“What does that symbol do on your body armor?”... Colonel
“A peace symbol, Sir!”.... Private Joker (war correspondent)
“Where did you get it?”
“I don't remember, Sir!”
“What is written on your helmet?”
“Born to Kill, Sir”
“Born to kill on your helmet and you wear a peace button... what is that supposed to mean... some sort of joke!!!?”... Colonel asks angrily
“No Sir!”... Joker
“What does it supposed to mean???”
“I don't know, Sir!”
“You don't know very much... Do you??.....You better to ask your ass or I will get a giant shit out of you !!!”
“Yes Sir!!!”
“You answer my question or you will be standing tall before the men”
“I think, I was suggesting something about duality of men, Sir!”
“What???”
“The duality of men, the Yin Yang thing, Sir!!!”
Colonel pauses for a while...appears to be thinking and then continues asking,
“Whose side are you, son???”
“Our side, Sir!”
“Do you love your country?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“How about getting into the program...Why don't you jump in the program for the big win”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Son, all I ask my marines is to obey my orders with the word of God...We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside of every gook is an American trying to get out... it is hard boiled world, Son...We try to keep our hate until this peace craze is over”...
“Aye Aye, Sir!”
and then both salute each other...
This is my favorite dialogue from a scene of the 1987 movie, “Metal Jacket”... (I understand that the language of dialogue is not appropriate but it is also a fact that is the language of the world's most popular entertainment giant; Hollywood and expect that the main message is not sacrificed for the language ). May be it is the best depiction of yin yang thing by any writer I know...What I like most is the composition of the symbols; Peace medallion (as representative of conscious mind) and "Born to Kill" (as representative of unconscious mind)... Everyone has its own way of looking at works of arts and personally, I look at compositions in them, just like a poet compose words to express his/her inner-self . Even arranging things in a manner that speak something meaningful is a work of art to me. I usually do this to objects around me and I call it "composition". When I moved to the new apartment, it had three paintings in it (of course printed ones and I was thinking "to compose" them).. The first one has a giant peace symbol with faces of people from around the world in the background and a sentence in the bottom saying, “Give peace a chance”... The second one is Van Gogh's “starry night” and third one is an abstract art with the title, “les bites dela mer” … So, according to my "composition" these three paintings/portraits together speak about human condition. Humans want peace but they are scared from each other (doesn't matter if they are weak or strong; Just look at expenditures and the conflict hotpots; they speak by themselves) and are apathetic to majority that are out of the sphere of their interests (like abstract arts that are usually disconnected with reality)...
At unconscious level, humans might not be very different from other animals and it is appears that conscious mind have evolved to make our behaviors agreeable as docile humans and it is why, we see there are contradictions between talks and actions on peace, empathy and human rights. They say actions speak louder than words but perhaps not. Despite of contradictions between words and actions, men have learned to rationalize the contradictions so artfully that, they don't feel it much. Human contradictions appear in everything that humans have a hand in it. Look at this statement for example, “God has created man on His image”... If humans by nature are full of contradictions and humans are presumably an image of God then, you know what I mean (It is a clear contradictions but humans have learned to make a way out; wherever they fail to rationalize they take refuge into beliefs. Believing means accepting something as "self-evident truth" that can't be questioned)... Frankly, despite of my respects for all religions, recently it has become hard for me to rationalize the clear contradictions that I observe. Let's take the value of human life in the Muslim world for example. From one side we frequently hear that, “the murder of a single human being is like murder of whole humanity” and other side we see planned campaigns of text messaging and social media messages in Quetta city of Pakistan quoting, “Kill the infidels, wherever you find them” and then we see vegetable vendors, coal miners, passengers and shop keepers are targeted killed all over the city. It looks to me that, we are all like the Private Joker in the “Metal Jacket” movie wearing peace medallions on our armor jackets and “born to kill” statement on our helmets and are scared of every other human beings that does not belong to our groups. The same is true about Human Rights cries. Wherever, the interests of the international community lies, they rush for “humanitarian interference” and where there is not much of interests then, they become apathetic. Everyone might draw their own conclusions from human paradoxes and my conclusion is that, for living it is required to stand to the world, otherwise face the barbarism of hardliners/fundamentalists/extremists (name doesn't matter; simply most scared people who see their safety in destruction of others) and apathy of moderates.
“Where did you get it?”
“I don't remember, Sir!”
“What is written on your helmet?”
“Born to Kill, Sir”
“Born to kill on your helmet and you wear a peace button... what is that supposed to mean... some sort of joke!!!?”... Colonel asks angrily
“No Sir!”... Joker
“What does it supposed to mean???”
“I don't know, Sir!”
“You don't know very much... Do you??.....You better to ask your ass or I will get a giant shit out of you !!!”
“Yes Sir!!!”
“You answer my question or you will be standing tall before the men”
“I think, I was suggesting something about duality of men, Sir!”
“What???”
“The duality of men, the Yin Yang thing, Sir!!!”
Colonel pauses for a while...appears to be thinking and then continues asking,
“Whose side are you, son???”
“Our side, Sir!”
“Do you love your country?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“How about getting into the program...Why don't you jump in the program for the big win”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Son, all I ask my marines is to obey my orders with the word of God...We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside of every gook is an American trying to get out... it is hard boiled world, Son...We try to keep our hate until this peace craze is over”...
“Aye Aye, Sir!”
and then both salute each other...
At unconscious level, humans might not be very different from other animals and it is appears that conscious mind have evolved to make our behaviors agreeable as docile humans and it is why, we see there are contradictions between talks and actions on peace, empathy and human rights. They say actions speak louder than words but perhaps not. Despite of contradictions between words and actions, men have learned to rationalize the contradictions so artfully that, they don't feel it much. Human contradictions appear in everything that humans have a hand in it. Look at this statement for example, “God has created man on His image”... If humans by nature are full of contradictions and humans are presumably an image of God then, you know what I mean (It is a clear contradictions but humans have learned to make a way out; wherever they fail to rationalize they take refuge into beliefs. Believing means accepting something as "self-evident truth" that can't be questioned)... Frankly, despite of my respects for all religions, recently it has become hard for me to rationalize the clear contradictions that I observe. Let's take the value of human life in the Muslim world for example. From one side we frequently hear that, “the murder of a single human being is like murder of whole humanity” and other side we see planned campaigns of text messaging and social media messages in Quetta city of Pakistan quoting, “Kill the infidels, wherever you find them” and then we see vegetable vendors, coal miners, passengers and shop keepers are targeted killed all over the city. It looks to me that, we are all like the Private Joker in the “Metal Jacket” movie wearing peace medallions on our armor jackets and “born to kill” statement on our helmets and are scared of every other human beings that does not belong to our groups. The same is true about Human Rights cries. Wherever, the interests of the international community lies, they rush for “humanitarian interference” and where there is not much of interests then, they become apathetic. Everyone might draw their own conclusions from human paradoxes and my conclusion is that, for living it is required to stand to the world, otherwise face the barbarism of hardliners/fundamentalists/extremists (name doesn't matter; simply most scared people who see their safety in destruction of others) and apathy of moderates.
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