A Monster for the World

Chapter 01

In this story (which is more of an essay than a story), I am going to describe a monster.

What is a monster? A monster is something that people are afraid of. People can fight monsters, but these people must be very brave because the odds are, by definition, in the monsters' favor. However, it is not impossible to defeat them.

Are people afraid of being eaten by lions, tigers, and bears? Perhaps this was once so, but someone invented knives, spears, arrows, and swords.

Are people afraid of illness? This is certainly true in many cases, but we have medicines to protect ourselves. Most people think or hope that all diseases will perhaps be cured one day.

Are people afraid of The Empire? By "The Empire," I mean those in authority, people with control over others. It's difficult to be afraid of The Empire because, frankly, we *are* The Empire. In my opinion, we're pretty good as empires go, but we're an empire nonetheless. Besides, things become very tricky when you try to fight against The Empire because this usually results in *you* becoming The Empire yourself (and then someone will come along and fight you, and so forth). Today, The Empire is held in balance by a complicated combination of laws, resources, money, weapons, and the will of the people.

Thus, I conclude that the real monsters are our flaws: greed, lust, envy, hatred, pride. This is a bit depressing because of all the conventional weapons (airplanes, tanks, nuclear bombs) we've build up hoping to fight monsters, only to find that our conventional weapons can displace the monsters but not kill them. We do have alternative weapons at our disposal: love, compassion, forgiveness, understanding, tolerance. However, these alternative weapons are extremely difficult to obtain and even more difficult to hold on to once we obtain them.

So in the next chapter, using the wonderful institution of creative writing, I'm going to design a monster, a type of mythical creature for us to fight, a monster that *can* be destroyed using conventional weapons. (By "conventional weapons," I mean something that solves a problem by sheer force.) With this monster to keep us occupied, we won't have to worry about fighting the more difficult monsters: greed, lust, envy, hatred, pride.

To be Continued...

[In case you're wondering, I'm not writing this because I wish this to actually happen. This fantasy story is just a mental exercise to help me understand things already happening in the real world.]