Life is a curious thing, so precious yet so vulnerable. We each put so much value into our own existence that we delude ourselves that ours is somehow special, that we are somehow, different. The truth of the matter is that none of us is special, we are all but animals and moreover we are a predator.
We are born helpless, the human infant is the dearest thing imaginable, this is something that one cannot truly comprehend until one has held a child of their own in their arms and has seen that needy look in their eyes. If love really is something, then it exists only within the eyes of a child and their mother. Yet both mother and child are inherently weak, they are helplessly vulnerable to incalculable dangers for nearly two whole decades. This is the reason why despite our predatory nature the strong will ever protect the youth of their species, for they deserve a chance to grow, a chance to adapt and a chance to survive. To harm a child is remove yourself not just from the species but to set yourself apart from nature itself, and those that do so deserve nothing but death. They are even undeserving the panache of a meaningful death, a quick shot to the back of the head and be done with it. For such creatures are not predators, they are not monsters, they are not human and they are not alive. They are but a mistake, nature betraying her imperfections.
Yet so often when we mature we remain weak. I have wondered on many an occasion whether to be weak is a choice at all, or if it is simply nature. Regardless once a human enters adulthood they, like any animal, are split between two types of being: The strong and the weak. Or perhaps, a more apt description would be: monsters and victims.
For to be human and strong in a world such as ours has little to do with physiology, no to be strong is entirely an act of will, to be strong is to be willing to go as far as one must in order to survive. There can be no delusions about a collective species or human intimacy, to believe such things is to deny nature itself. For once we pass the gossamer thin shield that is the maternal instinct we are alone in this world and we are terrifyingly free. Our instinct is to take from our fellow man, our instinct is to hunt, to indulge and to kill. If our instincts are so how then can we ever expect to live in harmony? We cannot, such a state does not exist and those that delude themselves into thinking so are weak, for they are offering themselves up as prey for those conscious of the fact. It is for this reason; that humans desire harm upon one another, that the term ‘strong’, does not do true justice to the apex of our species, for to reach such levels and build for yourself some semblance of safety you must be willing to go further than any other predator. You must be willing to become a monster and you must learn to enjoy it.
The society in which we all grew up was one in which we were told to be weak. Even during the terror that was the Portal Storms we were still told to be weak, that we would be safe just so long as a few bad men stood atop the gates to keep the monsters at bay. Yet, as ever with our species, the true monsters lay within the gates. The weak are prey; they are like cattle to the slaughter, little more than a resource for those with the ambition to use them as such. I say that there is no greater cruelty one can inflict upon another than to convince them that they need ever be weak, for the weak have a choice, albeit a binary one. The weak can accept their death, they can end it in a swift moment of mercy, or alternatively they can strive to become one of the strong. The latter cannot be achieved without great suffering; for it is pain and pain alone that awakens the strength which all of us possess inside of us and open our eyes to the wonderful experiences that exist only for those with the strength to accept their nature for what it is.
Now you see the term monster isn’t apt after all, at least not in its typical sense, for it is a word those too ignorant or to blind to see the truth would use in such a derogatory fashion. To branded a monster by those weaker than you is to be raised up to another plain of existence, it is to be vindicated and to be safe.
I am a monster.
By accepting and maintaining this truth I am one of the few beings on this cursed earth that can truly call themselves free. For once you accept your biology for what it is you are able to indulge those so called ‘sins’ without any pathetic notion of remorse, for life is about experience and experience is beauty. What greater pursuit could there be than that of the artist? For art is an intimate and personal thing, yet at the same time it an experience that should be shared with another individual. When the strong meet the weak it is sweetest of poems, it is the love-song of evolution itself.
My hands drip with blood and my lips are red with viscera. People think that it is the Combine that have turned people like me into what their infantile minds call ‘evil’, no, humanity did this, the Combine simply see the truth. Mankind is unfit to rule ourselves because at the end of the day strong or weak; we are nothing but an animal.
