Losing Insight
Ellie Williamson
We live in a society that constantly forces us to make “proper” choices concerning our future. In this environment our developing conscience puts pressure on our sanity. Everyday our beliefs are placed out on the table in front of us; we might see them, yet never do anything to protect them or pursue them even if those beliefs produce happiness and liberty. When this happens, our entire existence relies on the input of others and we no longer have reason to live for ourselves. We lose ourselves. We find bigger and brighter successes that we prefer to fear. We hope and we dream that one day we can experience our goals and dreams. The truth to our fearfulness is that success can lead to many choices within the conscience and, therefore, the paths to whence our lives may go. That is the beauty of it. With the developing conscience there is no right or wrong, it is only a matter of getting there; to success. Conscience can takes us anywhere in life, especially where we have always wanted to go. In the literary texts studied throughout the course, it is evident that conscience is a matter of exploration and experience.
Each individual pursues their dreams and deep down we all hope that each of us can achieve them. If all our dreams are met, well then there is a good chance mine can be reached as well. If lightning strikes once, why not twice? Hunter S. Thompson finds conscience through individuality in the pursuit of the American Dream: “…And that I think was the handle--- that sense of inevitable victory of the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simple prevail. There was no point in fighting---on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…” (Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) Hunter declared that once you find your conscience and it is discovered, there is no turning back. It’s like this wave; the only direction it is going is forward, and it is bound to get bigger and stronger along the way. The wave is a metaphor of conscience. The wave is the Americans conscience, it may throw us around a little but in the end we will always be rolled back into shore. Robert Bolt has his own way of explaining Man’s journey to conscience: “…We must just pray, that when your heads finished turning your face is to the front again.” (Bolt, pg 17) When our heads begin to spin it is an indication that we are confused with what life has given us. The symbol that Robert Bolt tries to promote to us is that being confused and uncertain about your conscience is normal, as well as not knowing how to deal with it. As long as, in the end, we learn something and have come out with something to teach the world, to share with everyone we love so that they don’t have to go through the same journey. Life is about making personal choices that suit our need to serve ourselves and about accepting the consequences that follow those choices and decisions. Bolt symbolizes anyone without conviction of beliefs through his consistent stand up for being “grown” in such a way of conscience: “There are terrors for children, Mr Secretary, not for me!” (Bolt, pg 69) Mr. More already understands the charges that are at hand and Cromwell tries to make More change what he stands for and what he believes, just to please the jury. More chooses to follow his conscience and accepts what the consequences are and abides by them with every last fiber of intensity in his conscience. If we witness people pursue the things they want in a society then we can have better faith in ourselves to become that dream for that person, and we can possess the potential to reach our goals, and spread our successes for a beautiful and more clear Utopia. Sometimes, it only takes the power of one person to bring the winds of change.
One thing we must learn to do is stop avoiding our conscience. If we learn how to stay loyal to our conscience we can pursue our dreams for success without having to deal with the distractions of society. We live in a very dynamic society. One way of understanding people and the conscience of those individuals is through different perspectives, stepping into another’s shoes, or walking in the line of another. The world looks different from each unique spot that we stand upon, because we are all unique, in our own ways. Bolt describes how perspective is key to understand oneself: “Some men think that the Earth is round, others think it is flat; it is a matter capable of question.” (Bolt, pg 79) Bolt indirectly wrote about the journey through discovering the outer corners of the earth through the way of sailing. Over the duration of ones life, some may find out that man is incapable of success without the masses of society. Yet, we mustn’t get absorbed into the drama of society by allowing our conscience to lead us. Man discovered the farther regions of the earth not only by himself, but also with the support of friends and family. Sailing is a symbol of journey, which ends up being a learning experience. Through Bolt’s way of preaching, he is able to show us how making a journey through conscience, is also making a journey into someone else’s dream, which can lead to success. It’s all relative. We are all related, the human and the insect, the lion and the rat and everything that is out there, is out there for us to learn something from it. Throughout the play, Bolt makes sure the characters are tested with their conscience: “Better a live rat than a dead lion.” (Bolt, pg 75) A clear test of conscience. The Common Man would rather be a coward and live a long cowardly life than to die a hero and have lived a courageous, but short life. The lion is a creature of courage and a rat is a creature of deception. There are many kinds of people in this society but when it all comes down to it, there are a lot more rats than lions. This is due to lack of individuality of conscience. Pure conscience cannot be pursued unless you let your lion lead you; the lion that sits in all of us, but never gets the signal to come out. Robert Bolt states how the country is controlled by immoral men and not God: “This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – Man’s laws, not God’s – and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of the law for my own safety’s sake.” (Bolt, pg 39) Another one of More’s beliefs is that laws were not already existent, they were created. Somebody chose to plant these laws within the country and that Man has control over these laws, religion or any other religious riffraff do not control them. But this is only the truth. Man never saw a chain, until he built it himself. Bolt uses this metaphor in a way of explaining the chains of society. We must break the chains of society because those are the weights that hold us back from our dreams and goals that are motioned by our conscience.
The issue we are in a constant struggle to overcome is that we have to give primacy to our unique thoughts so that the ideas of our friends and family do not embed themselves into our conscience. When we lose our personal insight on our dreams we become lost. Einstein saw this paradox in the pursuit of his dreams: “Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” (Albert Einstein) Most people just deny their own eyes and hearts to do what they have been told to do. In order to please others and sometimes just to diminish their responsibilities, people avoid the change that would come from following their own eyes and heart. People deny the truth because the truth is born from our history. Some would rather face the future with a blindfold, than to look back on the past and face it for what it’s worth. But for others, like Brutus in Julius Caesar, they would rather give up, hand over their identity and become something without a conscience: “Brutus had rather be a villager than to repute himself a son of Rome under these hard conditions as time is like to lay upon us…” (Brutus, A. I, Sc. Ii, Ln 17) The conscience that Brutus is forced to deal with, is his desire to give himself away to the masses of society rather than to claim himself a true Roman under the rule of Caesar. He has lost his confidence in his conscience due to the troubled times Caesar created. Brutus lost himself because he was no longer able to find confidence in the conscience he once knew. In A Man For All Seasons, Bolt uses a jailer as a symbol because the jailer has a duty and obligation before he can let his conscience speak out: “…I want no part of it. They can sort it out between them. I feel my deafness coming on.” (Bolt, pg 80) As a jailer his duty to guard comes before his feelings and conscience. The Jailer unknowingly joins a herd of animals, his intentions and dreams are lost. When duties replace conscience, it is weakened. What we all do not realize as a mass society is that without independent success we are nothing more than the next cow in the slaughterhouse waiting for something better to happen; we are all clueless because we focus too much on what the other cow has to say. When we join a herd we realize that it is something we have always walked amongst. When insight is lost, we become lost.
Life isn’t just surviving the slaughterhouse. It’s finding out what is on the table and sitting down to dinner! Life is letting out the sails of your boat and dreams and slicing through the waves of change. There is a whole world of endless opportunity. Open eyes and an open heart allow us to take hold of conscience with both hands, and never let go. We cannot let the chains and threats of society bring us down, we are worth more than all those suckers out there in that plentiful herd. Choose a path, pick any one of them, as long as we move forward. Life will not let us down. The cynics and realists are the ones who will be endlessly anchored at a forgotten port, because that is the only place that the world will allow them to fit. We should never be fearful of showing our dreams and goals because even those with slight and small goals are still vastly better off than those with none at all. These literary texts teach us that conscience is possible. Everyone has the potential to do what they pursue, in one way or another, but it is only the conscionable people who figure out that without experience, there is no history and without exploration, there is no future.
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