The Primal Force
By Danny Jafa, '20
The blood lies in a deep, dark red puddle on the white snow.
I see a man, unshaven, wounded and beat to hell, half crawling, half snaking his way out of the river. The struggle on his face is real. He is tired, but refusing to give up.
The wind cuts against my raw cheeks, the cold water and warm blood leaking into my shoes. The discomfort and guilt I feel, it all seems so real.
But it isn’t.
Every day I think about my favorite movie of all time, The Revenant. The film is about a man who is left for dead in the biting cold of the American wilderness. He’s driven to get back at those who left him to the wolves.
The cinematography, the score, the composition are all perfect in the movie. However, the cinematic perfection is not what I’m drawn to; I’ve never really had refined taste for art.
The man refuses to give up after being condemned to the dead. He was a revenant, a person who returned from the grave.
We all fight our own battles. The battle of The Revenant is that of raw beauty, pure grit and mental strength.
My toes clicked against the heels of my opponent’s as we run down hill, both of us acutely aware of the onlookers yelling to us from the sideline of the course.
I was alone in the wilderness. I really was. The people surrounding me, screaming and pleading with me to go faster, to catch the guy ahead of me, to swing my arms and lift my knees didn’t faze me. In my mind, those people didn’t exist.
My battle wasn’t physical; the conflict was taking place in my head. A thousand different voices ravaged and screamed, sending my mind into loops that tied themselves up, creating one big mess.
I focus on my heavy breathing and think about the blood on the white snow.
The man from The Revenant showed his strength through the ability to live out a primitive life, one that demanded the basic needs of food, water, and shelter. But he also had another strength, one that could be crafted and honed only in the mind. He was shrouded in resiliency, the capacity to absorb and spring back against conflict. I was there. I saw the struggle and the effort to keep going against the mounting desire to stop.
If I told you that right at that moment I decided to become resilient, it would be a lie.
It was more the convergence of years of training, experimenting with different philosophies, and the desire to succeed.
Shouts from afar bring me to the present.
My eyes snap to the person running ahead of me. I give chase, reliving the discomfort of the cold water and the warm blood.
I see a man, unshaven, wounded and beat to hell, half crawling, half snaking his way out of the river. The struggle on his face is real. He is tired, but refusing to give up.
The wind cuts against my raw cheeks, the cold water and warm blood leaking into my shoes. The discomfort and guilt I feel, it all seems so real.
But it isn’t.
Every day I think about my favorite movie of all time, The Revenant. The film is about a man who is left for dead in the biting cold of the American wilderness. He’s driven to get back at those who left him to the wolves.
The cinematography, the score, the composition are all perfect in the movie. However, the cinematic perfection is not what I’m drawn to; I’ve never really had refined taste for art.
The man refuses to give up after being condemned to the dead. He was a revenant, a person who returned from the grave.
We all fight our own battles. The battle of The Revenant is that of raw beauty, pure grit and mental strength.
My toes clicked against the heels of my opponent’s as we run down hill, both of us acutely aware of the onlookers yelling to us from the sideline of the course.
I was alone in the wilderness. I really was. The people surrounding me, screaming and pleading with me to go faster, to catch the guy ahead of me, to swing my arms and lift my knees didn’t faze me. In my mind, those people didn’t exist.
My battle wasn’t physical; the conflict was taking place in my head. A thousand different voices ravaged and screamed, sending my mind into loops that tied themselves up, creating one big mess.
I focus on my heavy breathing and think about the blood on the white snow.
The man from The Revenant showed his strength through the ability to live out a primitive life, one that demanded the basic needs of food, water, and shelter. But he also had another strength, one that could be crafted and honed only in the mind. He was shrouded in resiliency, the capacity to absorb and spring back against conflict. I was there. I saw the struggle and the effort to keep going against the mounting desire to stop.
If I told you that right at that moment I decided to become resilient, it would be a lie.
It was more the convergence of years of training, experimenting with different philosophies, and the desire to succeed.
Shouts from afar bring me to the present.
My eyes snap to the person running ahead of me. I give chase, reliving the discomfort of the cold water and the warm blood.