There is always an event that leads to a turning point. For many, it becomes the villain or the hero story.
Truth be told, how easy is it to become the hero? It goes against every sense of self-preservation that is instinctive to humans. And while it seems like being a hero is hard, try being a villain. It is a different kind of training. While the hero may self-sacrifice for the greater good, the villain has only one mission to let everything else fade till they become the greater good. You think that is easy? Nope, I daresay it takes gut and this accounts for why literally some villains never even become successful.
At least for the hero, every effort in heroism is applauded as brave and laudable, even if they fail to achieve the mission; the attempt is applauded, the willingness to try, and the fatigue they must have experienced is easily relatable. The making of a villain never counts; no one sees the cut or the tears, because what makes a successful villain is the source of vulnerability that should never be traced. For a villain to be successful, you almost have to believe that they were born evil without an iota of inclination for good. So, while a hero is unveiled, a villain is veiled.
A villain has to literally die and be reborn differently. Sometimes, the hero has no chapter after death; it is their acts that live on and spread the hope. Gallant acts of selflessness and the ultimate sacrifice. So, while a hero may die so others can live, a villain dies just so they can live on the other side where they can control reality.
It is not an easy task to set out with only the mission of one’s deliverance. There is no such thing as collateral damage; it is a high-stakes, high-risk, win-or-lose-all. No middle ground, no point of turning back, no room for repentance. To deviate is to die and lose all, to win anyway is to die first to get a chance to start over.
I guess that’s why there is a saying that goes ‘he who is ready to lose his life will gain it’. Ironically, for any form of heroism, there must be villaism. A brutality to self or present existing reality, a need for eradication of some sort. It is called Ugly-Beautiful.
You’d hit rock bottom sometimes, only to realise the bottom is also a place and like every other place, it can be left. The question is whether there’s an absolutism of heroism or villainy. I think not, I think what we have are chapters like every other phase in life. At times, we are brave and heroic; at times, we choose to unleash the ultra self-preservation pro max approach.
For many of us, our villain story is not about literal death, at least not yet. While we live, it is rather about scarring and scars we have to bury, about stolen, broken parts of ourselves we can never recover, so we fill the void with nonchalance and apathy. It is sometimes exhibited in numbness. Not feeling, not hurting, not moving. A limbo state where we do not reach and cannot be reached.
I came across this concept called ‘minimal fibrosis’, which occurs in dolphins, where they experience rapid tissue regeneration, stem-cell-repair pathways, and protective skin microbiomes, making it easy to appear less scarred. While in humans, it takes weeks for cell repair and regeneration, depending on the severity of the injury. For Dolphins this occurs roughly every two hours.
I think that we become villains because we try to survive our wounds by hiding the scars. What if we healed that quickly before even scars got to form? That means we get to regenerate without requiring the definition or input of the wound that attempts to shape us.
Maybe real heroism lies in regeneration, and villainy is that process where we must die to recreate. In the end, one thing is true: whether we choose to be defined by our wounds or we choose a different path, we will never be the same. Some of us just regenerate faster, like dolphins, and some just never let go till that festers and becomes a new reality. No judgements, though, this is just a reminder to do and undo as many times as it takes to bend reality.
Xoxo,
Dcconoisseur.
Connoisseur of Memories 