I spent three nights from 10pm-1am, watching a trilogy on HK TV, called “20th Century Boys”. A supremely interesting trilogy done by the Japanese, with a cast of over 300 people.
I found it interesting how one man, besotted by the events of his youth, set motion to a chain of events in order to make true a childhood story where his one and only friend wrote as a game. Through the course of over 45 years, this one man rises to become the Messiah to the world (through some parlour tricks), not through enlightenment, but through his weight of worthlessness and self-hatred. The movie features a time travel simulator taking the protagonist back into the past, and reveals the Messiah in high school, asking himself as he stands over the edge of the school building roof, looking over the empty world, whether the world/humanity needs him or not. Ironically, the many years of bloodstained history later, from a desolate and lonely apartment, he stands over the world as the new Messiah and saw that there was nothing left for the humanity he created.
This character is the embodiment of hopelessness, and shows how our despair can fuel one man into changing the world. His character reflects a deep dark part in all of us, a part of us where we often turn to in order to question and reflect on our own self worth and what negative impact we could potentially have on others. It’s a place where people warn you not to go, because of the negative impact it will have on you and on others. I perceive it as a comfortable trap, nestling you with addictive memories, allowing you to bathe in them and let them fill you with intentions that are ” so innocently” dark and evil.
Ultimately, despite all warning from our friends, all of us end up going there when we feel most insecure. Like the womb, it deprives you of your senses and detaches you (metaphorically, but to a certain degree, also physically and mentally), nestles you in only what sustains you, and it allows you to reach into your core and pull out those threads of darkness and weave it to your needs. Once we are done, we step out from this dark place, but as a toll, we always leave some “innocent/pure” part of ourselves behind for our dark part to feed upon and transform into its own. Whether this is fundamentally a form of equilibrium which allows our mind to function “normally” is another philosophical and metaphorical monologue. But I find the reflection of our inner turmoils is what ultimately brings us to our order.
Ordo ab chao
