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My two cents on Heart of Darkness
I finally picked up Joseph Conrad's most well known work after reading Hannah Arendt's interpretation of it in on of her books. She described it as mans upsets with the modern world and the pressure it forces onto them so the way they treated the natives was a manifestation of their jealousy after seeing how at peace the natives were with how little they had. "If I cannot find peace of mind with all the luxuries I have, you are not allowed to have it with all your sticks and dirt." or something like that. So when I read it, I did see why Arendt would interpret it the way she did but I saw a little more to it than that. The characters fascination with the horror as well as their own fear of it, I got the sense that they were horrified by how much they enjoyed what they did and with the horror itself and how they can not find a need to let it go. It was their fascination with the destruction that both destroyed themselves as well as allowed them to destroy what was around them that made me see the story in a different way. A lot of writers have this fascination with the horror, or hell as most of them refer to it as, Carl Jung, Arthur Rimbaud, Dante Alighieri and now (for me) Joseph Conrad, being stuck in this hell is painful and terrifying but it also grants them the greatest sense of liberation they have ever felt in their lives, they are finally allowed to do all they can ever want to do, explore all they can about themselves and abandon all consequences. The characters in Heart of Darkness finally felt free from what was demanding perfection and obedience and they were left with themselves at their rawest, but the mistake those characters made was believing that just because this violence and destruction was rooted into their core that it is the only thing they can embrace, the only thing that makes sense since it's already in their design. But when Jung, Rimbaud and Alighieri found themselves in a similar state of mind, in their own hell and horror, they all felt a sense of momentum that propelled them towards something, so they all know that this hell had more to offer than pure damage. And I don't think that they all meant to come to the same conclusions, like one read the other and just piggy backed off of them, but when you let silence guide you and realize that the damage it causes isn't destroying you but forcing you to realize your own inherent ability to handle your own weight. That hell and the horror are not places for you to stay but raw material for you to construct the proper tools you need to build a better path so you may become a more complete version of yourself. Rimbaud called it The Grand Oracle, Jung mentioned an original sun and Alighieri found Paradiso after realizing that hell is just the starting point of their journey and channeling the damage of it to break through what hurts them. A lot of people can't help but attach themselves too much to their hell and horror despite the fact that it hurts and demands just as much as what they want to hide from, at least it doesn't judge them for being themselves and in that sense of relief it suffocates you until you no longer know what to do with yourself besides let the demands for more destruction to take hold of you and that can distract you from your ability to guide yourself out and into what you can truly become. A lot of people refuse to put themselves into mind sets that many people find themselves trapped in and so those who are struggling to find a way out don't even realize that there are methods of escape and triumph, if we take the time to explore what scares us we might be better suited to help those too deep to believe that there is a light.
"Destruction was my god."
#entertainment
source
I finally picked up Joseph Conrad's most well known work after reading Hannah Arendt's interpretation of it in on of her books. She described it as mans upsets with the modern world and the pressure it forces onto them so the way they treated the natives was a manifestation of their jealousy after seeing how at peace the natives were with how little they had. "If I cannot find peace of mind with all the luxuries I have, you are not allowed to have it with all your sticks and dirt." or something like that. So when I read it, I did see why Arendt would interpret it the way she did but I saw a little more to it than that. The characters fascination with the horror as well as their own fear of it, I got the sense that they were horrified by how much they enjoyed what they did and with the horror itself and how they can not find a need to let it go. It was their fascination with the destruction that both destroyed themselves as well as allowed them to destroy what was around them that made me see the story in a different way. A lot of writers have this fascination with the horror, or hell as most of them refer to it as, Carl Jung, Arthur Rimbaud, Dante Alighieri and now (for me) Joseph Conrad, being stuck in this hell is painful and terrifying but it also grants them the greatest sense of liberation they have ever felt in their lives, they are finally allowed to do all they can ever want to do, explore all they can about themselves and abandon all consequences. The characters in Heart of Darkness finally felt free from what was demanding perfection and obedience and they were left with themselves at their rawest, but the mistake those characters made was believing that just because this violence and destruction was rooted into their core that it is the only thing they can embrace, the only thing that makes sense since it's already in their design. But when Jung, Rimbaud and Alighieri found themselves in a similar state of mind, in their own hell and horror, they all felt a sense of momentum that propelled them towards something, so they all know that this hell had more to offer than pure damage. And I don't think that they all meant to come to the same conclusions, like one read the other and just piggy backed off of them, but when you let silence guide you and realize that the damage it causes isn't destroying you but forcing you to realize your own inherent ability to handle your own weight. That hell and the horror are not places for you to stay but raw material for you to construct the proper tools you need to build a better path so you may become a more complete version of yourself. Rimbaud called it The Grand Oracle, Jung mentioned an original sun and Alighieri found Paradiso after realizing that hell is just the starting point of their journey and channeling the damage of it to break through what hurts them. A lot of people can't help but attach themselves too much to their hell and horror despite the fact that it hurts and demands just as much as what they want to hide from, at least it doesn't judge them for being themselves and in that sense of relief it suffocates you until you no longer know what to do with yourself besides let the demands for more destruction to take hold of you and that can distract you from your ability to guide yourself out and into what you can truly become. A lot of people refuse to put themselves into mind sets that many people find themselves trapped in and so those who are struggling to find a way out don't even realize that there are methods of escape and triumph, if we take the time to explore what scares us we might be better suited to help those too deep to believe that there is a light.
"Destruction was my god."
#entertainment
source
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