Purging Evil
Once upon a time, there was half a boy curious to know what it meant to be whole. He felt wrong — as if a fundamental part of him was missing. When all of his friends cried, he looked with rational amusement. When all his friends loved, he couldn’t see past their immediate reactions. To this boy; empathy can be packaged into neat descriptive words, but never felt. The boy sees people around him who are whole: they could intuitively “feel” what he could not.
This boy was ambitious and wanted to become the leader of his tribe. He knew this was impossible because a leader feels — and he could not. So he devised strategies to compensate. When others sympathized, he would teach himself elaborate muscle memories, tonalities, and dialogue patterns to mirror sorrow. When others needed guidance, he used the same method to inspire them by self-portraying as a character worthy to lead. He impersonated the hero that he needed to be, and he was great at it. He was the playwright, and the world became his stage. He manipulated the act to suit his needs. It became fun.
At the beginning, he would write himself as the protagonist. He was the centre of everyone’s attention and he loved it. But soon, he realized that normal protagonists aren’t like him. Protagonists do not rig the rules and cheat to win. They do not use people for their own benefit. Nor do they “dominate” and eliminate their enemies. The more he thought about it, the more that he realized… he was no protagonist.
He is a villain.
People despise him. He uses his friends, family, and loved ones. He is waste, filth, and should be shunned. Every day, he obtains outwardly success in exchange for gashing inwardly wounds. The pleasures of victory covers the deep down sorrow that he feels from simply being alive. But like all things, these pleasures too are not permanent. So he craves more. More victories, more achievements, more admirations, more, more, and more. He would cry and pray for it to end — because his only drive came from the pain of inadequacy. He is not enough, and no matter what he tries, the pain continues…
And so the play moves on. Two years of agony. Two years of torment. He would wake up every morning dreaming nightmares of his ill deeds. He would sleep every night wishing it would all end.
But the show must go on, he tells himself, and so he continues to act. Deep down, he realizes that he was no protagonist — because the protagonist “feels“, and he does not. He wants to “feel” so badly that it hurts. He is half alive and half dead — because he is only one half of his truest potential. The wounded boy is attached to living — yet wants to die. He wants the cure.
The Cure
At the end of the day, isn’t that what all boys want? A cure. Something to wipe their wombs, bandage their gashes, and nurse them back to health? Something that can everlastingly quench their desire to be free from their torment? A cure is what all boys want — it is also what humanity needs.
Too many times have wars been fought, innocent lives slaughtered, families displaced, corporate greed fostered, and inhuman acts inspired — all by a wounded boy crying for his cure. He is a savage because he is in so — much — pain.
And so he acts to relieve his pain, but all this action leaves him with deeper gashes. He soon gains a sadistic pleasure for self-punishment, self-pity, and self-loath — because he believes that this is the only way to be momentarily relieved of his pain. The boy doesn’t need more drugs, violence, money, gaming, gambling, or sex.
He needs love.
He needs a human’s touch.
He needs to believe again — that humanity is maybe alright. That humanity may be that cure that he so badly wanted. That maybe… After all his pain, suffering, and sorrow — the cure was right in front of him all along. He was just in too much agony to see it.
The cure that he so craves; he already possesses. He just needed to look deep down inside. Deeper than he has ever gone before, and ever deeper than that. He needs to take a good look at himself — imperfections and all — and truly fall in love for the first time. All of his past love affairs was an expression of his own insecurities. He was never in love before. He can not love the world before first loving himself. He needs to see that he is worthy, that he is valued, and that he IS love. Because maybe then, he would also realize that he doesn’t need to cry anymore. Because crying is for boys. And a man of LOVE becomes… well… just that… A MAN.
And so, the story of the wounded boy ends. The boy dies, and in its place, a man is born.
