**This post may be expanded upon, I didn’t quite finish but being sick and too…tired to think properly, I doubt I’d be able to complete it for days…

I will make a few references to the following animes/mangas: Death Note and Monster. I will, in my own words, discuss the premise of each as they are relevant to my post but if you’d like a better understanding of the story, I suggest you check out the links.

Death Note
A notebook (called a Death Note) is found in the world. It grants the person who uses it the ability to kill someone simply by writing their name in the notebook. The main character, Yagami Light, finds the book and uses it to cleanse the world of rotten people to effectively make it a better place. He focuses on killing criminals who have broken the law and spends the series cleansing the world and avoiding capture from the police who claim that what he is doing is murder and that he should be brought to justice.

Monster
A genius and good-hearted surgeon, Dr. Tenma, uses his exceptional skills to save patients. At the very start, he is supposed to save an old man from an injury but the hospital that he works at orders him to save someone else, a famous opera singer. Both lives in peril, he saves the opera singer because of the hospital’s orders but despite the fact that the other old man came first and was supposed to originally be operated on by Dr. Tenma. As a result, the old man dies. Dr. Tenma feels uneasy about saving someone’s life before another person’s, unsure of where the priority in people’s lives are. During a conversation with his girlfriend, she laughs at his dilemma saying “Not all people’s lives are equal.” A few days later, the same scenario occurs. A small boy, Johan, and the mayor of the city are both brought in to the hospital. Johan is brought in first, his only chance of survival rest in Dr. Tenma’s skills. The hospital though, requests that he save the mayor’s life instead. Dr. Tenma is placed in a moral dilemma again, does he choose whether to save Johan’s life or the mayor’s? Are all lives equal? He chooses to save Johan and as a result, the mayor dies. Years later, Johan grows up to become a remorseless killer. Dr. Tenma finds out about Johan’s activities and believes that because he saved Johan years ago, he is responsible for putting a stop to Johan’s killings. The rest of the story follows Dr. Tenma in his quest to stop the Monster that he saved.

This posts starts off with something that happened a few nights ago. During a discussion among a group of people, someone I know said something…dark. Not violent but it involved wishing the death of someone. I was surprised, it was something I would think but never say. In my sleep deprived state, I blurted out that I agreed with him only to have him say he was joking and that he didn’t mean it. But…I did. I was slightly embarrassed, that dark side of me isn’t supposed to come out. Ever.

I’m not sure how…disturbing it is that I completely agree with resolve of the character Yagami Light of Death Note. He said in the anime that “In class, we never discussed if we could kill evil people. But if we did discuss it, everyone would pretend to be pure. People would say that they must not do it. Of course, that’s the correct answer, because humans have to act that way in public. But that is not their true nature.” When I heard that, I thought to myself…”Maybe it’s possible that others do in fact think like that, but don’t show it. Much like me.” While I’ve never found anyone like that other than me, maybe it’s because no one discusses it. But I’ll change that.

Without being…very dark, I’ve always found life to be rather insignificant. People say that life is precious but I’ve never found that to be true. If you were to run over an animal by accident, would you mourn it? What if you stepped on an insect? Would you care? What makes it’s life any more or less significant than another’s? and who makes that decision? Again, these are questions posed from the story, Monster. “Not all people’s lives are equal”.

Quick – think of any 2 people you know. Seriously, pick any 2 people you can think of. Now consider their lives in your hands. If you had to choose one to die and one to live, who would you choose? Don’t read on until you’ve reached a decision.

Now, again, think of 2 people and do the scenario again. Do it as many times as you want. Now, how did you determine an answer? On what basis does one life matter more than another? Or does it at all? Can we make those decisions? Are we fit to judge? We are, after all, only human.

When faced with the dilemma regarding the death of one of two people that I posed above, I was able to determine an answer in almost every scenario I thought of. I randomly thought of 2 people I knew and determined which was more worthy of life. I’m going to assume you did as well. Now, for the person that you determined not as worthy to live as the other, how insignificant is their life now when placed under this context. You’ve just deemed them unworthy of existence and you probably came up with the decision rather quickly. If you couldn’t come up with an answer, I would assume that you chose 2 people who’s lives might have equal worth to you. But again, if you run through more and more people, you’ll start to be able to find answers and determine them quickly. The point of this exercise was for you to begin to realize that “Not all people’s lives are equal”.

Despite all the above, I believe the world and the people in it are generally good. Placing myself under the scrutiny of the above dilemma, I would often choose another person’s life over my own. I don’t feel that I’m a “good” person. It may be well hidden but I bring selfishness, arrogance, sloth, pride, envy and a whole mess of negativity to the world. I would gladly sacrifice my life to save someone of whom I feel more worthy of life than me. Just the same, I would end another life to save my own if I felt their life did not have as much worth as mine.

Now, getting back to this person who’s death had jokingly been wished upon. He’s a person not generally well liked, the majority of people that I know who know him as well don’t say nice things about him often, if ever. This person has sensed that we don’t like him and even asked if something was wrong. The fact is, not everyone is well liked by everyone. If you feel that you aren’t, that maybe something is wrong with you, I’m going to blunt here: chances are they’re right. Something IS wrong with you. Now, you can do many things with that realization. Change who you are to accommodate others. Tell everyone else to go fuck themselves and be yourself. Be and accept yourself for who you are but don’t hate everyone. It’s each person’s individual choice whether or not they want to change but if being you hasn’t worked out then you need to adapt if you want things to work. And if you don’t adapt because you don’t care, that’s okay too but just realize that the situation will persist and stop b!tching. I wish I could say all these things to said person of whom I’ve wished death upon, but chances are I won’t. Chances are he doesn’t read my blog either.

**Again, I do plan to expand on this post…To be continued.**