Posted by:
Daniel Tapping
(
)
Date: September 23, 2019 07:28PM
I finally saw It (pt 1) at the weekend. I thought there was an interesting story of relevance to our former dependence on Mormonism.
There is an African American boy in it, whose dad is a butcher. His father takes him to a slaughterhouse, and tries to get him to use the bolt gun on a sheep. He refuses because he is too cowardly. (A key point since he later develops a pair of cojones in the movie which allows the plot to progress.)
Anyway, later on the boy is taken back again by his father to kill the sheep and he manages to do so.
His father tells him that he must make his choice, that he will either be the one using the gun or on the receiving end. If he prevaricates and delays making that choice, the father says, someone else will make it for him, and he won't know unless it's too late.
It's a brutal object lesson, but it is true. We are either masters of our own destiny or someone else is deciding it for us. We become men, as opposed to boys, when we develop self-reliance, and the ability to live outside a system of control.