CPnS Week 7th. Character, Place and Events.

Theme: Character, Place and Events

Method: Reading. Writing. Thinking.

Context: Dr. Chris Barker's essay about character design quotes extracted by Max.

Response:

While Max was explaining us todays theme, I couldn’t stop thinking about my life back in Colombia and how all the experiences back there turned me in what I think I am right now.

It is true that in Colombia madness rules. My generation was exposed to violence, fear, corruption at an early age due to mass media or our contexts, I mean, the places where we lived our lives. Terror was an everyday thing. However, I was lucky enough to was born on a lovely family and live at the outsides of the city, they taught me how to grow plants and flowers, take care of the soil and animals, hiking, camping and chase adventures! and of course find the beauty and the awesomeness on the littlest things around us. All of this helped me to deal with the other side of the coin and how to survive it.

It is really fun and interesting how my new friends here in AU react to my stories, it's like they're almost shocked about them, they can't believe that I've had gone through those situations. Sometimes, that makes me think if I should be that relaxed when talking about that time when I witnessed murder or that time when I almost died with all of my friends in one of their brand-new car. At the same time, they don't understand why i could be so amazed after staring at a flower, a rock, the clouds or a bird, they think that it is a really childish reaction but for me is just staring at the sublime.

When people from the 3rd world countries comes to these almost over-developed countries (for us) we feel really free, relaxed, almost like a walk in the park, and at the same time it makes you reflect and realize about why the rest of the world see Colombians as they do, in this case. Definitely events shape us along with our relationship with everything around us, it is like we are products of something, it is just a bit sad to think about how some of us are not that lucky to be shaped for good.

Do we really have a purpose? Why do we live the lives we have?

I explored this theme in the past while creating my application for this master's degree. I am pasting a fragment of my Animated Narrative reflective document in here. It speaks for itself:

“Metamorphosis” is based on the Colombia’s never-ending internal conflict and how it has affected the lives of the most mistreated people on the territory, the farmers. The story uses the metaphor as its main conceptual resource to translate the sad and hurtful reality of the many victims of the avarice that consumes the country, to universal ideas and images that can be easily understood by almost anyone. The story shows how a bear that lives, and coexists with its environment, is transformed into a terrible monster fuelled by hate and revenge when its bear cub is killed by a hunter who thought it will look good as the central rug for his living room. In extreme pain, the bear kills the huntsman, but this action won’t bring back its cub, and what is worst, it won’t be a bear no more, the hate has possessed and corrupted its heart. Now, the bear strongly believes that will protect the woods and all the forest creatures by killing every human on its way.

The concept stands up in protest against the atrocities that are inflicted by the political parties which control the country, to the outcast Colombian people. And how these actions have turned the Colombian people (affected and non-affected) into abominations. The unconscious and arrogant armed hunter represents the “leaders” of Colombia and their irrational anxieties of more power no matter how much harm they cause. On the other side, the bear on its recondite cave, the bear cub and the pine woods represent the farmers who after being displaced by “the progress”, and are being oppressed and getting killed to satisfy the rulers whims.