When All That Is True Is The Moment And You

When I entered the doors on my first day of high school, I would have never thought that this would be a place where I would navigate my way through the world. I mean, I knew I wanted to achieve great things but there was never the thought that the tangled web of past and present mysteries would untangle in the months and years of learning and reflection that would come. I was at school anyway so how could I navigate my way through the world without leaving the gaze of the room around me? Well, as I explained in my recent posts reflecting on the dawn of the atomic age and the timeless themes of Macbeth, every human has a connection to instinctual behaviour.

 

In our most recent project in Humanities 11, we examined the event of the Cold War. At the start of the project I was skeptical about learning about this event in history because it often feels like it is not quite “history” in today’s modern climate, but I knew that learning about and more importantly from the past, only will help the future so I decided that I would take advantage of the learning opportunity and confront any fear I had toward today’s politics head-on. I have come to realize that confronting those kinds of existential fears can be powerful when it comes to changing my perspective on an event or issue. 

When it came to the Cold War, the fear I had gathered from learning about the dawn of the atomic age carried over in a subtle and lingering manner that was just enough to make diving back into this reality not very appealing. Yet, although fear naturally rose from the awareness of a nuclear bomb’s destruction, I noted in the project’s post that from that fear came a new understanding of humanity and the power we hold as individuals and as a collective. It was horrific yet all the while empowering. It was the truth of the event. I decided that finding the truth of the Cold War was more important than the lingering fear that could follow my endeavours. 

After gaining an understanding of the Cold War by watching a detailed explainer video, the topic I chose to further understand was psychological warfare. Psychological warfare was pretty much the Cold War at the core because the whole point of it was to fight without actually “fighting”. It was a war on ideas and paradigms, each side struggling to win over the minds of the average citizen, fighting for the life of a shared value, whatever it would take, even if it be brainwashing. 

Brainwashing was what I decided to focus on, not knowing that it was also the entirety of the conflict itself. The conflict was all about ideas and convincing others of those ideas, yet there was also an inflicted fear in the public eye of the other side and their ideas. As media began its infamous rise, it immediately was used to pluck at the supple strings of the human psyche to instil a deep existential sense of hopelessness and fear. While at the same time, it was combated by this overpowering narrative that if a simple idea is maintained excluded, all that fear, hopelessness, and powerlessness will be kept out of life as well. You have probably heard the term “We are most scared of what we can’t see” Well in the Cold War the derived monster that could threaten all that one loves would rise to hold the utmost power in one’s imagination. When I dove deeper into the idea of brainwashing in the Cold War, I was surprised to find actual scares of chemically infused brainwashing which only accelerated my interest in this topic. It was perfect because the idea that the war was based on a fear of the unknown was confirmed once again. It was ultimately debunked, but the brainwashing scare was ever-present in the minds of American civilians and government agencies.

It became more and more interesting as I uncovered the connection between brainwashing 50-60 years ago and recent years. This fear of the unknown within the Cold War spread like a virus on both sides of the iron curtain yet that same fear can be seen caused by the media today and the strong political polarization within the U.S.A. This war of the media and the mind can be just as dangerous as combat in obvious and less obvious ways. 

I chose to tell the story of the less-than-obvious ways that the media created suffering during the Cold War. I decided to tie the theme of psychological warfare’s uncanny body count with the brainwashing scare highlighted during the years of the Vietnam War. I followed the story of a young man who falls under the spell of media-induced fear leading to the choice of his inscription into the Vietnam War. He becomes a fighter jet pilot but is shot down not long after going into battle. He is taken to a prisoner-of-war camp where he recalls memories of war and his life prior. The weeks in the camp move to years but on one ordinary day, he finds himself face-to-face with an elephant. A lot of elements of this story are metaphorical like a dream or a poem and in The Soldier Who Returned Happy, I chose to extract the carrying force of my chosen historical topic and weave it into a complex narrative of a truly simple chain of events while using the creative freedom of a graphic novel to illustrate my understanding. In the process, I discovered the use of colour and shape for emotional representation within the story. 

the soldier who returned happy

It’s always difficult for me to feel confident about my final product especially when I feel like I can take my understanding and push what I think is possible, but in my graphic novel, I found a way to connect my understanding of the topic to the story without leaving any of it behind. I am often told that it is a false expectation to think that my original plan will come to fruition how I imagined but with the help of many generous extensions for the due date and the thoughtful planning I had put into the story, I knew that all I needed to achieve my goal was time. Time would be my catalyst yet it would also be what held me back from early completion. In the story, my soldier struggles to see beyond the corrosion of fear in his perception of time. This led to a disengagement from the moment, leading to his fear of atomic war guiding his actions. Similarly, I often find myself struggling with the cruciality of a future event that guides my perception of how I use my time. Like the story, it is hard to just simply enjoy when there feels like there is so much that needs to be done. Thus, the once-valued enjoyment often gets shrouded by fear. 

In the story, my soldier finds himself falling back into memories from the past in intermittent daydreams. It is him doing this that gives him a perspective of what he was actually scared of. Like a word on the tip of your young he struggled to remember why he was feeling do scared, only feeling the sadness of falling away from the life he loved. Then, like an ushering from above, an elephant waltzes into the camp. The soldier blindly walks outside his tent to be met face to face with the giant. It was in this moment, when all previous fears faded into a stopped heart in a frozen moment, that he realized what he was feeling. It was not a fear of loosing life that drove him to war but a love of life that could be lost. He returns happy, not just because he was free, but because he no longer had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He realized that to be afraid was only going to contribute to the problem and all that he could really do is hope. The faded colours of life began to grow bright once more as he left the soliciting of his brain and reinterred in the world and life that had led to his un-comprehendible fear.

It was really cool to be able to follow through with this story since it had been just an idea weeks prior, but pushing through late nights and some of my spring break, I was able to bring  this idea to fruition. I am proud of what I made, as well as the joy I am able to squeeze out of these learning opportunist even when it feels like there is only work ahead of me. Like the story of The Soldier Who Returned Happy, I often find myself numbed by the work ahead of me, or the existential problems that devalue the life around me, but when I take a step back and realize where that fear is coming from, I realize that it is just the love I have for life and the deep care for the world around me. I is really hard to feel that care sometimes especially when it feels it is emotionally hard to feel the grief of the future, but right now is all we have, all we will ever have. It is what we have to make the most of, and to learn from. The story I told shows the power of the present, of what happens when the moment freezes in front of you. In the moment like the one in the story, you realize that the world is a lot bigger than the one in your head, even if the world is as large as the aged wrinkles of an elephants head in front of you. I can’t help but feel great full to my teacher who provided this opportunity and the learning I have done to get to today. It is so cool to be able to track back my understanding to grade eight, and the first time my curious mind walked through those doors. I hope to walk through every door in my learning with an eager excitement and curiosity, because I know that doing just that will turn any fear I have for the future into a path guided by hope and passion, one that paves its way though impossible and ends in impact.

Thank you for reading this post and make sure to comment any thoughts or questions you have on this post of the product I created.