I just cannot get it out of my head. It’s been days, weeks even, maybe over a month ago, and I still see it. The words resonant in such an agonizing way. I hear them daily, they call to me making me miserable and proud at the same time. Such power, such tragedy, such drama. I have never been so hauntingly entertained…
If you watched the above video and still have no idea what it is I’m talking about, I’m talking about Arthur Morgan - for the second time* no less. In fact, you could consider this a sequel of sorts, if blogs had sequels I guess.
Anyway, it fascinates me that we as people are attracted to the story of a piteously-drawn reprobate, who seems so easily controlled by a more dominant personality. I find myself coming back to it, over and over again. So in order to quell those little Arthur’s on my shoulder (and the Micah’s on the other one), I am going to try and get this sorted….
“I’ve lived a bad life, Sister.”
I’d like to romanticize it but I know the truth. I have been pretty awful to a lotta people. Some may have deserved it, others may have needed it, and others still were completely innocent. I think at some point in our existence each of us realizes that if we live long enough, it is hard to avoid causing harm to someone else. Actions, whether the intent is pure or not, have repercussions that we sometimes do not always see. Other times we refuse to acknowledge these repercussions due to greed or other blinders. Regardless, it’s our plight as humans that we are destined to focus on the negative.
“I still don’t believe in nothin’.”
I believe that those with the appearance of an ironclad faith in something are somewhat of an enigma to us common folk. Fact of the matter is, its easy to feel empty and ill at ease when you begin to think about the hereafter. Arthur’s expression of this to Sister Calderón speaks to the fact that even those we view as being heavily awash in religious ideology are still saddled with some level of questions and doubt. Meaning, there’s no need for the dramatic when it comes to deeds. Start simple, start small. Point yourself to true north and begin doing what you feel is right, helpful and worthwhile.
“I’m afraid.”
I fear, there is no redemption for me, not because I’m so bad, but because I’m so blatant. This could be what keeps me up at night. I find this feeling is likely universal. I try to do and be better, but what if I fail? We are not given a guarantee of how things will turn out, are we? And therein lies the fear...the unknown, the doubt, the second-guesses, the critics. All of these things plague us in our day-to-day. Conclusively, we need to focus less on the end and more on the beginning and doing. We can lessen the fear of the end by checking our intent and committing to attempts. Intent and attempts.
“Good bye Mr. Morgan.”
I think that Arthur’s plight resonates with me, and many others, not because we are all so evil, but because we are wondering if we’ve done enough. Lived well enough. Helped others enough. Been good enough. In our minds, we seem to always come up short. Like Arthur, we know too well what it’s feels like to have too little time, too little power to change anything.
The trick of it is, we have both. We have time, sure maybe we’ve squandered some. Likely, we aren’t as strong as we’d like. But we do have strength, and until our heart stops beating we have the same 24 hours in a day that everyone else does.
*Previously, I wrote a just downright awful review, tearing down Rockstar Games for their cardboard characters, stale narrative, and generally, all the ways they cut corners in RDR2. ;)
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