Looking at the world
Curt: We set out to change the world and ending up… just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)
So, when your father whom you've left under the sea for all eternity comes back after three months, really pissed off, and tells you the reason why you did that to him was a lie and your other father was the cause of it, you don't listen to much else of what he has to say. You argue back, and then you get kicked out. Well, I did. But I while I didn't listen at the time, I did hear what he said, and in the weeks after, when I was trying to figure out who had been the liar between the both of them and whether it wasn't still Angel's fault, it kept coming back to me. Kept coming back. What he had said about the world.
Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh, and cruel. But that's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.
My major purpose in life had been to avenge my father - Daniel Holtz, I mean. Which I had just proved I couldn't do properly, plus maybe, just maybe, it had been the wrong purpose. Or I was the wrong person. But I still existed, and it had to be for something. Something other than staking vampires or decapitating demons. And I hadn't been in Los Angeles or this world for much longer than three months; it was way better than Quortoth, but Angel still had a point. People were screwing each other over everywhere, they didn't need demons for that. And maybe if you're alive when you really shouldn't be after what you did, if you exist when you shouldn't have been born, then you owe it to the world not to sit on your ass and feel sorry for yourself but to do whatever you can to change things.
When Jasmine was born, I thought that this was it. A new world, one much better, and it was, in many ways. It wasn't just talk of change and some minor stuff, but people were different, genuinenly different. For those few weeks. They all loved each other, nobody hated each other, envy, greed, all of that was gone.
Not with me, of course, but still, I was happy to be a part of this until things started to crumble. And I shouldn't have been, because at the same time, I knew about the price, and nobody else who lived in paradise and believed in Jasmine did. Well, they knew but they didn't mind, except for Fred and Angel and the others after they left her. The price for paradise was that Jasmine needed to eat people to nourish herself. It ended the way it did. Fast forward some years, and the world is pretty much in the same state it was then. I'm not - no recent attempts to kill a couple of strangers, someone I love and myself, thank you very much - but I'm still around, and still sometimes wonder why, and still keep coming back to what Angel said then.
When I watch Harry playing with Evan, I'm reminded of one big reason why I can't stop wanting the world to change. It shouldn't be what it is now if you have a child growing up in it. Which means you have to work for this change. And figure out ways to do that which don't involve human sacrifice, obviously. But if you stop looking, if you settle, then it means that child will have to face the same shit later on. And what does that make you?
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)
So, when your father whom you've left under the sea for all eternity comes back after three months, really pissed off, and tells you the reason why you did that to him was a lie and your other father was the cause of it, you don't listen to much else of what he has to say. You argue back, and then you get kicked out. Well, I did. But I while I didn't listen at the time, I did hear what he said, and in the weeks after, when I was trying to figure out who had been the liar between the both of them and whether it wasn't still Angel's fault, it kept coming back to me. Kept coming back. What he had said about the world.
Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh, and cruel. But that's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.
My major purpose in life had been to avenge my father - Daniel Holtz, I mean. Which I had just proved I couldn't do properly, plus maybe, just maybe, it had been the wrong purpose. Or I was the wrong person. But I still existed, and it had to be for something. Something other than staking vampires or decapitating demons. And I hadn't been in Los Angeles or this world for much longer than three months; it was way better than Quortoth, but Angel still had a point. People were screwing each other over everywhere, they didn't need demons for that. And maybe if you're alive when you really shouldn't be after what you did, if you exist when you shouldn't have been born, then you owe it to the world not to sit on your ass and feel sorry for yourself but to do whatever you can to change things.
When Jasmine was born, I thought that this was it. A new world, one much better, and it was, in many ways. It wasn't just talk of change and some minor stuff, but people were different, genuinenly different. For those few weeks. They all loved each other, nobody hated each other, envy, greed, all of that was gone.
Not with me, of course, but still, I was happy to be a part of this until things started to crumble. And I shouldn't have been, because at the same time, I knew about the price, and nobody else who lived in paradise and believed in Jasmine did. Well, they knew but they didn't mind, except for Fred and Angel and the others after they left her. The price for paradise was that Jasmine needed to eat people to nourish herself. It ended the way it did. Fast forward some years, and the world is pretty much in the same state it was then. I'm not - no recent attempts to kill a couple of strangers, someone I love and myself, thank you very much - but I'm still around, and still sometimes wonder why, and still keep coming back to what Angel said then.
When I watch Harry playing with Evan, I'm reminded of one big reason why I can't stop wanting the world to change. It shouldn't be what it is now if you have a child growing up in it. Which means you have to work for this change. And figure out ways to do that which don't involve human sacrifice, obviously. But if you stop looking, if you settle, then it means that child will have to face the same shit later on. And what does that make you?