“… watching you run into the high noon sun, watching you run farther than guns will go, you are a runner with a stolen voice, you are a runner and I am my father’s son…”
To run away is an art. One I’m quite sure I have perfected through extensive practice. It might seem very simple – pick up and go – but believe an experienced escapee (whom is very familiar with the value of a con) when he tells you that it is far more complex. You need to plan it, months in advance. The irritating thing is is that the con he creates during this period of planning involves people, people he would sometimes like to take along. The ultimate result of this experience is that he learns very quickly to detach himself from human feeling, losing his sense of humanity. And it is at this point where the runner’s legacy of death and destruction comes into play, because (having perfected the lie) the people left behind are the ones picking up the pieces years after he has set off into the sunset.
For the uninformed non-folk supporting readers, the quote at the beginning is from a musical masterpiece entitled ‘You are a runner and I am my father’s son’ by the ever-inspiring band Wolf Parade. It is written from the perspective of ‘the one that’s left behind’ and starts by explaining what is going through the mind of he who stays, constantly watching someone he loves running away. You feel for the ‘one who’s left behind’ while he takes the blame for the runner’s actions by stating that he actually is no hero. This is a common trait amongst those left, blaming themselves for the runner’s actions due to a lack of knowledge of why they are left alone. Mr Left Behind has no identity left, for the runner (being a perfect con) took his identity along and all that he has now is the fact that he is ‘his father’s son’. The easy way out of the obvious question arising here, is that the blame is not to be placed on Mr Left Behind, but rather on the evil runner that works his way into someone’s life, heart and soul and then chooses to set off without any (obvious) reason. He is evil. Evil because he is not human anymore. Evil because he takes and breaks and doesn’t stay behind to face the consequences. Or so it may seem… But is the runner actually to blame, or could the accumulation of circumstances only visible to him possibly be to blame for his actions?
A good example of this is a student with a problem. He is 19 and has just passed his first semester, but excitement is far from what is on his mind. You see, he’s been through a great relationship (with disastrous results), a very successful exam-period, and made some relatively good friends. So why does he choose to throw it all down the drain by withdrawing from the program, skipping classes and ultimately putting his foot down on the accelerator, spinning off as though his life depends on it? Below the exterior of confidence and power, which serves as the lie he presents to the outside, there is a truth only he is aware of: he can’t keep it up. See, even though all is well on the exterior, he actually has no idea what he is doing and realizes that keeping up the act could (would) not only disappoint everyone counting on his success, but also destroy him, seeing as he actually does not have the skills to deal with failure. Somewhere in his system, he is missing the knowledge to deal with the most normal of circumstances, and through his life (not understanding what exactly he’s missing) has taught himself various tactics to deal with these supposedly mundane situations. The problem with his solution is that it does not take into account that these everyday situations can vary, and the moment that they vary, he has no way to deal with it. Thus, to everyone around him, it seems like life as usual, whilst to him the situations he deals with daily (classes, friends, projects) suddenly seem a world away from what he knows.
The question then arises, what is he supposed to do? Should he stay behind at the same university in his current life (and confused state), he knows that he is heading for a crash, a crash that will not only be misunderstood by the people around him – but will also display him as being a lesser man (woman). Because nobody else see the changes he experiences, it is also quite plausible to a logical mind that he will be criticized profoundly, and ultimately tossed aside as a ‘broken toy’. So, from our runner’s perspective, he is faced either with being declared ‘broken’, or running and lodging an attempt at success somewhere far away where life seems to be different. I know which I chose, many times.
So back to the original question, is he then to blame for his actions? It seems too easy to now refer to some Highly Sophisticated theory of him possibly not being in control due to some evil scientist (thank you Putnam), so I’d like to look at it from a human perspective. One of the many theories on suicide victims, is that there is a point in the human psychology where you have no choice, because you only see one option and thus you are controlled by your limited views and can, therefore, not be held accountable for the act of suicide. This is highly debatable, and thanks to the fact that suicide (realistically speaking) leads to death, we don’t have much evidence to support it. Thus it might be a semi-fictional theory, but still possible. Isn’t it then the same with ‘the runner’? However, the fact still remains that it is only natural for us (or so it would seem) to want to place blame, due to the fact that we are constantly looking for a reason for pain, to ease it.
There seems to be no answer to this question the more I think about it, because even if (from a runner’s perspective) you can not place blame, how do you live with yourself when being left behind? As complex as it all may seem, I’ve found solace somewhere in the lyrics of Wolf Parade, which makes it clear that although one might seem heroesque and good on the surface – when the lights go down you’re just another person with the possibility of being rotten to the core:
“…I was a hero
Early in the morning
I ain’t no hero
at night…”
The Cage 