easy.
Once, the thought crossed my mind that I wouldn't even
have
to
follow through with what the Elders instructed me to do. But that idea quickly faded away. I knew all too well that they would see the slightest inkling of doubt from miles away. In fact, it was the only thing they were looking for. If I promised one thing while intending another, I'd be caught - plain and simple. And I knew it. They would see a concealed plan as vividly as they'd seen what we'd done to a lizard in our childhood. Because it wasn't a matter of knowing specifics, it was only a matter of sensing a flicker of hesitation at the right moment; and they'd probably already planned that moment - a barrage of quick and exposing questions up their sleeve, being saved until I was so exhausted, my guard lowered into a drained apathy, that I would tell them anything. No. If I had a plan to circumvent them, they had a plan to see through it like water.
So the solution was easy: if the only way for me to get off the island was to be the leader of the expedition, and the only way to be selected as that leader was to believe in The Goal, then I would have to choose to believe in it, and trust that what the Elders were doing was right. And as crazy as that rationale sounds to me now, it really was that simple. And maybe it's always this simple - for all of us. We select our beliefs from the world around us, stitch them together into a tapestry of common threads, carefully ignore the contradictions, and then boldly stand behind them, ready to be led.
The next day, they commented that my attitude appeared to have changed overnight, that I was more attentive, eager, more interested in what was being discussed. They were ecstatic (or at least as ecstatic as the Elders ever got about anything), and I caught them exchanging a few encouraging grins throughout the day. Of course, I'd prepared myself for an internal battle before the day began, thinking that I would be straining to agree with them on every issue, that I would have to compromise my deepest philosophies at every turn, but I found that this wasn't the case. Their points were concrete, well founded, well thought out. In fact, the most challenging thing about them was their truth, or rather, how much that truth grated against my instincts.
Sometimes, as a matter of making a strong point even stronger, we would stop to pick apart some of humanity's ugliness; and to do this, we would use ourselves as an example, maybe recalling times that we'd abused what little leverage we had over our 'loved ones', and inflicted a bit of 'socially acceptable' damage, savouring the taste of our petty cruelty afterwards, smirking to ourselves with our backs turned. I would shake my head, amazed at the reality of it. They were right. We all
really
did these things - which sparked an obvious question: if we did this to each other everyday, motiveless, and living under ideal conditions, what kinds of things would we (the very people around us, the very people we thought of as mild and benign) do to each other if the vice of our culture were tightened a bit? And of course, if I happened to wonder these things aloud, the Elders would have an explicit answer ready for me. Well, they would say, reaching across for another book of graphic pictures - pictures of emaciated corpses piled so high they needed giant shovelling machines just to move them - let us show you what happens.
Slowly, gradually, over the course of the days that passed, I started to understand, in a very odd way, what they were trying to do. In the biggest possible picture, this wasn't really a horrific act; true, it was extreme and controversial, but it was also the most logical way to counter our wrongs, our conduct, our very nature. It was about accepting a responsibility that reached out so far beyond what was seen as realistic or attainable, that it dipped into a region that appeared fanatical. Yet anyone could admit that the incentive behind it all, the
Once, the thought crossed my mind that I wouldn't even
have
to
follow through with what the Elders instructed me to do. But that idea quickly faded away. I knew all too well that they would see the slightest inkling of doubt from miles away. In fact, it was the only thing they were looking for. If I promised one thing while intending another, I'd be caught - plain and simple. And I knew it. They would see a concealed plan as vividly as they'd seen what we'd done to a lizard in our childhood. Because it wasn't a matter of knowing specifics, it was only a matter of sensing a flicker of hesitation at the right moment; and they'd probably already planned that moment - a barrage of quick and exposing questions up their sleeve, being saved until I was so exhausted, my guard lowered into a drained apathy, that I would tell them anything. No. If I had a plan to circumvent them, they had a plan to see through it like water.
So the solution was easy: if the only way for me to get off the island was to be the leader of the expedition, and the only way to be selected as that leader was to believe in The Goal, then I would have to choose to believe in it, and trust that what the Elders were doing was right. And as crazy as that rationale sounds to me now, it really was that simple. And maybe it's always this simple - for all of us. We select our beliefs from the world around us, stitch them together into a tapestry of common threads, carefully ignore the contradictions, and then boldly stand behind them, ready to be led.
The next day, they commented that my attitude appeared to have changed overnight, that I was more attentive, eager, more interested in what was being discussed. They were ecstatic (or at least as ecstatic as the Elders ever got about anything), and I caught them exchanging a few encouraging grins throughout the day. Of course, I'd prepared myself for an internal battle before the day began, thinking that I would be straining to agree with them on every issue, that I would have to compromise my deepest philosophies at every turn, but I found that this wasn't the case. Their points were concrete, well founded, well thought out. In fact, the most challenging thing about them was their truth, or rather, how much that truth grated against my instincts.
Sometimes, as a matter of making a strong point even stronger, we would stop to pick apart some of humanity's ugliness; and to do this, we would use ourselves as an example, maybe recalling times that we'd abused what little leverage we had over our 'loved ones', and inflicted a bit of 'socially acceptable' damage, savouring the taste of our petty cruelty afterwards, smirking to ourselves with our backs turned. I would shake my head, amazed at the reality of it. They were right. We all
really
did these things - which sparked an obvious question: if we did this to each other everyday, motiveless, and living under ideal conditions, what kinds of things would we (the very people around us, the very people we thought of as mild and benign) do to each other if the vice of our culture were tightened a bit? And of course, if I happened to wonder these things aloud, the Elders would have an explicit answer ready for me. Well, they would say, reaching across for another book of graphic pictures - pictures of emaciated corpses piled so high they needed giant shovelling machines just to move them - let us show you what happens.
Slowly, gradually, over the course of the days that passed, I started to understand, in a very odd way, what they were trying to do. In the biggest possible picture, this wasn't really a horrific act; true, it was extreme and controversial, but it was also the most logical way to counter our wrongs, our conduct, our very nature. It was about accepting a responsibility that reached out so far beyond what was seen as realistic or attainable, that it dipped into a region that appeared fanatical. Yet anyone could admit that the incentive behind it all, the
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