Tuesday 19 January 2010

Copycats,replicas and serial actors: the suicide of the protagonist

Perfect crime: the quintessence of narration. Everyone has deployed at least once this game: as a rebel teenager with your mates, or the isolation of your murdering attitude (note: we include also self-murderer).

It's a game of logic and common sense: a perfect crime changes in different societies. You are required to know the context of the society in which the murder will take place. Planning a perfect crime is also a test of your narrativity. And something exquisitely human. Other animals slaughter their mates. They can organize traps: but none will plan a killing in order NOT to be seen by its mates. In the animal kingdom killing is something to be shown, not covered.


We like so much this game that for some (normally clever, disturbed guys) it's like a drug: they become addicted. And they kill in series, of course trying not to be discovered. Not soon at least. But we are such a funny species, that not only we have serial killers, but also copycats: killers who emulate other serial killers, normally less clever, seriously disturbed guys. Are we interested in a niche of narrativity for psychos? Well, yes, but not so punctually limited.

The killing game is limited, but the algorithm of serial doing and copycating is the essence of human nature. Consciousness is not a thing, an entity; what you call mind is a complex phenomenon of a primate brain, exposed in a narrative environment.

An empty primate brain will be exposed to narratives and will absorb a series of stories, a series of different details of facts, event. And characters, of course. At a certain point, your primate brain will be able to feel the stories, even able to replicate them. Impersonating the protagonist of his own story. Clearly is such the amount of narratives stored in our human environment, that every replica is slightly different.

You can start copycating your “hero”, not matter “who”: could be easily Ulysses or Jim Morrison, your daddy or Marylin Monroe (or both, of course). After your imprinting, you start to serially acting, pretending to be a specific character. Indeed you are a specific replica of the narrativity of human beings.Have you ever felt something is wrong, something is missing? Would you like to know the truth? Your a copy, a narrative, imperfect clone. Still interested in the logic game of common sense, get the rid of the protagonist: he doesn't exist.

You will find yourself liberated and much more tolerant about your mates.

You can also do these trick: because of our mirror neurons, if you smile to your fellows, they feel the urge to smile back. Cute, funny, story test dummies!

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