Warriors Jeans

Over winter break I had "superhero week".  Each night I would watch a new super hero movie: Batman the dark night, Iron Man II, Kick Ass, Captain America, Green Lantern,  Thor and Superman Returns.  Ohhh it was a great week.   This Super Hero Marathon week (now going to be an annual event for the second week in January) got me thinking.  It was not the straightest of lines, but bear with me. I like to think all the concepts connect.

I have watched the movie Kick Ass at least 10 times and every singe time, the line that makes me pause, and really think comes about an hour and a half into the movie.

Diner Fight Guy 1: The fuck is wrong with you, man? You'd rather die for some piece of shit that you don't even fucking know?

Dave Lizewski: The three assholes, laying into one guy while everybody else watches? And you wanna know what's wrong with me? Yeah, I'd rather die... so bring it on!

It really feels like we sit idly by while horrible things are happening all around us. For example think back to a couple summers ago and the BP oil spill; the spill was caused by BP's cost-cutting measures.  Their desire to save a couple bucks caused a horrible effect on ocean life and millions of jobs in the tourism industry took a nose dive. The area still has not fully recovered. Fracking is a process that oil companies use to retrieve oil from the ground. They purchase land from farmers at low prices, promising it wont effect the surrounding land, by creating deep cement walls around their mining process. Meat industries use cost cutting measures to provide discounts and widely available meats; they inject hormones (which we still don't know how they effect us in the long run) to speed up the growth process of the meats and increase the size of the muscles.  They put ammonia in the meat to combat bacteria from growing due to cross contamination from feces which is spread due to poor living conditions. These are some of the many stories that we don't hear about until something huge goes wrong - an oil spill, a salmonella out break, etc.  They put ammonia in the meat to combat bacteria from growing due to cross contamination from crap due to poor living conditions.  This or This and so many other stories that we may never hear about because they don't make the front pages?.

I would like to feel that this is something we should be fighting, we should say no, to big oil companies, and no to big meat companies who try to fill us with poisons.  But can the average person really make a difference?  With increasing percentages for cost of living, who can afford hormone free meat, organic apples and free range eggs?  Not even getting into ethically made clothing.

For every choice I make at a store I am casting my vote for a product.  Although I don't agree with PB, I have found my tank on empty and ended up at a BP gas station.  Although I believe in hormone free meat and organic food, I can't afford to buy $10 chicken when I could get more off-brand chicken for 1/3 of the price.  I was at the store yesterday and a bag of fresh cherries rang up at $9!  How can we ethically ask people to eat well and balanced when a bag of cherries costs the same as a pizza that could feed a whole family or a packaged full chicken meal from a local fast food joint.  When soda is cheaper than water and a fast food meal is cheaper than buying produce how can we fault someone for looking out for what is best for their family?   I mean hell, I am not in any universe going to spend $9 on something as simple as cherries when I can buy chicken, a vegetable and a beer for the same price.  When I make choices like this in a store, I am approving of my providers business practices, so how can I disapprove of caging animals when I buy caged meat?  How can I disapprove of cheap labor practices when I can only buy oranges when they are $.99 pound?   How can I disagree with slave labor, but shoes I can afford were made unethically in china?

Can morality and ethical buying only come to those with big enough bank accounts?

This got me thinking further to the subject of fighting. How do I fight things?  How does the world fight? This led me to looking at warrior culture.  There are many different cultures that idolized warriors; they were seen as the ultimate men, superstars of their time.  These men were worshiped and feared - revered by all who knew them and essentially treated like the rock stars of their day. It is said that Genghis had sex with so many women that roughly.05% of the worlds population can claim kinship to him.  Hannabil owned all of Italy for over 15 years.William Wallace, Alexander the Great, Leonidas of Sparta and so many more.  In Spartan culture men were raised to be warriors, taken from their mothers at a young age and sent to the barracks to learn the arts of war.    

There was a myth that was spread about a warrior called Cú Chulainn that would say he was not truly a man but was half god, he would be over come with a battle fury.  He would see red, feel no pain and become a killing machine.  Although this is just a myth, something that could be associated with that is what athletes call getting in"the Zone".  The Zone can often cited by world record breakers, is a place that athletes go mentally creating almost what can be described as an out of body experience.  They can void their brains of all other thoughts, such as doubt or over thinking objectives or distractions and allow themselves to push through those inhibitors to achieve greatness.  So, what does athletics have to do with warriors?  Well, one can argue, that today's athletes are what warriors were before mechanized weaponry, sonar, nuclear warfare and everything in between that takes combat and puts a separation between armies.

Today, a healthy way for people to scratch their 'warrior tendencies' can be on the courts, rivers, and fields.  There men (and women) go to war against their rival team.  Seeking justice and victory.  With every battle their are casualties; torn ligaments, bruises, aching muscles and sometimes much worse (check out  at your own risk).  Personally when I know I am about to go out on a run or a serious work out, the feeling of exhilaration starts when I lace my shoes.  My heart starts pounding, my head feels lighter, my leg tingle and I feel as though I can achieve anything I set my mind to.   I get that same feeling when I put on my favorite jeans, I call them my "warrior Jeans".  This bitty rush of endorphin's helps me to feel confident when I run and like a rock star when I am sure (as I have on occasion been compared to a baby dinosaur) I don't look as good as I feel.  But it doesn't matter.  This is not what I want to talk about, warriors and warrior tenancies.  What I really want to talk about is justice, and decision making.   

How do I fight for what I believe in? 

From a young age I had a different set of hero's and roll models than a typical young girl.  Fashion Icons and runway models? Nope.  Movie stars and celebrities?  I couldn't name more people than fingers on my hands.  My hero's you may ask?  Superman, Batman, anything with Clint Eastwood, and other superheros who I saw stand up to the injustice they saw in the world, even if no asked them to.  When I got to high school I just moved to a new hero, people may think its lame or stupid, but I found solace in Angel.  He was for all intensive purposes, a super hero, just a different kind.  The final episode showed all the characters suiting up for battle knowing that, they weren't going to win, they wouldn't even survive, the point was that they would fight for what they believed in.  Because for that one glorious minute evil would know that good people in the world would not let injustice stand.  

So I sit, tears streaming down my face as I am yet again reminded of the power of choice and goodwill.  Again, it may be fiction, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.  For those of you who have not seen the Gan Torino, I highly recommend it.  My thoughts go to the untold stories, of people standing up against what can seem like unlikely odds and impossible situations.  But what I do know that that even just one person can make a difference in this world.  

How do you fight for what you believe in? 

For everything else I say, each day, I live as if it was my last day, stand up for the person who is picked on, pay for the soda even though I know I could walking right out with it, help the person who dropped all their things, its just the little things.  They all add up to making a better world around you.  You have the choice - either you fight entropy and indifference or you add to it.  And that is where I stand.  I choose to fight, I choose to not accept the world the way that it is, but live my life the way I want the world to be.  The people who don't care about anyone or anything will never understand the people who do.     

What do you believe in?