protection

as a semi-initiate to the world of japanese manga and anime, i have found that one of the most ubiquitous and recurrent themes is that of protection. what invariably motivates the protagonist to the next level of power, time and time again, is the desire to protect the (significantly weaker) friends and loved ones around him.

i sometimes feel disappointed and bitter when the people i know seem so much more concerned about pursuing their happinesses here while not paying too much attention to the problems raging around them. deep down, i know this bitterness is not any good, and there are several reasons for this. one i mentioned in an earlier post - that being optimistic rather than pessimistic tends just to be more effective a strategy for eliciting behavioral change. the second reason i will outline below:

what is the point of helping people meet their basic needs? i don't think it is so that people can be kept alive, because i don't think life is defined by the physiological processes that our basic needs satisfy. human life is the sum total of our experiences, our dreams and aspirations, our relationships, the truth, beauty, and goodness that we see in the world around us. we don't live so we can put more bread in our mouths tomorrow, we live so we can know the joys of success and the pains of suffering, so we can grow into the people we want to be, so we can fall in love.

so i have no reason to feel bitter. they are truly living, and that is a wonderful, beautiful thing that everyone everywhere should be able to do. and this, fundamentally, is what i really am trying to protect. all of the basic needs stuff - they are but the requisite threads that we need to weave the tapestry of our lives.