I watched the movie Braveheart the other day. I enjoy watching Mel Gibson do just about anything but this movie has always been a problem for me. My sweet Beau likes the movie and asked for it on DVD from his family for Christmas and they obliged. I was reluctant to watch. It is one of the few Mel movies I have not watched over and over. It�s not the violence that bothers me as much as the over all tone. You see where others see the Hero I see the horror that is humanity. It sickens me to realize how incredibly icky humans are. It is not that humans can be icky, it is that they are icky, all of them, including me. We are wired for ickyness. That is why truly good people stand out so much, they are so very rare.

As I sat on the couch curled into a little ball and cried my dear Love couldn�t seem to understand. He was disturbed by my emotional reaction and even considered turning the movie off at one point but I know he didn�t quite understand. I�m not sure I completely understand, all I know is I see the people around the hero and the human condition then and now having not changed all that much.

I live in the luckiest country in the world. I will not say we are the best, nor do I kid myself into believing we have any moral superiority over the rest of the world (no matter how much Dubya would like me to buy in). I see humans as a vile creature. Not because I expect them to be better than animals but because they fancy themselves so. Humans operate on the same level as animals; survival is at the top of the list of priorities. If anyone claims different they are lying. We are all attempting to survive. Everything we do is done to advance our survival. Even those who do good works often do them to maintain a moral emotional superiority that is necessary to their emotional survival. Our position in society (so very important for our survival) is often dependent on the overall picture of you as a �good� person.

I am coming to believe that every action we take is in response to the primordial need to survive. All this would allow me to forgive humans except for the one fatal flaw. They fancy themselves above the level of instinct. They consider themselves a �thinking� �moral� creature. Though any one person at any one point in their lives may commit a truly selfless act the majority of ones life is grunting along at the same level as any other �mindless� animal. We are simply able to rationalize our animal better. That is why we are icky, because we are convinced we are not. We point at the extremes in our society and say �He is evil� and �He is good� but it is never that simple. It is about survival and the timid will never inherit the earth, it will always be the strong that hold the power.

The ages come and go and when I have returned to the dust there will be others to take my place, no memory will remain of the reality of now (even in the minds of those who experienced it, colored as events are by our emotional attachments) and fantasy will replace it in the form of �history�. This is why I make no attempt at change. I can not fight the wiring. You can bully people to an illusion of civility but we will always be one catastrophe away from the barbarians. And the good and decent will always be destroyed because they are a reminder of all we are not, and can never hope to be.

We eviscerate that which gets in the way of our survival.

And I get so very tired.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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