Equilibrium April 18th.

The third world war came to an end, and with it, came the mark of a new era. The era of Libria, where the survivors head bent on preventing any further aggression, decide to eradicate the disease that plagued all existence, and caused such destruction. With symptoms such as hate, anger rage, and finally the thirst for war, the apocalyptic terror, EMOTION. An era where no form of emotion could be expressed, no marriages, no sex, no art, no pictures, no ornaments were permitted. There were people who were meant to enforce these laws, clerics and council members with an arms all instructed to shoot any person who was guilty of “sense offending”. If needed to be question, they were locked into a room until the questions were complete, and then they were incinerated.
The worst part of the holocaust was that everyday, man was drugged at specific times with an emotion-numbing drug, which ceased man’s ability to feel or sense. This the time during which the movie “equilibrium” is shot. It is a story based on a cleric John Preston missed one of the drug doses he is meant to take, and instead of going to the place “equilibrium” to get a refill of that dose, he just skips it. Due to this, he starts t feel. After 4 years, he feels the loss of his wife, and pain in shooting a dog for existing. Finally he feels bad for killing his own partner for feeling. A partner who told him that dying was something he would gladly do instead of losing out on emotion. The girl he falls in love with it burnt in front of his eyes, and he can not stop it. She tells him that he lives in a world where the strife for the future means giving the future the position to strive for the generations to come.
One of the most controversial lines in the movie is by the vice council of the “father”( the man in charge), who says, “ without restraint, without control, emotion is chaos.” How true is that statement? Is man really incompetent and unable to control his emotions, or can emotion be controlled?
After watching the movie, one cant help but think about the first and second world wars. Were they really a direct result of emotion, and the truth is, they were. Starting from the German ego, to British imperialism, then going on to the second world war which began with the French anger lay out in the Treaty of Versailles, to Hitler’s rage against the Jews, it all indeed was triggered by emotion. Recently there was a rape in north Bombay where a Group of college boys, took advantage of a drunken friend, out of lust and frustration. Emotions out of control leads to destruction of so many lives, so is it really needed? Is it really a disease?
But then again, a life with no emotion, where today and tomorrow are no different. where life is all about preventing future problems, ignoring the lack of joy in life. Yea there is a down side to emotion, but should man realy sacrifice his happiness for the sake of the ruin caused by sadness? Even it that were true is there really any way to subdue emotion?
Today we all need reason to live. It is the thirst to find joy, to find love, to be content. Even when tings are hard, people have motivation to live, even after a woman is raped, she still wants to survive, because the feeling of happiness is so precious and so worth every minute of the pain. Today people take drugs to mimic that ease, but its still not good enough. That pristine state of happiness is so pure, that one moment of clarity is worth all the moments of sadness. We see stories of people surviving long distance relationships, running away from home to be one with the people who bring them happiness, we see the poor still fight to survive when they know that at the end of the day they must return to a slum. Why what motivates them? Well its simple, the hope that someday they will be happy. In equilibrium, the motive was so futuristic, that the people of the present lived a life only serving future generations, whom they knew would be bound to the same terrible fate.
Where is the line drawn between reason and emotion? Is there a possibility to balance them out? Can it ever be found? I don’t know yet, but I do know one thing for certain, life will cease to exist without emotion!