They Game We Should’ve Never Played
A few years ago I came across a movie from Central Africa and decided to give it a look since movies from that part of the world are not precisely easy to find.
I was curious, but not to discover a new type of Cinematography but rather I was curious about grasping a thing or two
about their culture from the film.
In retrospect, I’m really glad that pressed Play on that day, because somewhere along the moving scenes I ended up with a life lesson I hold to this day.
I call it “The Parable of the Two Brothers”.
Today I want to share it with you, and I think that many of you could relate.
Children of a Lesser God
The movie unfolds in a stone broke forsaken place where suffering was the norm and happiness looked like a distant memory, and that memory was fading.
A confused tourist walks around and becomes increasingly shocked by the frightening levels of poverty striking the land and its occupants.
Soon the Englishman strikes a friendship with a young local and confesses to him that as a foreigner, he just can’t bring himself to understand how come a nation with such immense richness in natural resources becomes home to such tremendous levels of poverty.
The local boy smiles and tells him - paraphrasing from memory - “Look my friend, I will tell you a story that may sound a joke at first, but it may very well explain why we live under so much poverty and corruption and how we’ve arrived to this situation.”
The Parable of the Two Brothers
There were two brothers walking around the desert for several hours, tired and dehydrated they started searching for any source of water along the sandy brown dunes that hammer you with their vastness.
In the distance, a shiny object appears.
Invigorated by a new hope, the two brothers rushed towards the gleamy object hoping that they saw the reflection of the sun shining over water.
As they arrive, their hopes of finding water were immediately crushed but they found a pretty little thing that would change their lives forever.
They found a lamp, a magic lamp.
The older brother grabs the lamp, he rubs it with his hands and a genie came out and says:
“Your wish is my command!”
“You have one wish and one wish only, but you can ask for anything you want, anything in the world and I will grant it to you”. He tells the older brother.
“But remember this: Whatever you wish for I will also give it to your younger brother, and I will give it to him twice”.
The older brother stops for a second to reflect about it.
He starts thinking: “So wait, if I ask for 20 goats I would get my 20 goats, but my brother would get 40?”
“If I ask for a hundred goats, I would get one hundred goats but my brother would get two hundreds?”
After some long considerate and collected assessment, he looks at the genie and says:
“I want you to gouge my eye out!”
They Game We Should’ve Never Played
You often hear that as a society, we’re experiencing some new type of polarization the which we’ve never seen before.
And to some degree, I can understand. I mean, we live in a world that people vote for politicians just to piss off the opposing party, knowing full well that they’re going against their own self-interest in the process.
This phenomenon is currently known as “The Lesser of Two Evils” and it consists of supporting one flavor of evil, as long as “those who think differently” suffer a little more than you do.
But as the old proverb goes: When you dance with the devil you don’t change him, the devil changes you.
It’s a game we should’ve never played in the first place, but we always keep playing. Until such point where everyone forgets that exiting the game was always a possibility.
Instead, we all remain trapped in that platonic cave where nobody dares to step out towards the light because nobody wants to remember how they’ve been trapped in the dark for all this time.
The darkness slowly starts consuming everybody’s soul and the only comfort comes from feeding off the other party’s despair.
The inner fears and frustrations compile and compound as we refuse to face the root of the problem, our inability to escape from the game we shouldn’t have played in the first place.
There is always time, all we have to do is face our fears and escape the game. The problem is that it’s much easier to blame it all on the other group.
We say to ourselves that everything wrong with the country must be their fault, and their fault alone. So let’s transfer all our rage and frustrations towards them.
They do the same as well. We end up pulling each other down and we all remain trapped in the dark cave.
That’s the game we never should’ve played. We all lose and the devil wins.
“When the devil asks you to dance you better say never, cause a dance with the devil might last you forever”. ― Immortal Technique.
It's really sad. We have become programmed to fight against each other rather than remembering that we're supposed to care for and help each other.
I've heard a story like "The Two Brothers" before, but I was trying to read your version with fresh eyes. I accomplished that so well that I had to re-read and re-re-read the story to figure out what would have possessed the older brother to wish for his eye to be gouged out (and thus his brother lose both his eyes).
It didn't make sense to me. Maybe there was background missing about how the younger brother had previously stolen the older brother's ____. Still, they're BROTHERS!
They're supposed to love each other. They're supposed to support and encourage each other. It's crazy that rather than wishing for freedom or safety that the brother would wish destruction on both of them. Even if his brother got double the blessings, the older brother still would have been blessed and safe had that been his wish.
The story didn't have the context, but it makes the lesson all that more powerful. Sure, there are people in our lives who have hurt or wronged us, but why would we go so far as to wish harm on ourselves just to cause more harm to them?!
Maybe we don't know all the people who are on the "other side" but that's all the more reason not to do harm to ourselves just to cause more harm to them.
Overall, it's a good reminder to be humble and kind.
Sorry if the story was missing some context. I'm sure there are many versions of it. This one I saw in a movie several years ago, it stuck with me though I may have forgotten something along the way.
I definitely agree with you, we should be more kind to people no matter if they happen to think differently.
This:
It's so true. I hope more people felt the same way.
Thanks for such a great comment!
Don't worry about it. The point was the same and the lack of context meant that it was even more shocking that the older brother would make such a ridiculous decision.
I enjoyed the read. Thanks for instigating an opportunity to renew my intentionality about how I treat others.
It's the ages old approach of divide and conquer. In our decadent society it's turned into individualisation which is packed as a value. At the same time the true values are ridiculed, diminished and ignored. All part of the master plan.
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That's a very good point. It's one of the reasons that religion isn't supported. Religion, or even just shared values can create community and bonds that help people unite. If we're all just lost sheep running around on our own, it's much easier to control us.
And if we spend our time hating on each other, we're too distracted to see what is happening in the big picture to actually make a difference.
You are right.
By religion you are not referring to the institutionalized religions, are you?
Because these are just another mean of oppression control. More so because they feed on a group energy.
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Yeah, there are a lot of "institutionalized religions" that are more about power than anything else. It doesn't really matter the message as long as you can get people giving you their money and attention.
I was referring more to people who have belief systems based in freedom and community. You can think something like a house church or a free-associating society. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'm trying to say groups where people aren't forced or guilted into being part of the group.
When people feel safe and have a place they belong, it makes it more difficult to control or isolate them.
It's all very complicated, and yet simple. Yet much is hidden, so it's often difficult to see what is happening. At least on Steemit we have a place where we can talk about it. Can't do that on FB anymore.
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Brilliant, as always. Bravo!
Two bad jokes emerged in my mind's eye while reading your article.
First is probably local, Slovenian, although I am certain there is similar joke in every nation of this world.
The second is universal and call be applied to any prestigious position.
Yes, we vote against. The third option is not to vote. Which is considered bad in a proper democracy.
Eh, a fine mess we have with this society / civilization ...
It could be so easy just to love each other and help each other and not to profit on account of others...
Thanks man I appreciate it a lot!
Haha I'm sure that Sloveninan joke has a similar premise in all countries. I hope we all transcend that some day.
I can't agree with you more! I used to think about that a lot in the past and once I found a fascinating study that these things happen when people get scarcity minded. Maybe it explains why people are less polarized and hostile in times of prosperity and abundance.
Everyone is busy making friends and doing what they love, they have better shit to do than sit around complaining. But that's why politicians always focus on scarcity (there's a reason why the immigrants stealing jobs is one of the oldest cons in the book, they focus on scarcity and people get hostile.
It's the way they do business as well, instead of harvesting an unlimited and abundant resource like the sun, they prefer a finite and scarce one like oil and we all know the story. We have a group of human killing other groups of humans for almost 2 decades for their oil.
Somewhere along the way, we all forget about exiting that game and people just focus on hating each other even more.
It's sad, but the good news is that whenever there's prosperity this can change. Let's hope another industrial revolution is on the way haha
I couldn't agree with this analogy more. I opted to 'exit stage left' from the theater, the game that is government years ago and it was liberating. Because you're right, people have been indoctrinated to believe that you must make a choice between this one or that one, when the wise choice is simply None of the Above.
Actually this post reminds me of my brother's song--
Such an awesome song! I for an I'm ready for change haha.
So much truth: Everyone is focused on what they can't control. Your brother rocks @dreemit!
I totally agree with you btw, sometimes the best choice is None of the Above :)