Super Hero 101: "HOW TO FIGHT EVIL"
When I was a child I figured out that I could do things. Magical things. Read people, tarot cards, see, hear and feel the dead, communicate with elementals and much more. I was 12 years old when I decided to explore these gifts. That was when, I decided to fight evil. As a child, I saw evil as a singular tangible force that opposed everything good. Like criminals, black magicians and anything and everything that opposed my idea of what good was. I used to think fighting evil was like the comic books I used to read, punching and kicking the bad guys or dropping spells on those dastardly black magicians and all would be made right and good saves the day. I look back at my innocence and naiveté and smile with both love and sadness for how little my child self knew in those days. How much my mother struggled to keep the darkness of the world at bay to keep my childhood and innocence intact. Thanks, mama. I know it was almost an impossible task.
Now, as an adult I understand that good and evil are subjective polarities. They are subjective interpretations of how we preceive the world and the actions and reactions with in it. Are people who don't worship god like you do, evil? Are people evil because they don't worship god at all? Are people good because they go to church every sunday? Are people good if they follow the law even though in following the law, they destroy innocent lives? Nothing in this world is black and white. Nothing in this world is as simple as good and evil. Nothing in this world is as it seems and quite possibly, it never was.
In this world, one's hero is another person's villain and one's villain another person's hero. In the end it doesn't really matter because in the fullness of time, we collectively destroy, outgrow or forget both. This is because in the fullness of time, good evolves into evil and evil evolves into good. This cycle or process is part of our very evolution and can take decades, centuries or even a couple of millennia and is often a very painful process.
Evil is not tangible. It isn't something you can fight with old fashioned fisticuffs or Kung Fu kicks. Evil, true evil, is amorohous. It is hate, superiority, greed, racism, weaponized ignorance, bigotry, corruption, sociopathy, the dehumanization and demonization of others that don't agree, look or act like you, its the weaponization of fear, hate and religion to subjugate the already disenfranchised. Evil is the persecution of the innocent and the villianization of innocents by the very ones doing the persecution. Its the justification of murder and use of the law to terrorize, abuse and kill those the law swore to protect. Evil is Gestapo-esque organizations rounding up people for deportation for being in a country illegally even though this country was and currently is, stolen land and our very Government from its very inception, is the true and original illegal interloper. Not everyone who disagrees with you is your enemy or evil nor is everyone who agrees with you, your friend or good. It's not that simple. Nothing has ever been that simple. Nothing.
So, how do you fight an amorphous and indefinite evolutionary principle that all things must go through or experience in order to evolve and grow? How do you fight against evil? You study it. You study how it was created, how it manifested, you investigate it's roots, what nurtures it, you study it's appeal to others who may advocate, tolerate, are complicit with it and those who embrace it, you study how it corrupts. Evil is much like a virus in that it follows the same behavioral patterns a virus does. Evil will infiltrate, infect, mulitply and corrupt. When fighting any kind of evil follow this simple formula: filtration (filtering), disinfection (cleaning), decreasing (reducing) and purging (removing and purifying). This formula can be implemented in the fight against perceived evil by perceiving/using this formula as a concept, principle and/or process that can be modified for any medium or platform. You can even upgrade your current strategies of fighting evil by retrofitting them with this simple formula.
Always remember, truly fighting evil starts inside us. By looking inside our selves and being honest about who we are, our justifications, our passions, our motives, our agendas, our fears and acknowledging what we're doing to others and why. Once we've fought the evil inside ourselves, we will have the experience and power to fight the complicated and intangible evil in the world.
