions of a day in a world they cared nothing about?
There are people like this out there, and if I have met two in my short span, imagine how many more tread the streets you walk each day. You send those you love out into a world capable of allowing such creatures to exist, not knowing if they will cross paths with someone who might choose to….
I try not to think about it.
The one thing that consoles me is the balance of the universe. For each Yin there is a Yang. And so for each of these soulless people there must be one who is more than just average, who has light shining so brightly from within them as to steady out the vacuum left by those without souls. We all know they exist out there, but all we see are the ones who are recognized throughout the world. What about the rest?
The mere fact humanity can possess either end of this vast spectrum within them gives rise to another question: Is this proof of a soul? Does the mere fact I have met such men as these prove to me that by them missing something that such a thing actually does exist? Or is it merely the mind’s reaction to a life encapsulated by violence and pain? Is it a protective measure to allow the body to continue on by closing off the one thing that makes life worth living?
These are things that keep me awake at times.
I do not know the answers yet, but a life searching for such a thing could surely not be a waste, could it?
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Words From the Past to Inspire Us Into the Future
The video below is Charlie Chaplin giving the final speech in a movie called The Great Dictator, produced over seventy years ago. I watched it recently and was amazed at how much things haven’t changed in seven decades.
I originally posted this clip on Facebook, but something about it inspired me as few things do. I am not an activist, rarely outspoken against the governments of the world, my universe is generally more self-contained. But sometimes an external element triggers a vision within me, a belief in what mankind can truly achieve if properly motivated, and this clip did exactly that. Cynicism fills us at times, and we are often led to believe all is lost, but I hold hope for humanity, that before the finale there will be a revelation of spirit such as has never been seen before.
I’m not talking about religion, though its focal points are generally aimed in the right direction. Rather I am arguing that man will eventually do what’s right for no other reason than it is right. Selfishness will be cast aside and the greed of many will be overwhelmed by the need to do good in the face of all adversity.
Perhaps I am naive. There’s no way mankind could do something of such magnitude when self-indulgence is so embedded into our civilization, when a larger television is more important than the life of a child. And yet the fact a man who portrayed such a bumbling fool throughout his many screen roles could deliver such a blisteringly powerful speech of hope makes me remember what people are capable of, and my faith blooms again.
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People Love To Hate People
Mistrust. Fear. Ignorance.
These all play their part in humanity’s battle to despise those who are different. For whatever reason it might be, people simply seem drawn to the urge of hating each other.
Is this the test of life?
Maybe this is the true reason for living, for us to overcome the obstacles thrown at us by a world so consumed with selfishness and move beyond it. Whatever it is, the human race is not there by a long way, but a couple of recent events in my own life certainly made me sit up and hope we can get there.
I’m once more working part-time as a bouncer in a nightclub, drawn back by the allure of hanging out with friends who are more like family. I was hauled again into a world which feels more like a home to me than anything else I have even known, faced with the potential of injury or even death each and every night I go into work, but sometimes it really feels worth the risk.
Firstly, I need to explain the clientele of the club I’m working at. It’s an Australian club and is frequented predominantly by dark people who live in the area; Aboriginals, Torres Strait Islanders, Papua New Guineans, Samoans, Cook Islanders, Maoris, and so on.
I am white.
From the outside of this scenario, most white folks would see this as a veritable powder keg set to blow, but truth be known the crowd we have in this place are possibly the best I have ever had to deal with in my seventeen years of security. The amount of respect shown to myself and the other security is phenomenal, possibly due to the amount we deal out. These folks are there to have a good time, we’re there to make sure they have a good time, and so we all get along most of the time.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still the occasional issue, but when we intervene we are usually listened to. I had a massive fight break out on the weekend just passed when a 320 pound Samoan went crazy on a couple of 220 pound Aboriginal guys. I had to grab the Samoan and drag him away, and initially he rounded on me to fight, but as soon as he recognized me he relaxed and threw his arms around me, apologizing profusely before walking out peacefully with his tree-trunk-like arm slung over my shoulders. Nobody in the crowd had intervened when we stepped in to break up the fight and kick out the guys involved, neither his friends nor the friends of the two other guys whom my two co-workers peacefully escorted out.
For those of you with no concept of nightclub life (most of you, I’m guessing), this kind of scenario is mind-boggling. To have three white guys throw out three dark guys in the midst of a crowd of around 200 other dark guys and girls without argument or further drama is unheard of, but this is seriously what happened, and it’s usually the way things pan out.
Why don’t they hate us? Because they know and respect us, just as we know and respect them. As such the color of our skin becomes irrelevant and we simply become the guys they see every weekend who don’t treat them differently because they’re black. These are some of the most genuine people I have ever known and the color of their skin or their race disappears leaving us free to only worry about the real idiots.
That’s one stereotype broken, but what about religion?
People hate other people in ignorance, whether through race, color or religion. I would like to think I never fell into such bigoted behavior, but I am human and as such I may have done so without realizing it.
When surrounded by such overwhelming media attention after the attacks on September 11th, 2001 and the subsequent War on Terror, the world looked for some faceless enemy to hate. Osama Bin Laden wasn’t enough; it had to be a larger evil. With the enemies faced being predominantly Muslims, instantly the hatred level is going to go up, even on a sub-conscious level.
I watched the events of that day live, staring unbelievingly at the television screen as the images were beamed live around the world. The second plane crashing into the tower and its subsequent collapse will forever be burned into my mind, as I’m sure it will be for many others. I wanted someone to blame, someone to hate, someone to exact some form of revenge upon and when war was declared upon terrorism I rejoiced. Osama Bin Laden was revealed as the mastermind and Al Qaeda was his army.
But soon things changed, and Muslims somehow became the focus. While they did not become the enemy, they still emerged as the ones to be feared. Iraq was invaded in an attempt to stamp out the evil of terror and the public feared people who believed in something different to them and did different things to what they did. This religion which has been around for thousands of years suddenly seemed so much more dangerous, and I wondered how such a thing could come to pass that nothing had ever been explained to us sooner about the threat all around us. I was drawn in with everyone else and, though I would not say I hated Muslims in the slightest, I think I did begin to mistrust their actions due to my ignorance and can understand how that mistrust could have easily tipped over into full-blown hatred for those closer to the tragedy.
During research for a recent book, however, I had to do a lot of study about the religion of Islam in order to make the story more realistic. After countless hours of reading through explanatory texts as well as historical tomes including translated extracts from the Koran, I finally comprehended something about these people I had mistrusted and possibly blamed, and it certainly opened my eyes to a culture I had never before known apart from what the media had told me. What I discovered was a religion not so unrelated to my own, embracing many of the same core values I valued, and yet due to the extreme actions of a few assholes who claim they’re murdering in the name of God, this entire belief system is now smeared perhaps beyond repair.
Would such a thing be done to my religion if I lived in a predominantly Islamic state and Christian assholes murdered thousands of their people? Would I be seen as absolute scum for believing what I believe?
What I’m trying to say is it isn’t the religion that makes the person, any more than it’s the color of their skin; it’s their core values which truly comprises what people are. Assholes are assholes, regardless of their race, skin color or the religion they follow. So maybe we should simply focus all that negative energy on the assholes of the world and not those associated with them by coincidence, otherwise one day you might find yourself being the one who is hated instead.
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