three hundred

A week or two ago we watched the movie "300". It's about 300 or so Spartans that fended off a few berzillion Persians on a beach. The movie itself was cool enough i reckon. Lots of violence and special effects in a claustrophobic li'l cg world. And it's based on a real live comic book. (Editor's note: that's a "graphic novel" to the 30 year old geeks out there who still live with their moms and play Dungeons & Dragons.) But i think what i found coolest, and why i watched it again the next night, was the Spartans themselves. i don't know how close to their actual culture the comic/movie actually came-- don't know much about Spartans-- but it's possible to imagine a culture like it as being real. Superhuman ninja skills and common deathwish notwithstanding, the cool bit about their culture (as portrayed) was the totally overriding sense of purpose instilled in everyone in it. Everyone there was a soldier; everone knew they could count on the person next to 'em to watch their back; everyone knew they could count on themself to do what they had to do 'cuz they were trained for it from birth. That's cool. i finished the movie with a sense of longing for something like that.

Now, i'm not saying i wish i were part of some kind of community of supersoldiers. i just wonder what it'd be like to be part of a community, and i wonder what it'd be like to have been raised with a purpose in mind-- besides maybe that i should make it to adulthood alive. i'd love to raise my kids with a sense of purpose like that-- some definite goal or direction: the thing i was raised entirely without and wish i had. But ironically, i feel more lost and purposeless and without a community now than i think i ever have before. And who knows?-- maybe my parents felt just this same way when they were 31; maybe that's why i was raised to be a formidable nintendo player and to wander around like a chicken with my head cut off. "Behold, 'cody, the Starter of Many Things and Finisher of None'!"

Ha.