“Our integrity sells for so little but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, and within that inch….”- Valerie, V for Vendetta.
Its a weird life we live, and when I say this I mean the life we live, not the life we pretend we live. The life that only we know about, where moral justifications or personal integrity or principles or ethics or values are not defined. A life which is merely a delusion in this little head of ours. A life where everything is justified to our own personal narcissistic believes. Where actions are perceived without judgment. A life somewhere in our conscience, where all our demonic thoughts reside, where our vices dwell.
Some people cannot distinguish between the two lives, the conscience and the concealment. They end up being serial killers, or rapists, or sociopaths. The lines distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, morality from sinfulness are diminished and they end up being another version of themselves. A version that had long been hidden since. Maybe it would’ve been some mental trauma, an unforeseen tragedy, a sad heartbreak that may have lead the concealment give way to the conscience.
But then concealment, in its own way is extremely necessary. Forging our morals, our character is in fact the only thing that stands in the way of us being something else entirely. Something we’re not. MONSTERS! I read this quote somewhere, “We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us.” And if the only thing preventing me from being one, is to be someone I’m not, then maybe I’m ready to do that. For we, as humans, are capable of doing vicious things. Nuclear attacks, wars, homicides, RAPES! Its curious how small the measure of a life could be in our heads.
There was this movie I was watching the other day, ‘No one killed Jessica’, where a quote from the sister(Played by the formidable Vidya Balan) of the victim Jessica in an interview said, “The man killed my sister because uske paas usse dene ke liye ek drink nahi tha (She didn’t have a drink to give to the guy.) The man who in his egoistic rage thought her life was cheaper than a glass of drink of his.” The movie was based on a true story, the murder case of a girl named Jessica Lal, who was shot by the son of a politician, Manu Sharma in a party where she was the celebrity bar tender, when she refused to hand him a drink when the bar was closed. So devoured was he in his egoistic rage that he shot the girl on the spot.
And its not just one life, millions have been victim to the inhumanity of humans. Our history has been written over the dead carcasses of the many victims of wars and battles, it sings of the heroes who won many wars, killed many soldiers and raped many women.
Its always easy to give in to our conscience, what is difficult is to conceal. To endure. To battle the monsters inside of us. To know that the only thing that distinguishes us from them is the one thing we’re all made up of. It is the very last inch of us. Our Humanity.
The Storyteller 