In the face of emptiness and despair, of darkness and horrible deeds how long would you last? If your humanity dies, are you still human, are you still yourself, are YOU still in control? How far are you willing to go to survive: would you kill the very essence of being human for your flesh to continue to exist?
These can all be summarised with: “Is it worth living if you lost your humanity?“. Various films and even computer games touch on this topic and these are all visual representations of this question, echoing unanswered.
The mind’s decay is the bane of the man, as he can use it to create(1) or destroy(2). Solitude is the worst enemy and can lead to developing the feeling that everyone is against you and there is really nobody there to trust forever and ever(3). And if for each one of us the world is ourselves, our mind and what our eyes can see, what our skin can feel, why should there be life when you, the Universe, fall to a dot of light, lost within absolute darkness, and shimmer once into nothingness, to be no more(4)?
Sudden and excruciating stress or terror can also affect the brain, but instead of that slow churning into a mushy paste, some links simply snap under the intense pressure and the chains holding the inner beast fall loose. The inner beast instantly overpowers the Master, subdues intelligence, vocabulary and charm and uses them to lure and capture so he can then feed on fear, blood and pain. It breaks, it opens up and tortures, insensible to pleas and cries for mercy, to either coldly observe and satisfy that morbid curiosity of understanding life, or to just take joy in having power over another(5). It can also choose to perfidiously preserve and enhance elegance in order to achieve and enjoy those refined pleasures: fine drinks and exquisite dishes, high-class sex – all these defended from being taken away with cold blood and no sense of pity or remorse – a true Devil Reincarnate(6).
But most falls within the inner and darker self are spirals heading down, down, down which can be rushed when being stuck in a closed environment. Locked in a nuclear bunker with a few others, limited food and water, poor light, no way out and very little to do, having a torched world only meters above your head, what should be considered to be “normal” behaviour, what should someone do(7)? To follow the law and order of dead men and destroyed nations? To carefully rationalize the remaining food and water? To do all these in order to achieve what: to live peacefully for a few more months and die quietly, like good “citizens”? Is it not then to be expected for many to find this unacceptable, to rebel against this fate, even if that means grabbing a crowbar and smashing everything around, akin to a gorilla in a cage: futile to slam into the iron bars, but nonetheless the only thing left to do...? Many will not want to pass with grace, but scream their curses and make the loudest noise before the End! Some will want to do it all, the unthinkable: to eat their full, to rape and even kill(8). “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out!”(9)
Maybe though something can be saved when the mind is slowly going away: the present. How better can someone protect his loved ones and himself from a future that only promises death and horrors, than to freeze the present by killing them and then committing suicide(10)? When there is no escape and no one else to free from pain and torture except yourself, the doubts and second thoughts of taking your own life quiet to less than a whisper, and quiet still till they are heard no more(11).
What are the steps though, in identifying that “something is wrong”? Is the hearing of the crawling of insectzzz an indicator of being already over the edge, unchangeably mad(12)? Or is the chasing after decade old dreams and starring for hours at the screen of a turned off tv proof that you lost it(13)? Or maybe when you need to tattoo, at the end of the day, what you have achieved and who should you be weary of(14)? Or is it when you simply do not know who you are anymore, dream-reality merging into one(15)?
However, of all these, the worst still is being sane in a world that has already gone mad. A world full of humans who enslave and hunt each other for meat, no longer rational, just living carcasses of themselves(16). How long till the sane becomes insane? When the mind is devoid of hope and waves of despair endlessly crash its shores it is only a matter of time till succumbing(17). “Stare for too long into the abyss and the abyss will stare back”(18). Too sad and simple is to accept such collapse to happen, to have ones humanity at the brink of the abyss and look within to only hear a hollow whisper that calls for resignation: “Where once was Light, now Darkness falls; where once was love, love is no more; you are lost, you can never go home. So in the end, you’ll be what you will be, and you will weep when you face the end alone(19)”.
Even if all seems dark, there is still hope: a spark, an ember(20), which burns deep in every one of us, impossible to extinguish. However, keeping the flame alight is the most difficult and important task(21), as it may be terrible to let the flame wither to a smoldering spark and leave the inner world fall into darkness... Reigniting the fire later on may only bring to full light the horrifying self: the monster you became(22).
Footnotes:
- Bringing life to a dead island: The greening of the Ascension Island: http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Catling2012_GreenMountainSubmitted.pdf
- The nuclear bombs, the hydrogen bomb, the nerve gas, viruses and biologic attacks, all the wars; inventing new ways to kill, to maim.
- Lisa, in “Girl Interrupted” (1999)
- As it can be seen in “Pandorum” (2009) and “Event Horizon” (1997), where one member of the crew becomes fixed on the idea that he needs to destroy the ship and everyone on board.
- “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) – the skin collector.
- Hannibal Lector from the Hannibal films.
- The situation in “The Divide” (2011).
- As in “10 Cloverfield”.
- The words in the last episode (ep 13) of “I, Claudius” (A wonderful representation of emperor Augustus’ reign, as well as Caligula and Claudius’ reigns. Available on youtube, but a VPN may be needed as it cannot be viewed with IP from UK and maybe other countries too).
- In “The Shining” (1980), Jack Torrance’s was obsessed by the idea of preserving the values of the traditional family and was so upset with his perceived “corruption” of his family and the possibility of them becoming entitled that he gradually came to the conclusion that he should kill them both: his wife and son. However, in “The Road” (2009), Woman is the one who insists they should kill themselves and explains that it is not enough for her to just survive and would like to “take with her” the boy.
- In “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), the five sisters see no other escape from their bleak world than to end it through hanging, placing the head in the oven, slitting the wrists, taking a pills overdose and inhaling toxic levels of carbon monoxide. In room “1408” (2007) Mike Enslin decides to “check out” from the inescapable room by setting it on fire with himself locked inside.
- Gary Oldman in “Leon the Professional” (1994): the scene before the raid of Matilda’s apartment.
- As Sara Goldfarb in “Requiem for a Dream” (2000).
- As the main character in Memento (2000).
- As “The Machinist” (2004).
- As in so many films: “The Colony” (2013), “The Road” (2009), just to name a few.
- “Inception” (2010): the scene with the crumbling blocks; or the scene showing Cobb’s face after being brought in front of an aged Saito: not knowing himself what he “should keep alive” / what he shouldn’t forget, but always to remember...
- Portrayed so well in the masterpiece computer game “Dark Souls”. Also, in “Dante’s Inferno” game there seem to be an endless row of attempts in pulling out Dante’s last grain of hope and bring him to his knees: lost, resigned and empty.
- Lord of the Rings – “Gollum’s Song”.
- The intro video with the furtive pigmy from Dark Souls 1 illustrates this very well: the spark of Humanity.
- In “The Road”, Man tells his son that he has to never give up and to keep “carrying the fire”. In the end, this is what the Boy asks the Veteran before deciding to follow him –are you carrying the fire?
- Shutter Island (2010): “What would be worse: to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”