Reminded

When I watched The Dark Knight (earlier today), I was reminded very much of Batman Begins at one specific line, but it needs to be put into context, so below I will quote the two crucial conversations.

Alfred Pennyworth: When I was in Burma, a long time ago, my friends and I were working for the local Government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders, bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. We were asked to take care of the problem, so we started looking for the stones. But after six months, we couldn't find anyone who had traded with him. One day I found a child playing with a ruby as big as a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing the stones away.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Bruce Wayne: That man in Burma, did you ever catch him?
Alfred Pennyworth: Oh yes.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Alfred Pennyworth: We burned the forest.

The last is the line which reminded me of Batman Begins. Particularly, I was reminded of Ra's Al Ghul and the "League of Shadows," the organization desiring to eradicate the corrupt city of Gotham:

Ra's Al Ghul: Gotham's time has come. Like Constantinople or Rome before it the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we've performed for centuries. Gotham... must be destroyed.

Ra's al Ghul: When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.

And this idea of burning down a city or a forest to root out a problem reminded me of the story I have now just written about (but which I thought about much before I wrote). I will have to decide where I stand on this matter before I can call that work finished. In the meantime, I'll simply find myself bewildered and amused that Alfred and Ra's al Ghul share (or, perhaps, viewed) this view that it is sometimes necessary to gut a system to remove a problem from it.

A Dour Observation

With everyone claiming to have issues, and with more and more people having minor issues, society grows numb to them, and ignores its ailments. What happens when someone truly suffers? No one pays any heed until it grows too severe to repair, until that person snaps.

I write this because I am beginning the planning of a novel about such a person: a person whose symptoms are minor and not worth society's close attention until he allows himself to be carried away to the point of committing a series of brutal murders.

The observation depicts at least the society present in Southern California that has grown in the past few decades.

If this is published anytime in the near future, I expect the novel to fail miserably. There are a few reasons: I am no astonishing writer; teachers and others have said I am more critical of my own work than others are of it, but there's no sense in deluding oneself with undeserved praise; few appreciate when others criticize them and this novel is at least in part a criticism of society, even if I tell myself that it is merely meant to be read for recreation.

What I quote next is not meant to be read as praise for myself. In truth, it's become an inspiration to me. The quote is from a friend of mine to me, edited for grammatical errors (at least to some extent since there are run-ons I decided to maintain) and spelling errors (as it was communicated through instant messenger, where formalities are far less necessary).

I don't think it's the things you're good at, necessarily, but what you do to make them good that stand out. Like, I think that, especially in your writing (seeing as how that's really all I've had a chance to see), you really put your heart and soul into it and that's what makes it great because it's true, because you let yourself be vulnerable. And that's how you express yourself. And I think it's wonderful and it makes me think. I'm getting a little overboard, but sometimes it makes me want to cry a little bit too because the honesty that you portray in your poems is so pure that it, like, it sort of makes me think, like, "What am I trying to be? Who am I fooling?" And it makes me think about how I haven't written a poem in ages and how it might be because I'm just lying to myself. And hey-- if you faked all that, great job! Yeah, but seriously, I didn't make that up-- like that's kind of what took me so long to read your poems: 'Cause I'd start and I'd be like, "Okay, this is too much right now," and go back later because it just kind of shows off what I'm missing out on by protecting myself by putting up a big wall. And everything you do, even in your writing, it's just like a big mirror on the reader saying, "You can't hide from it anymore," and it's so freaking powerful.

If I ever have a chance to speak about my "work" (or works rather, since I have the depressing suspicion that the two will be quite separate), I intend to thank my friend for this. I took the last piece to heart during the past few years, and I have sought to polish that mirror in hopes that its reflection will be clear enough to capture all the vile imperfections. Of course, a mirror is worthless without light. People must be able to see a mirror before they can loathe the image they see within. And, if they cannot despise that visage captured inside, they cannot seek to reform it.

Writing about bleak realities is worthless unless you praise them or revile them. Expression (or communication) is a means of change: to further* or reverse polarities. There is no sense in "people talking without speaking," or "people hearing without listening," as Simon and Garfunkel sung in their own social commentary, The Sound of Silence.

*Maintaining a present balance or status is a version of furthering a polarity in that it furthers it through the axis of time.