The Need For Self Knowledge

 

(Editor’s Note: This journal entry was part of an ongoing series originally titled Warrior Files.)

Friday, 7/30/04.

I just woke up about 15 minutes ago. I fell asleep on the sofa again. It’s too bad my wife is planning on replacing that thing like today. She’s been asking me to get her a new sofa for about a year now. I guess there’s no way around certain things in life. This morning just before I pulled myself out of my slumber I was dreaming about work of all things. The details don’t really matter too much but it has to be a bad sign or something when you dream about work. Not that work is bad but if you’re not doing the work you love, what’s the point? So anyway there we were, Kevin and I, running A/C ducts at Doug’s house. You know how dreams is it was Doug’s house but not the house he lives in currently. His Mother and wife were there. It’s just weird that my mind would allow me to have to work in my dreams as well. I guess it’s like that after a long day at work. Which brings me back to yesterday.

As I’ve already mentioned yesterday was a very long day. I don’t necessarily want to start with the very beginning or outline every detail about the entire day, but I do want to talk about certain events just as points of reference. Last night my wife and I went to see The Bourne Supremacy. I was looking forward to seeing the movie for quite some time since I enjoyed the first installment, The Bourne Identity. Matter of fact I enjoyed it so much that I copped a Robert Ludlum book from the half-priced bookstore in Houston when my wife and I went out there earlier this summer. I won’t get into an all out movie review here (I liked it), but I will make certain key observations. The movie shows a man who is desperately trying to gain knowledge of self. Sometimes the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad are guilty of trying to make the teachings apply to every movie we watch or to every book or article we may happen to read. In some instances I’m sure some if not all of us have forced the teachings in such a manner trying to make them fit like a young toddler tries to make the square block fit into the circular shaped hole. Of course like the toddler, who grows into a better understanding through experimentation, so it is with us as we grow older in this experience called life. The teachings serve as a filter by which we get the privilege of seeing the world a little bit closer to how Allah (God) sees the world.

So the lead character in the movie needed more than anything to find out who he was. He had a skill set that made him the best at what he did, but it didn’t matter in the lager scope of things because he did not know who he was. In the beginning of the movie he reacted to the situations presented to him in line with his training except there was no one over him pulling the strings. The scene which really started to spell trouble for him was when he was perched on the rooftop in Berlin with his scope fixed in on the CIA officer in charge of solving the murder in which he was the prime suspect. He could have pulled the trigger but she said something that triggered a flashback in his mind. After that point he began to make missteps as he went about the business of trying to piece together the puzzle of his life as well as clear himself of a murder he couldn’t have committed because he was 4000 miles away trying to live his life in relative obscurity. The CIA operative who used to head Treadstone, the Black Op division of which Jason Bourne was the number one assassin, was 100% correct when he told him that he couldn’t run from his past. It was at this point that Bourne was able to solicit the much needed confession from the head of Treadstone which would clear him of the false charges trumped up against him.

 

However, when he learned what he learned in Berlin he knew that there was still no closure for him. He was now very aware of at least two of the brutal murders he had committed while serving his country. He felt the strong need to atone for his misdeeds. So he had to go to Moscow. He wanted to find the daughter of the couple he’d murdered years earlier in that Berlin hotel. He knew that he couldn’t change the past and undo the terrible things he’d done in his past. But he couldn’t keep living with himself without at least letting the sole survivor of that family know the truth about her parents. It’s called Atonement. It becomes very interesting that the underlying themes of this particular movie have so much to do with the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and there is not one memorable Black face in the whole movie. I’m not at all confused or disappointed by this fact. After all the movie was set in Europe and is marketed to white America just like the majority of films being put out today. But the movie begins with the oft-repeated theme from “Message To The Blackman”, which is knowledge of self. Then the movie comes full circle and echoes a main theme from a significant portion of the work of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Atonement. The Million Man March was the vehicle that Min. Farrakhan used to bring the principle of Atonement to forefront of the world’s consciousness. My observations of this movie also serve as a testament to the universality of the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as well as his greatest helper, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

There was one other key scene I’d like to touch on before I conclude my discussion of this film. The part when the former head of Treadstone actually kills himself. This part of the movie illustrates quite clearly how God holds every man accountable for his actions. Every people are also held accountable accordingly. He had to face the truth of his misdeeds and realized that there was no way of averting the chastisement his actions in life were about to bring into his life. He decided to take his own life rather than pay the price for the wrong he had done. And so it will be in just a few days when this most wicked and adulterous country that we live in comes face to face with her gravest of misdealing. Her treatment of Black people. America pacifies the Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and poor Whites of this country and may allow a few to rise to prominence strictly for window dressing. America is on a collision course with the wrath of God for the evils done to the millions of Blacks who inhabit her land and the wickedness she continues to spread around the Earth. America seems to be blowing what may be her last chance to try to right some of the wrongs she has committed against the darker peoples of the Earth by ignoring God’s servant in our midst, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. On May 3, 2004 Min. Farrakhan delivered a world altering message. He delivered the World Press Conference in Washington D.C. from the National Press Club. The title of the message is “Guidance in a Time of Trouble to America and the World.” If you have not had the opportunity to listen to this message it is imperative that you listen carefully to the words contained in this lecture. Then make sure that the people who are close to you also get the chance to listen to this lecture.

On the way home from watching this movie my wife was explaining to me how the movie was just average. She liked it, but…. she really didn’t like the way the camera shots moved so rapidly during the fight scenes. I pointed out that it’s just a certain style of camera work that happens to be in style right now for action flicks. Then she was like “I didn’t like how soft he was. He didn’t kill enough people. He wasn’t ruthless enough.” Well, I must admit that I was expecting the same type of behavior from Bourne but when I realized that there was a deeper plot happening I started to like the film even more. I really appreciate real stories. Even though the character is fictional the story is told in such a way that you can start to relate to the character. And since it was a sequel, a well made one; it is very admirable that they were able to incorporate his growth as a human being into the project. It lent a special connectivity to the character for me in particular, which I will get into later. I told my wife that Bourne was growing and with growth comes change. You can’t really expect people not to change as they grow but he still had familiar traits from his past to let you know that it was still him, except it was a more mature him. Then I told my wife about the scene when Bourne could have killed the assassin who killed his love interests and was trying to do everything within his abilities to kill Bourne himself. But after the chase scene in which Bourne’s would-be killer lay in his vehicle slumped over his steering wheel seemingly minutes away from death, Bourne could have pumped a few shots into him to ensure that he did not survive the near death ordeal. But, he didn’t. He walked away. He shared a kindred spirit with the assassin. He knew that he couldn’t blame the assassin for doing what he was trained to do. The assassin didn’t make himself that way he was fashioned into a killing machine by a certain group of people who are more than willing to sacrifice a few lives so that they can continue to enjoy whatever power and control they have in the world a few moments longer. There is a price to pay though for your treachery.

On another level it represents Black on Black crime. We didn’t make ourselves niggers and place no value on our lives. That was the doing of the white race. There was a process in making slaves and the results of that process are what you are currently witnessing in the Black community. As long as our Black Brothers and Sisters walk around not knowing themselves, God or the devil they will continue to perpetuate this image of Black people in the worse possible light. In order for Bourne to walk away without murdering the killer of his companion he had to have a more complete knowledge of himself, God and the devil. Now obviously he learned a lot about himself during the course of the film. But what isn’t so obvious is the knowledge he acquired about God and the devil. While he was trying to start his life anew with his companion he had learned to love. We’ve heard Minister Farrakhan, as well as some other of our great teachers; teach on the subject of God being Love. God is Love. He was also brought face to face with the reality of the devil when he learned that he was made this way. He was fashioned into this heartless killer by the devil. In this instance the devil came in the person(s) of the CIA. Only after gaining this vital knowledge was he able to pull from within the strength needed to forgive his brother. I know it wasn’t his brother in the biological sense of the word. But it was his brother because they shared a common background and were both molded into shape and form under similar circumstances. It took extraordinary strength and courage for him to be the bigger man and walk away. Drawing the parallel once again to the Black community, here we are 70 years from the time the Honorable Elijah Muhammad began his tremendous task of resurrecting the so-called Negro in America and still in need of knowledge of self, God and the devil.

I mentioned earlier that yesterday was a long day and it was. It’s almost like I’m more aware of every detail about my surroundings. Yesterday morning by the time it was 10:15am it felt as if so much had happened by that time and it was still just the beginning. I guess microscopically that’s how my life feels to me macroscopically. I’m 33 years old but it feels like I’ve lived so much life and at the same time it feels like I’ve got so much more life to live.