Ever since the inception of life, the morals of virtue and vice have been at loggerheads. Like the many human civilizations that have come into being over the ages, they have continued to evolve too, each carving out its own territories while attempting to conquer dominions in the other's control. Like a treacherous foe, each has attempted to lure away loyal but capricious minions of the other with the promise of worldly gifts and other consequential gains - material or ethereal. This raging rivalry continues even today, to which every living creature on this planet is a silent witness - a prey, if you will.
The scales always keep tilting, and the person, the prey, is often torn between the two as his fate hangs in the balance. On the one hand, virtue yields long term returns such as self actualization and reverence from one's peers and posterity, but frequently demands patience, sacrifice and a heart strong enough to bear immediate material losses as a compromise for achieving the larger motives of moral integrity and an unsullied, angelical character. On the other hand, the shortest road to glory is often marked with clandestine deals, maleficence and deception. Once you begin to tread this path, there is no turning back; no switching lanes as you are pulled into a vortex of misdeeds which drag you further down in order to rise up. Even if you are reminded nostalgically of the merits of the righteous path, there is already a stained blemish waiting to haunt your life forever once you defect away from the dark side. Perhaps Darth Vader could testify to that.
Superheroes on the movie screen make it look too easy. Never yielding, they continue to battle against baneful, vicious usurpers and threatening villains to eventually assert the victory of righteousness over evil - without ever submitting to the luring portals of corruption, filled with the promise of unlimited power and infinite riches to rule the world. "With great power, comes great responsibility" is one of the fancy mottos that makes them persist in this challenging enterprise.
But then fiction has its own constraints. For one, it's often unrealistic. The principles of moral ethics are much more complicated. Atleast for normal human beings living ordinary lives with no special powers, faced with a Hobson's choice every now and then. Today, almost every face wears a mask to conceal his/her true self. Everybody but little, innocent children - impervious to corruption and malice, strangers to avarice, immune to disappointment and heartbreak, and most importantly, ignorant of all material pursuits that eventually rob us of all the aforementioned qualities.
I have always strived to maintain a rigid set of ethical standards, and have succeeded more often than not. But it's getting more difficult with advancing time. Sometimes I wish I could turn into a child again, just so that I don't have to care about it anymore.
The scales always keep tilting, and the person, the prey, is often torn between the two as his fate hangs in the balance. On the one hand, virtue yields long term returns such as self actualization and reverence from one's peers and posterity, but frequently demands patience, sacrifice and a heart strong enough to bear immediate material losses as a compromise for achieving the larger motives of moral integrity and an unsullied, angelical character. On the other hand, the shortest road to glory is often marked with clandestine deals, maleficence and deception. Once you begin to tread this path, there is no turning back; no switching lanes as you are pulled into a vortex of misdeeds which drag you further down in order to rise up. Even if you are reminded nostalgically of the merits of the righteous path, there is already a stained blemish waiting to haunt your life forever once you defect away from the dark side. Perhaps Darth Vader could testify to that.
Superheroes on the movie screen make it look too easy. Never yielding, they continue to battle against baneful, vicious usurpers and threatening villains to eventually assert the victory of righteousness over evil - without ever submitting to the luring portals of corruption, filled with the promise of unlimited power and infinite riches to rule the world. "With great power, comes great responsibility" is one of the fancy mottos that makes them persist in this challenging enterprise.
But then fiction has its own constraints. For one, it's often unrealistic. The principles of moral ethics are much more complicated. Atleast for normal human beings living ordinary lives with no special powers, faced with a Hobson's choice every now and then. Today, almost every face wears a mask to conceal his/her true self. Everybody but little, innocent children - impervious to corruption and malice, strangers to avarice, immune to disappointment and heartbreak, and most importantly, ignorant of all material pursuits that eventually rob us of all the aforementioned qualities.
I have always strived to maintain a rigid set of ethical standards, and have succeeded more often than not. But it's getting more difficult with advancing time. Sometimes I wish I could turn into a child again, just so that I don't have to care about it anymore.
