Since today is Star Wars Day and everyone I know is having a fantastic time writing, “May the 4th be with you” on Facebook and Twitter, I thought I’d ask a question that’s been troubling me for weeks now:
When are we going to deal with the troubling fact that Luke Skywalker is one of the most successful and best respected mass killers in history?
Not only does Skywalker kill tens of thousands — in hand-to-hand combat and by blowing up two iterations of the Death Star — but he’s celebrated as a galatic hero for doing it (to say nothing of that fact that Earth-bound movie-goers consistently name him as an exemplar of heroism decade after decade).
I understand that the Empire is an unquestionable evil and that bringing an end to Palpatine’s reign of totalitarian terror is laudable, but the body count that Skywalker racks up along the way surely must give us pause.
When that Death Star explodes and thousands of lives are lost, and then the very next scene shows Skywalker and his friends cheering and laughing, isn’t our moral compass taken for an uncomfortable spin? How can we explain these celebrations to our children?
I hate this glass box. I sit here naked and alone, with only the image of my Juliet to comfort me. Comfort…No, torture. She sits in her own glass prison, staring at me. There is nothing else but darkness surrounding us. She sits on her stool, as do I.
I remember the first night I met her. I was so alone, so heartbroken. And there she was, dancing the night away. I knew nothing of her family till later that evening, but the moment our eyes locked I knew I would not care if she was the Devil Incarnate. I had to have her forever.
I remember the first time we made love. The feeling of being connected to someone that truly understood me. The way she breathed when we embraced was all I ever wanted to know. Her scent was more intoxicating than any drink that had graced my lips. I knew, in my heart of hearts, she felt the same.
Our families would never let us be together. The bloodshed and animosity was too great. Blood was on my hands by the time we died. We were going to be together forever. Then I saw her body on the cold slab in her family tomb. I thought for sure she was dead. I could think of nothing else to do but to be with her.
When I awoke in this place, this darkness, she was not here. I thought for sure she had ascended to the Heavens. I knew this was Hell when my eyes opened. There is a chill in this place, an emptiness. It is truly void of God. Then the light came upon this glass box. I felt a presence behind me.
“She will be here soon, my dear Romeo,” the voice said to me. I felt the creature’s hand grace my shoulder. It was a cold I had never felt. It froze my body still. When it released me, there was no where I could go. I thought of Juliet and I felt a tear fall down my face.
“Romeo?” I heard Juliet say. I turned towards her voice and ran towards it. Then the cold hand grasped me by my arms. I tried to fight them as I heard Juliet scream for me. I screamed for her till I was hoarse. I heard the demons laughing at us.
“Don’t touch me!” Juliet violently yelled. “No! Stop!” I heard the ripping of clothes from where she was. Then, without warning, my clothes were ripped as well. Then I was thrown in this box and she was thrown in hers.
At first, we tried to break free. I would slam against the glass with all my might. She would place herself against the glass, as if trying to feel any piece of me that she could. As the years past, I finally stopped trying.
Now all I do is try to get her to look at me. We would at least have the image of each other, but it was too much for her. I cannot say when, nor can I say how long, it was when she stopped looking at me. I cannot bring myself to look away. I love her so much. I love her more than God himself. I do not need anything except for her to look at me again.
“Please look at me,” I said to her. “Look at me!” Is it because of the glass? Can she not hear me? I do not remember if she can.
“What is the point?” Juliet answers.
“We’re together Juliet. I may not be able to hold you, but just to see your eyes and hear your voice is enough.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I am in this place because of you!” she screams. She finally looks at me, but it is with an anger I have never seen from her.
“But…You were dead when I found you.”
“I faked my death, I faked it to be with you! And on a whim, you take your own life! I had nothing without you! I had to do the same!”
“What?”
“Then I end up here, in this place, and I can see you and can’t touch you. I can’t feel your lips against mine! Nothing! All I can see you do is struggle to be with me as I do the same. And I’ve prayed to God ever since, hoping that one of my whispers would be carried to him. But you don’t even try. You don’t have God in your heart. You never have.”
“I love you Juliet! All I want is you, that’s all I need!”
“Don’t you hear yourself? Romeo, did you ever love me? Or was it lust and passion that drove you?”
“I have never felt this for anyone before you!”
“And the others you met?”
“They were nothing to you! You are my guiding star! You are the air that I breathe!”
“I cannot help but wonder if you had said the same to others before me. You were the first man that I had lied with, yet you know so much of what to do.”
“Please, do not doubt me! I am yours forever!”
“And you shall have me forever, but only in sight. But I will turn my heart to God, for he may forgive me for my passions.” Juliet says to me. Then she sits down on her stool and makes the sign of the cross across her body. She leans forward and begins to pray.
I slam myself against the glass once more. I scream her name. I cannot have our last conversation be this way. I must have her! I take my stool and slam it against the glass. The impact is so hard the stool breaks into splinters. I sit down on the cold ground and press my hand against the glass.
“Juliet…”
The past few days, there has been a wave of social awareness sweeping the media, particularly thanks to the Kony2012 Campaign. I think it is a wonderful thing that we as a country have once again come together for a cause. However, I implore you (if you are willing to read the rest of this post) to please hear me out on the matter.
As someone that has been aware of Invisible Children for a number of years, I am well aware of what the company stands for. They have, in the past couple of days, released financial statements, mission statements, and responses to critics. They are working to become verified by the BBB, which is a great start to further validating the work that they do. No child should have to be tortured and forced to do the atrocities that have occurred.
However, Invisible Children is a bit behind, even they acknowledge this fact. They know that Kony is no longer in Uganda, but continue to fund the Ugandan Government (who are also guilty of human rights violations, which they too acknowledge to know) because they are the ones that are most educated on the LRA. If we ignore the LRA and where it has spread to, it could very well be another terrorist organization that the world has to become weary of. Not that they aren’t now.
Another key point, and the point of this post as a whole is the problem that I have with most of these campaigns. They are not slow burns, they are massive forest fires of awareness. And while, in theory, this may seem like the best thing to do, it isn’t. It burns out fast and the next thing we know, we’re talking about reality TV all over again.
I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. What happened to Syria? What happened to Katrina? Do you think that New Orleans has recovered from the devastation of that hurricane? Because they haven’t. Do you think the Syrian revolution is over? Far from it, yet it isn’t getting the air play it needs to stay alive and keep the government under the constant gaze of global media conglomerates. They both became old news.
There are still volunteer groups that need our help for rebuilding the 9th ward. There are tens of thousands of residents that are still not back home. Some might never come back. And what does the American population say? Most of them say, “Well, they shouldn’t live there if that’s how the weather is.” As a result, they work on a shoestring budget, hoping and praying at least one TV show from some place like the Travel Channel will have a 5 minute piece on them during their tour of New Orleans, somewhere in between the exploitative use of Voodoo, food porn, and haunted houses.
We can still help these causes and we can use this momentum from the Kony Campaign to put things that should be in the news back in the news. Don’t let this be a fad. And if you don’t agree with Kony2012, or Invisible Children, do yourself a favor and put out there what you need people to hear: AIDS research, other human rights violations, the reconstruction of New Orleans or Haiti or countless other places, the war with drug cartels in Mexico, ending the wars in the Middle East, and so on. Don’t just be a troll on the internet complaining about how it’s bullshit. All that does it make you bullshit too. And if this post does anything, I hope it inspires you to write more about what you need to write about and be heard. Don’t worry, I’m putting my money where my mouth is.
Wow. Just wow.
It is the writers, thinkers, and philosophers who will define this generation wholeheartedly just as it has been for countless others. They must expose the mess that has been put in front of us, not just as a whole, but in every facet like an archeologist. Each piece of the puzzle is important to create the image of chaos lying in front of us. People in their mid 20s to 30s living at home and out of work, despite an education that was promised to give us stable careers in our field. Love and marriage are put to the wayside in favor of quick fleeting moments of pleasure in consequential situations we make believe to be fate or divine intervention in an otherwise godless world. That deep down we are special, but no one can see it. There are those among us willing to bet everything on a dream, only to watch it crumble. Even dreams of a home, marriage, children, and a steady income (less of a dream and more of a complacent compromise, let’s face it, we’re not all astronauts and ballerinas) must go to the wayside for a period of poverty and personal break down.
We have no purpose, but not because we forego the concept of it, rather because our purpose is not yet defined. If we must make a purpose, then it must be to clean and purge the ideals of past generations and the inevitable mistakes that were brought about because of those ideals. If we must be janitors and construction workers, then why can’t we build from nothing? Why can we not clean everything? Is it that impossible of a task if there are almost 6 billion of us with no hope of any other choice? Crisis brings about pain and suffering, but it also brings a true change. Not a campaign promise or pipe dream, but honest to God change.
But it is we, the writers of documents and books and blog posts, who must bring about this idea and instill confidence within those unwilling to think about the possibilities of even worse situations. Those that are fed up with the news cycle and constant bickering of adults twice, sometimes thrice our age. We have a purpose beyond escapism, and that is serving as a mirror to reflect society back at itself, so that it may be as disgusted as we are in the sheer ugliness of it. Art without purpose is nothing more than blank sheets of paper, just tinder for the fire already burning in our lives.
I won a short story competition at my school a few months ago with this, hope everyone likes it!
It’s the silence that gets me every time. They sit in the back of the van in total silence. I see the girls sitting there behind the wire mesh separating me from them through my rear-view mirror. Some look straight ahead, others look down at the ground, and occasionally one or two look up to the ceiling of the van and mumble silent prayers with only the hint of sound coming from their lips.
The girls are dressed in casual attire. Jeans, tank-tops and t-shirts in assorted colors and shades. Their hair ranging from blonde to black; their eyes ranging from blue to green to brown. All so different, coming from different countries, yet somehow they all ended up in the back of this van and I am Charon bringing them over the river Styx and into Hell. And yet, I drive.
These women weren’t arrested, nor were they forced into this position. No, they were manipulated by people much worse than me. It’s easy for me to give myself some moral leeway in the situation, I’m just the driver. I’m the middleman. Hell, I could even say that these girls were just stupid. They all want to come over here to the U.S. It’s Oz, that mystical land at the end of the rainbow where dreams become reality and prayers are answered. God’s country. Ha, if it was up to God I’d be struck with lightning and the van doors would open. No, they get a housing project in the city. God has nothing to do with it.
The chains are starting to bother me. The way they slam against the metal under their feet sounds like a gong being shot with nail guns. The sudden smack of impact with the scratch afterwards. I turn on the radio to the classic rock station and The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix is on. I turn it up loud to drown it out. I let myself have a moment to escape the grind of the drive and get lost in the music.
“And the wind, it cries, Mary,” I sing softly before the solo. I start to sway my head back and forth and tap my steering wheel with the beat of the song. The stop-and-go traffic, the construction, it all starts to go away. I look at the picture I have of my daughter on my dash. She’s ten now. Her blonde hair, green eyes, it reminds me of her mother. She’s got my nose though. She’s cute as a button. I put it back on the dash and look up into the rear-view mirror to check on the girls in the back. That’s when I notice the one in the middle of the left bench of the van. Damn if she doesn’t look like my daughter. I try to get lost in the music again, but the song ends. Then this girl does what no one ever did. She looks at me through the rear-view mirror. We lock eyes. I see my little Jennifer in her eyes.
“What are you looking at?” I ask her. I put on that tough tone and she looks back down. If it wasn’t for the money I’d turn back. That moral sensibility is something I’ve had to stuff down, put away for the sake of my family. I need the money, my daughter needs it. I can’t get a job that pays well, not with a felony on my record. This is the only thing that can pay the bills and give me some money for her college fund. It’s legit on the books, these guys are good. As far as anyone knows, I deliver construction materials. No, I can’t turn back. I’m dead without this.
I turn into the alley behind the housing project and park, waiting for one of the shepherds to come out to make the transfer. The girls all look at the floor now. They know what’s going to happen, I think. I roll down my window and light a cigarette. I take one big drag and I exhale. I close my eyes as Bad Moon Rising by CCR comes on. I keep telling myself that I’m delivering pizza, flowers, construction material, anything to keep my mind off of that one in the back that looks like Jennifer.
I peek at my driver side mirror and see a man in a brown leather jacket. His long pony tail and goatee make him look like some Russian Bond villain. But I can’t remember if I’ve seen him before. He walks up to me.
“Hey man, how’s it going?” He asks me, and I notice that his American accent is a little too good.
“Good, you?” I ask after taking a drag of my cigarette. I’ve got to play it cool.
“Good, you got the girls?” He asks casually. That’s when I know I’m screwed. We never say that. I quick flick the cigarette and try to put the car in drive, but before I know it I have a Glock 17 in the side of my head and two police cars blocking me in.
They pull me out of the car and read me Miranda like gospel. I’ve heard it all before. But right now, all I can see is my daughter’s picture on the dashboard. I try to take it in, the final moments I’ll see her smile. But I can’t help to see the irony; I can only see her through glass.
“Do you understand these rights?” The undercover cop asks me.
“Yes sir,” I say. I see them bring off the girls one by one out of the back. It’s funny, they’re being treated like criminals, like me. They probably think they’re prostitutes. I get slammed into the back of the car.
“Can you get my daughter’s picture for me?” I ask the cop. He says nothing. The door slams shut, and they drive.
I came across the subject of genetic manipulation by reading a couple of stories about it, and it got me thinking. The fact that we as a society have even been able to develop technology to identify genes is something I thought would not come to fruition till after I was much older. It’s like the idea of the flying car or space travel, I just didn’t think it could happen. It got me thinking on how we view ourselves as a race, and more importantly how we view our relationship with technology.
Our mastery of the digital era has been surprising to say the least. One thing about our race that seems to be a general positive is our seemingly inherent ability to adapt and change with the times we find ourselves in both physically (in terms of living conditions, climate differences and changes, and so on) and mentally (in terms of restructuring our own thought process as well as development of new ideas and the engagement with them). Despite this, however, we are constantly trying to find ways to improve ourselves and somehow surpass (or maybe even prefect in a way) traditional evolution.
Now while this attitude has some good aspects, it can have some set backs. In the next ten years, it is estimated that we will have the technology to have affordable DNA testing for everyone. That estimation is probably off and I have no doubt we will have this sooner than later. We will be able to identify different genetic mutations that could have a profound effect on how we treat diseases like Cancer, AIDS, and even emotional and mental disorders. All of these diseases are currently treated with high cost methods, including various forms of medications that have a growing list of side effects. This is where I have a problem with genetic manipulation, since I cannot see a high cost structure going away so easily.
To say the medical industry has at least some form of motivation in terms of currency acquisition would be to say that any given blonde in Santa Barbara, CA has one pair of shoes. Why disseminate a product that could help billions and eliminate a disease when a company could simply keep someone alive and make billions. Like Chris Rock so famously said, “Ain’t no money in the cure, the money’s in the medicine…that’s how a drug dealer makes his money, on the comeback.” Is it much different with technology? Not really.
Technological advancement has been transferred to an a-la-carte system. Advancement, while it appears is for all of society, is not. We have to personally invest in technology. I know I didn’t receive a tablet in the mail when they came out, or a smart phone, or even a laptop for that matter. You want to be advanced enough to live in the present age? You better have deep pockets. I understand that there needs to be a model for profit, people need to make money. It is also very prevalent that this still creates a divide between those than can afford and those cannot. In a way, it is reverting back to a class system that is underneath the surface of simple consumerism.
Now apply this idea of advancing technology to the human body. We already have, in a sense. The one thing our generation has contributed the most to society has been being used as guinea pigs for new limb replacement technology, robotic limbs and new experimental surgeries. When the war is finally over, civilians can benefit from our brother’s and sister’s pain and suffering. And these men and women with artificial limbs that far surpass the technology available not even five years ago, how will they integrate back into society? How will they live normal lives? Will the military and medical community support them, or will they have to support themselves as they come to grips with a physical advancement that society may or may not be prepared for.
All the technology within these limbs (which are essentially prototype models, as with all technology meant to replicate reality, it inevitably becomes more realistic till it surpasses the idea of illusion or replacement and is indistinguishable from the real thing, except maybe by strength or versatility, but cosmetically these limbs will be very hard to distinguish from the real thing) all cost an exorbitant amount of money. How will civilians be able to afford this over time? Since military technology is eventually disseminated to the general population over time (this includes computers, the internet, and so on), this question might be one we ask our insurance agent in the next ten to fifteen years.
Now if the human body in the physical sense is hardware, the DNA is software. We are able to control the inner workings of computers and create programs that two or three years ago we may not have been able to conceive. DNA testing will lead to manipulation, which is already being experimented with now. Those who allow their DNA to be changed, once the technology is deemed “safe” (meaning no immediate complications or obvious effects, but with all treatments there will be some complications or side effects that will develop over time), will be immune to diseases that would be considered a death sentence today.
If this technology is disseminated to the public as a whole, and by that I mean the global society, we would have no disease. If there is no disease, then there is no part of the economy that is dedicated to the treatment, or at least suppression, of disease. A billion dollar industry could disappear overnight. This will never happen. However, the higher classes, the rich elites around the globe, could have the luxury of buying a cure for everything but death. Who knows, maybe even death could be cured if the price is right.
This would give the higher classes unbelievable advantages that would be no longer just applied socially, but at an evolutionary level. The rich would eventually become genetically superior to the likes of those in more unfortunate situations. This would further complicate philosophical questions like, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be me? If I can reprogram me down to my DNA, how much am I worth? And the final question about worth will be the easiest to answer, since a price tag will be right in the brochure in the FAQ section. This section will be right after the pictures of the loving, disease-free family and the young, beautiful man and woman dancing to music as lights flash across them like shooting stars. The people we could never afford to be; perfect.
Any technology developed for human advancement always seems like a good idea. And I am not completely against the idea. Maybe my idea of what will happen will be wrong and many more people will be helped than I anticipate. On the other hand, it would be rash of me to completely forgo a historical link between the medical community and those who would turn it into a business. I have no doubt doctors have the best of intentions when developing revolutionary technology to help us cope with an ever-changing world. But trying to advance as quickly as our information age has will have consequences. When the human being is compared to a machine, even in an allegory, we lose an inherent part of our nature, that key human element. All our problems with disease may not be as simple as recoding human software, for we were not built on the assembly lines of a clean-room factory. Our origins are much more complex and rich than that of a cell phone.
