#proactivity

Change What You Can

MBTI Analysts

It's tuesday, everybody! And I slept five hours. I'm not going to survive the day, considering tonight I have a cooking lesson. I'm sleepy to the point where I had to do something else during my biology lesson to avoid falling asleep, so I did some admin stuff for my uni trip to Korea. But this afternoon I have a fluidodynamics lesson and I for sure will be falling asleep.

Chris Manheim: Writer of ‘Paradise Found’

I’ve said that balance is one of the main themes of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and I’ve always wanted to know what the writers thought about how Xena and Gabrielle constantly struggle with these polarities of light and dark, good and evil and peace and war throughout the show. Xena, in that she has to reconcile with her dark side to come to be at peace with her entire self and her purpose in her life. She needed to accept that part of her she was ashamed of due to her past experiences in order to use it for the greater good. Gabrielle, in that she had to accept Xena for that too, as well as letting go of such a strong hold on to her goodness and the light in herself. To understand that she can’t condemn herself for making the mistakes she does, or the conscious choices she makes to get out of the situations she and Xena get put in. To trust in her own human nature.

One of the biggest questions I frequently ask myself regarding the show’s themes is ‘when is the right time and place to act in violence and to kill?’ That being because of the significance of the character, Gabrielle, for me, and her storyline of evolving from a farm girl into an experienced warrior. Teaching me that you can’t just “do nothing” in the sense that you don’t do anything when you come across adversity. Although, I’ve already learned that lesson just from watching the show, it’s nice to hear Chris Manheim’s views about this subject and how it is a staple to her writing in some of the episodes. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one that has these views about the themes of violence and pacifism.

I have a question to all my followers and I would like people to give their answer in the comments. If you were told to kill someone or be killed - would you do it?Could you do it? Regardless of the situation or circumstance. Could you take someone else’s life away in the effort to save your own life? To save yourself. Okay, if you’ve answered ‘no’ to that question… What if it wasn’t you but someone you loved that would be killed if you did not kill that someone? I always ask the question as to whether it’s right to kill or to act in violence at all to protect or defend yourself or your loved ones. And it’s not an easy question to answer for the simple fact that it’s not black and white. It always depends on the situations and circumstances on what you have to do in the moment as opposed to what you think you have to do out of preconceptions and misinformation. There’s always a grey area with it. You can’t really make a decision while disregarding the situation or circumstance. And you have to be in it to know it.

Gabrielle doesn’t really make a conscious decision each time she’s put in the situation or circumstance where she has to act in violence or kill to defend and protect herself or her loved ones. Her instincts or her heart decide for her. In truth, if she even tries to employ her mind to do that job, she nearly always fails in protecting or defending anyone or in helping or changing that situation or circumstance. And while she says she always makes those choices and must face the consequences for them, she really doesn’t. Her warrior spirit takes over. You have to ask yourself who really calls the shots when the conscious mind is at rest and whether you truly do have free will or not. That’s the greater picture to this subject and all these thoughts. What holds the reigns and drives the horse and leads it to water? Well, the old adage is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. And therefore, you do have free will. And this is something Gabrielle had to learn. That she must follow in ‘the way’. Similar to Xena, but just the opposite way around. While Xena trusted her warrior instincts, Gabrielle constantly denied them. Until much later in the show,