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I was reading a review on a new - remake - of an old western, “The Magnificent Seven,” with Denzel Washington. I look forward to the movie after seeing the trailer but I digress. In the article one of the actors was so intent on being in it and having more f-words and colorful language it reminded me of how all of us are actually just actors in our own play.
Very few humans actually get to be and experience the lives to which they aspire, like looking up to a particular person and their heroic lives and aspiring to reach that level in your own life. When you don’t get or don’t want to expose and experience the actual obstacles, etc. you then create a movie or image of yourself playing at being, say a “Warrior.”
The reason that special forces types are few in number is because that role in life requires a very special type of mind-state and mind-set with certain psychological and physical qualities that simply put most cannot achieve.
Actors in movies are simply being paid well to “Play parts,” that inspire us in an offset sorta way with emotionally driven dramatizations that trigger that inner desire to belong to something special and unique putting themselves above the so-called common man. They create symbols and such that represent those dreams but without actually having to go out there and, “Earn It.”
In the karate and martial arts world we play act being warriors, fighters and combat professionals when most of us have not actually taken steps to be a true warrior, fighter and/or combat veteran. It is like that is way beyond their capabilities or way beyond their willingness to step up to the plate and swing away and they still have that need to feel like they have gone the distance so they create a story, a movie and the images, symbols and perceptions of being something they are not.
In the karate and martial arts world we use terms and phrases the speak to this un-realized dream of being something we are not and can never be and then assign importance to that with such terms and phrases. Like taking karate, kobudo and martial arts to become warriors. Yet, not a one has dealt with real violence or the reality of combat as a military professional. It is like stepping up to the door at high altitude ready to jump then stepping back into the safety of the aircraft refusing to take that first step.
Karate-ka and martial artists who lay claim to teaching and being experts at their discipline as well as self-defense experts then never experience conflict and violence or violent conflict even in a strictly social monkey dance way. Their claim to fame is based on school-yard scuffles at school.
We act out both what is reality with reinvention to meet egoistic emotional needs and we act out our dreams through creation of reality to meet our egoistic emotional needs. We play army with our toy guns thinking that we have the ability and the strength and the intestinal fortitude to stand up and face an adversary or enemy who is capable of doing us grave bodily harm or death.
Like I said, the reason special operations professionals tend to be few and special is because they have at least one personality trait that sets them way above the common man, that desire and ability to take that step from dream to reality then they just (borrow from Nike), “Do it!”
Life in not a movie or story, it is full of conflict and all sorts of violence. Life is messy but wonderful and it takes a certain courage and intestinal fortitude to live it and leave the stories for the children. If everyone could do it, they would and then it would just be another part of life but that is seldom true.
Karate and martial arts of most modern sources is not reality but a play, a movie and a drama for television to fill those voids or spaces when the mind prattles on so that they don’t have to think of the harder parts of reality, they get to go out to the local playground and pretend. When the reality of conflict and violence hit, that play acting may or may not do the trick. If lucky the one time they encounter the predatory they will survive but then again as luck would have it, maybe not.
It is just lucky that more modern life can be lived without ever having to deal with the higher levels of conflict and violence. The one aspect of our society that would still put us in positions where we would have to face it was removed - the military draft. I feel that military service and haviing to serve in combat are the two major disciplines that now missing from our society has put our way of life in danger like the Ancient Roman empire, where it that great empire today?
It take courage and fortitude to take the step from playing karate and martial arts to actually living, breathing and applying it in the daily mess we call life. Like any discipline, can we make that first step?
The further away we place ourselves from the reality of human existence the more we need to act and play at being that which we no longer are, and that is such a shame because evolution has not and never will move humans away from the true natures. We are a type of animal species and nature made us this way to survive. As we fall farther and farther away from our true nature we lose the coping skills and abilities to survive. One day, the lessor species will assume the dominant role of our planet, someday.
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