The price of freedom, revisited.

Perhaps I should have realized sooner, but I now know that not everyone can bear the price of freedom. With hindsight now I understand why, during my schooling days when motivational talks for students were a frequent thing, that those motivators would give me queer looks, mock and scorn me when they ask “what do you dream of?” and I replied “infinite freedom.”

Credit where it is due, I guess they did alright for realizing that they themselves are unworthy of freedom because they are unable to bear such a price. But for them to think that everyone else is as unworthy as them, well, that is a bit condescending of them, if not also egocentric.

Despite all that’s said I have no problems with people embracing freedom. In fact, as long as no one else in hurt in the process, I can encourage nothing more than I do freedom. Emphasis on ‘no one else’ because I also believe masochists are free to hurt themselves or deprive themselves of their own freedom if it makes them happy, as long as no one else is hurt. At the risk of stating the obvious, when I say hurt I mean physically and mentally, of course. No doubt there are sadomasochistic people who wish the entire world is as depraved as they are as they relentlessly attempt to introduce such depravity to their family and friends, but I would personally prefer that they keep their practices within their own depraved community, for everyone else is also free to live free and wholesome lives.

But I digress. The fact remains that everyone should be free and despite that, not many can bear the burden of being free. I’ll admit it’s not something I understand, but I will hypothesize that it has something to do with our violent animal nature, that some feel or believe that there is no point of freedom if they are not allowed to be agents of pain and suffering. To quote Immanuel Kant, “Peace amongst men living alongside one another is not a natural state. On the contrary, the natural state of man is that of war. War manifested not only by open hostilities, but also by the constant threat of hostility. Peace, therefore, is a state that must be established by law.”

This brings me to an old problem, one that I face every now and again. One so old that I have just decided not to mention it again; some things get old very quickly, especially unpleasant ones. The only difference is now I have just thought of establishing a bit of non-reporting to myself. Intentional ignorance, if you will.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: The word ignorance is a greatly misused word, mainly by dim-witted people. Ignorance is described as being unaware or ill-informed, which differs from stupid which means someone with a slow brain. This needs to be mentioned because I’ve had enough of my ignorant pillock of a father calling everyone who doesn’t think as he does an ‘ignorant’ person. This is unfair to other intelligent but otherwise uninformed people, and is giving idiots too much credit.

In Exile; the Heart of the Sword.

You can always trust the Japanese to not fuck up their own legacy. Despite the rearranged and rushed story and non-main characters not staying true to the original, Rurouni Kenshin was a good movie. Great theme song by One OK Rock, nicely directed by Keishi Otomo and of course, excellent, almost perfect portrayal by Takeru Satoh.

This is probably why I so much prefer Japanese tributes rather than their American sorry excuse of an equivalent. Take Street Fighter, Dragon Ball and Tekken for examples. Hollywood has half the right idea when they think that the original will only appeal to cult audiences, which consists of people who played the original games or watched the original anime, so to sell to everyone else, the whole movie is changed into - guess what? - hot babes and their boobies. That's something that will appeal to even the most uncultured barbarian (or rather, that kind of appeal is greater the less cultured and the more barbaric a person is). Most ironically, it gets hard to think that those 'hot babes' are hot because, well, when a whole movie is dedicated to proving that single point, expectations tend to get quite high. In this proper live action adaptation, however, I cannot help but notice so much beauty in simplicity; in the normal everyday person. But what do I know? I am, after all, part of the cultured cult.

Thing is, what they probably don't realize is that their 'cult audience' is much larger than they anticipate, and of course, what's the point of using those titles if you're not going to appeal to the fans of the original? Not only is the essence of the original lost, fans who turn up to watch are disgusted and people who know nothing about the original get the wrong idea.

From a different perspective, you could say that the Americans are very good at unconsciously making parodies. Not sure if that can ever be viewed as a compliment, no matter how many different perspectives we view it from. Pretty much like calling a fool a person who is proud of his/her decision to not think; softening the blow or making it more obvious?

Incidentally, it may be a little late for this but I finally realized where the title ‘Heart of Sword’ came from. Silly me for not realizing earlier.

And with that, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: For y'all who missed the clickable bit up there, here it is, 'The Beginning' by 'One OK Rock'.