Previously, on a very special Life Anxiety, we discovered the root of all evil. No big.
No wonder Becker won a Pulitzer.
Turns out money isn't the root of all evil. Or greed. Or "hate." It's heroism.
See why that's funny? Because every time something evil happens we smother it in heroism. It's like trying to put out a fire with napalm.
Scenario: the righteous rag-tag band of outlaw underdogs lead a quest to liberate everybody from a conquering Empire. With the help of a mysterious and supernatural Force, they exploit a weakness of the Empire's stronghold and blow it up.
Fantasy:
Reality:
And you thought Episode 1 was a disaster.
So what can we do to break up the "useless self-sacrifices in unjust wars" or the "ignoble" or "tormented heroics" of, say, your Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
Becker answers: "To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life."
I love the qualification "main self-analytic problem." The main main problem of life, then, could arguably be a lack of sufficient self-analysis -- although this is not quite Becker's conclusion.
Next: Holy War
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