Continuation of my last post, although not really much of one. I haven't lived a day where I didn't think about it, and other things happened since then that have made me really wonder about how I view my own life and life in general.
I don't know what to think anymore.
My friends and I, not being immune to the inclinations of massive weebs or capable of ignoring internet trends, all played Undertale last month and all of us came away from it with different things. Something in the game really bothered me though, and it is very relevant to how I feel about life and have felt about it for years.
I don't expect everyone who reads this to have played the game but for the sake of brevity and not giving away spoilers, there were times in it where I, as in me, and not the ideal person I was trying to be in the game, would have fought and killed. The first instance was when I tried mercy repeatedly and it did not work. If someone didn't tell me that you can spare everyone in the game, I would have gone that route because I am a person who believes in trying to talk, trying to avoid fighting - but I will do hat is necessary to preserve myself, the people I care about, or the things that I believe in.
This is the first time I have ever wondered if doing what's necessary and doing what's right should be conflicting goals. I have felt that they were for years, and thinking on it further, there have been many instances where I have gone against my conscience because it was less practical and less objective to be kind or passive or compassionate to the greater good.
A frightening thing about this is that I believe this is necessary. Destroying paradise to save it may be the only alternative. Killing someone to spare them pain seems practical and logical, but that doesn't mean I think it's right. I kill mosquitoes to preserve my life and the lives of the people in my house, that doesn't mean I think it's right. I dislike taking life at all because we barely understand how it's given in the first place and to us it is a precious thing, and I am disturbed by and even ashamed of killing even insects. But I have, and I will. My grim resolve has always been a point of pride for me.
I have, as of late, been disturbed by the notion that this grim resolve brings me very close to others who have justified horrible acts like genocide and war in the name of the greater good. Maybe they were disturbed by them but that doesn't excuse the outcome of their decisions. I do not know if I would be the same way. I don't want to hurt people without a good reason, But if I thought I had one, I would.
I don't think I am a cruel person, but I am a violent one. I believe fighting is the only way to solve some problems and I might be too quick to jump into it sometimes. I wonder how many times I could've spared a life by trying to relocate something in my house instead of killing it. Maybe I would be the kind of person that would ignore a passive route in favor of a violent one just because it didn't occur to me to try it. I hope I never have to make these kinds of decisions. I am not the kind of person that should be in control of peoples' lives. I don't know if I ever will be. Fighting is a huge part of my life's experience, I don't know if the habit can be broken or the experience turned to good, or if I would end up hurting a lot of people for nothing.
The second instance is far more ambiguous to me. I believe I might be lost in terms of being a pacifist, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing - I might have to find out one day - but this was something I never felt resolved on. Again, without spoilers, I believe in mercy killing - or I did. I'm not so sure anymore. A very large part of my last post was based on this belief that sometimes it is both right and necessary to kill something or someone quickly to save it from suffering.
My definition of suffering.
My definition might not be the right one and I am no longer comfortable with assuming that it is.
This was the point that I moved from talking about the game with one of my friends to life experiences. I once killed a bee with a dismembered wing when I was 12 by stomping on it as hard as I could to make its death as quick as possible. I then cried for nearly an hour. I believed I was saving it, and in that instance, she agreed, but that was not the only instance. Spiders can survive without their legs but I have robbed them of that chance as well under the belief that I was saving them from suffering. I comforted myself with this.
And now I am disgusted by it, and I have felt loss and shame at several instances where I have done this all over again because of it.
My friend told me a story. She used to raise butterflies when she had the time. She had a newly emerged butterfly drying, but it dried too close to the tank edge and its wing was crippled from it. It couldn't fly.
She asked me what I would have done.
I didn't have an answer at first, but I said I would have arranged everything in the tank so that it could get to everything by walking, and I would have made sure I cared for it, because if I crippled something, I would be responsible for its care. I would owe it a good life. I would be at fault for taking its life away.
I am a terribly conceited person.
She told me what she did. She let it out every day. She helped it to balance and practice flapping. She encouraged it to fly, and it wanted to learn. It wanted to overcome its obstacle.
She believed in it. I would not have.
I treat broken animals, or people, or nations, like invalids. I do not believe in them.
I claim to value life, yet for the longest time, I dismissed its greatest virtue.
In this regard, and it is quite substantial to me, I am a vile and stupid human being.
And an extremely ungrateful one.
I was born dead. More specifically, unable to breathe. I inherited all the problems of my family, but this was the most immediate. I was revived through surgery and kept on a breathing machine for some days. (I think the time quoted to me was 2 weeks but I am not sure.)
The nurses often worried about me because I would punch the helmet so hard that it would fall off and I had a grip like a vice.
When I got older I could barely see at all. I had cataract surgery to give me the chance to see and not go blind. My eyesight isn't perfect but I do have it.
I am a visual artist even though I have sight impairment. I overcome my unique obstacles with raw determination.
I was not a lingual kid. I had to try multiple times to be able to write the letter B and tell it apart from a 3. I struggled with communicating my feelings to others for most of my life. It was only in my late teenage years and early adulthood that I really, really put in the effort to articulate, and it was a struggle for the first 3 years to say what I meant. (I used to just make abstract art, I originally drew because pictures made more sense to me than words, but words no longer sufficed to tell people what was wrong, or what hurt, or why.)
I challenge anyone to tell me that I am not articulate now. I still have a lot of difficulty speaking and I know that, but the proof is in my blog posts. I can do this because I tried.
I have robbed that chance from others.
Determination is life's virtue. Sometimes a deformed child dies because nature is complex and adversarial, but that does not mean they are doomed. Sometimes a maimed animal dies because life is non-partial, but that does not give anyone the right to decide they cannot survive prematurely.
Yes, they might suffer, and that does bother me. I do not want things to suffer.
But they have the right to try.
Almost 25 years ago a medical staff believed in me enough to give me a chance. I have not returned the favor to anything else.
I don't know if I can ever make up for this.
But my friend believes in me. She believes that anyone can recover and thrive as long as they are alive.
Maybe I should adopt this belief.
I don't know what I believe.
I don't know what to think anymore.
Except that, if nothing else, I do believe in life's virtue.
I wonder if I can ever do anything to help those suffering or disadvantaged to fly.
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