Written Violence Examination: Caveman to Ancient Greeks to You

Parkland. Columbine. Sandyhook. These atrocities happened. There is no avoiding it.

I will not discuss gun reform. I will not go into the law of the land. I am not a politician or an activist in the sense that I charge the streets. No, I am an author. My job is to write about the nature of humanity, both the good and the bad.

 Now that that is out of the way lets get to work.

Ever since the cavemen there has been violence written down. True, theirs was nonfiction. It was a tool used to capture history and remember how to hunt and scavenge. As time past people became restless and that tool became a means of entertainment. Stories of great hunts and mighty battles were told by campfires, and then written down so they weren’t forgotten. Eventually the creative genius that sparked fire imagined new epic tales.

Let us examine the Greeks. Their grand stories are full of sex, drugs, violence, love, greed, bestiality and inbreeding. That doesn’t cover half of what the stories entail. Hercules was a drunk with PTSD who went on killing sprees. He killed Death itself. There is a part of our body named after the weak spot of a mighty warrior. I’m sure you know it. It is your Achilles’ Tendon. He was unbeaten until he faced weak, little Paris in Troy. Troy –We’re still making movies about that war.

Greek tragedies live to this day. They are required reading. Why? They examine our basic selves. In thousands of years we haven’t changed all that much as a species. Sure our tools have grown, but have we?

Before we can change the world we need to change ourselves. The first step is owning the fact we are human. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is nothing wrong with that fact. Feel it. Revel in it. All the facets of being mortal, maybe then you’ll see where the real problem is coming from: fear.