Zombie Blog # 021018: Becoming Monsters

R U Becoming a Zombie? 

There is this fascinating QUESTION frequently found in ZOMBIE-apocalypse storytelling about the degradation of moral character in the face of horrific circumstances. This question asks how we might change when the world around us changes to the worst we can imagine.

In this apocalyptic narrative the characters and we with them discover that the greater threat was not the horror of death incarnate, but the horror of human nature...

And there is this infectious observation that:              

PEOPLE BECOME MONSTERS WITHIN         WHILE FIGHTING MONSTERS WITHOUT 

This idea is especially compelling when considering Zombies, because Zombies symbolically represent our sublimated horror of death, imagined in its most uglified and terrible form:

AN UN-CONSCIOUS,

EVER-HUNGERING,

NEVER-SATIATED,

NEVER-CEASING,

PUTREFYING DIS_EASE 

REACHING MINDLESSLY FORWARD 

WITH DECAYING FINGERS and FIERCE TEETH,

A HORRIFYING FORCE EVER-SEEKING TO CONVERT LIFE INTO ITSELF...

THE LIVING FIGHT 

...this embodied plague, as it spreads through paths of the world, many dying to it, joining it, with grotesque drama.

Others escape being eaten alive and survive untouched by the physical infection, but permanently infected by a psychological one.  

The plague infects the world,  the world infects the people.

To survive such a thing the people must evolve, the soul must evolve...

But what will they evolve into? 

What will we become?

This is a hard question. 

Some living in the world of Zombie-plague end-times seek to humanize themselves by living with moral boundaries. But these ideals are challenged by the reality of apocalyptic circumstances. 

Ferocity above all other human virtues is the most obvious and common choice. 

The survivors become fighters. And perhaps thieves, liars and murderers.. in seeking to survive the are led to violence.  They find they must kill, but also find that enacting violence on others kills part of themselves.

Whatever level of humanity previously observed, they find themselves in varying degrees dehumanized, when their own ferocity becomes incarnate. They observe the practical conclusion that

How they react to the world is inextricably connected to their psychological evolution. 

This observation so consistently observable, within and without of the Zombie narrative, that i would submit (a) we can validly refer to it as a "law of our nature" and (b) the internet is itself a clear, active matrix for this law. 

      This "law" can be imperfectly expressed as:                                                                    WE GRADUALLY BECOME WHAT WE CONSISTENTLY FEEL.       

       Which works with the (clunkily expressed) principle:                                                    WHAT WE FEEL BECOMES STRONGER WHEN EXPRESSED.  

Example:

If we are consistently angry we gradually become a generally angry person. And when we express the feeling of anger in its most intense form, with yelling, insults, disrespect and belittling, violence it intensifies the experience of the emotion. 

WE LITERALLY FEEL THESE AS VIBRATIONS

--NO? 

 Shaking mad. Trembling with fear. When we do this in fight mode we simultaneously tighten our jaws, stress our shoulders, tension our gut. 

And it feels...

ALIVE! (AKA Awesome)

Because intense "fighting" makes you feel alive! (Insert AKA as above). 

But over time those expressions of aggression can build themselves into us, build aches, pains and ulcers into our bodies and minds, along with sensitivities, tendencies and habits which exemplify a very practical

"Law Of Becoming"...

-When we consistently think angry thoughts our Mind grows angry                           -When we consistently think peaceful thoughts our Minds---Well,

U already know.

So... here's a

TRUE CONFESSION:

I have written some venomous stuff on the internet when feeling outraged and frustrated, and have seen myself express attitudes and beliefs, which in my right mind i would condemn--

And i enjoyed it.

Verbally insulting irrational, anti-free speech, neo-racists SJW's and trying to learn & spread awareness about the sociopolitical darkness currently trying to cover us, emotionally stimulated me and rewarded me via my brain's biochemistry. 

But as I gave in to the desire to lash out at the monsters i identified, i noticed myself becoming more monstrous. I noticed myself saying things i which i was, upon reflection, ashamed of...smh

(Perhaps this is what gives Zombies such popular cultural status--because un-like any other monster, they are undeniably us.) 

But we are in a Battle... Of this I AM certain

So i pondered the question:

How do we express anger, perhaps righteous anger and not become infected by death-inducing emotions?

I dont know the whole answer. But part of my answer reminds me of the fantastic saying:                                

                              She believes in "BRUTAL HONESTY"                                                                                     but puts more focus on the "brutal" than the "honest"  (wink, wink)

To correct this we would refocus and revaluate the good we cherish as itself more important than any negative energy we feel because its threatened or violated. 

                              "Keep our eyes on the prize" as it were.

And we can ask AWARENESS to act as a requested guard to our personal expressions.  That's a nice useful bit there. But we can only perform that which our mental state supports. So, put simply, but meant oh-so profoundly,                    

Ultimately we must master ourselves... 

With this mastery we may be able to fight zombies without becoming zombies, fight the infected without becoming infected. Without it, it seems very likely we will become some form of the monsters we despise.