It's been a while huh, (don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it ) haven't written one of these since last decaaade! Lmao that joke is so four days ago, but don't go around saying I didn't use it. I got jokes too. Anyway, I'm currently on holiday, and I would have gotten down to writing immediately I got home, but I thought I should take a load off. Thank you for your patience, dear reader.
So, let's get into it, shall we?
Not sure why I took so long (you might see quite a lot of stuff I write about starting this way because, well, in the words of Drake; "I just like to take my time with all this s**t, I still believe in that."), but I've finally watched Demon Slayer (Kimetsu No Yaiba) and man oh man is it good. Just one season in, and I can already say that the story telling is nothing short of beautiful (it's actually what brought me to write this today. I'll get to that shortly). Not to mention the art style, and the mouth-watering fight scenes; brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Now, I'm not here to review Demon Slayer, so don't worry, if you haven't seen it yet, I won't spoil anything. Or, at least, I'll do my best not to reveal anything too significant. If you've watched it up to, at least, episode 8, you'll be fine.
The much anticipated year of 2020 is upon us, and only about three days in, we had the possibility of a third World War looming upon us. By the way, the Memes are hilarious; the never failing Internet has really delivered on this one. Anyway, that's also not why I'm here. See when I was watching Demon Slayer, the 'early' story appealed to me in a significant way. The first episode begins with Tanjiro carrying his sister Nezuko who, before we're told why later in the episode, is almost dying (at least that's what he thought). This story opens up by showing us what's essentially Tanjiro's purpose; the whole reason he's dong what he does so awesomely now. In that very moment, it was to keep his little sister from dying, and after that it's to turn her back into a Human. Yes, of course, the rest of his family was massacred, and that's definitely a more than significant part of his purpose. So perhaps, more accurately, I should call Nezuko his motive. Whatever the case, he carries her around on his back, and to me that translates to her being the reason for most, if not all, of his actions.
To me, the whole show just looked like one big analogy. One that I'm looking to apply to my life more aggressively. A lot of us tend to venture into various undertakings with no actual motive, purpose, or goal(s). To give a good example; there are plenty of students who are in various Universities studying something they're not really interested in, and they're doing it so that they can get a job later, which they might not even enjoy. I know that example is a little heavy, comparatively, but bare with me. Of course, it shouldn't take something as awful as what happened to Tanjiro to get you to kick into gear, but when you do kick into gear, carry your motive in a box on your back as well. This way you won't lose focus. There are points in the show where all it takes is the sight (or even the thought) of Nezuko to get Tanjiro back on his feet, especially if he felt like giving up after being knocked down hard. Tanjiro is not only motivated by his little sister, but also extremely protective of her. Your motives are subject to scrutiny. There are plenty of people who will not understand your motives and goals, or will just flat out not approve of them, and that's okay, it happens all the time, and people are different. But once you set your motives and goals straight, you need to be fiercely protective of them. As is Tanjiro of his little sister. The guy headbutted a Hashira without a second thought for crying out loud. Keep in mind that motives and goals can't be used interchangeably here; your goals are where you want to get, and your motives are (arguably a subset of goals, but...) what you channel to keep you on your feet as you get there.
Later in this big analogy, our (main) protagonist meets what I concluded are two extremes of his personality: Inosuke Hashbira and Zenitsu Agatsuma. It would be great if even one of you agree with me on that. Inosuke is an over-the-top projection of what Tanjiro needs to become if he is to gain the ability to defeat that person. Even with how aggressive Inosuke is, Tanjiro still found room to learn something from him, although not so evidently (he unknowingly encouraged Tanjiro to go up that mountain). Coming to Zenitsu, well, he's where Tanjiro is coming from. Now of course Tanjiro wasn't that bad, but he might have had elements of it which are later knocked out of him as the story progresses. From my personal experience, it's very easy to lose yourself amongst your peers. Especially those we admire in one way or another. You unknowingly start to adopt certain aspects of theirs and slowly chip away at yourself. We've seen elements of this sort of 'self comparison' in Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia. I witness it happen all the time, both to other people and to myself. I usually notice it and have to stop myself, most of the time. Thank goodness I always succeed at stopping myself. Anyway, the point of this paragraph is to point out how Tanjiro maintains strength of character, and that you should too. He hardly ever strays from who he is, unless it's to get better. I hold character to an immensely high regard, and so Tanjiro strikes me as an admirable individual. It reaches a point where even his more aggressive peer begins to admire him. This happens in real life as well.
There's so much in this show (or pretty much anything really) that I could break up and talk about, piece by piece, but like I said; this isn't a review.
So what have we learnt today? Well; that we should take time to figure out our motives, and our goals, make sure they're true to who we are, and to carry them around on our back, in a box made of a special, light, wood. Haha. Yes. I'm not going to edit that. Also, we should dig deep into ourselves, and find who we really are. Stick to it as well. No one can do you better than you do. It's not too late, you can still try and come to grips with what your new new year resolutions are, write them down if you want/need to, and work on you, in this respect, for the next 360 days (wow, those reduced pretty quickly huh? Yes! So you better get going). Also, later, we can link these two traits together and be on the road to becoming the best versions of ourselves. Tanjiro hasn't swayed because he's focused on why he's a Demon Slayer, and look at him now.
Well that's all I had for you today.
Thank you for reading :)
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P.S: The title of this blog is mooched off my friend Mia's blog post title. She's pretty cool. You should check out her Blog too, just click here.
