![Alt Text](https://news.entertainmentearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/got.jpg)

A few years ago I came across a movie from Central Africa and decided to give it a look since movies from that part of the world are not precisely easy to find.

I was curious, but not to discover a new type of Cinematography but rather I was curious about grasping a thing or two 
about their culture from the film.

In retrospect, I’m really glad that pressed *Play* on that day, because somewhere along the moving scenes I ended up with a life lesson I hold to this day. 

I call it *“The Parable of the Two Brothers”*.

Today I want to share it with you, and I think that many of you could relate.

## Children of a Lesser God

![Alt Text](https://holyname.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wsi-imageoptim-project-11-1170x531_c.jpg)

The movie unfolds in a stone broke forsaken place where suffering was the norm and happiness looked like a distant memory, and that memory was fading.

A confused tourist walks around and becomes increasingly shocked by the frightening levels of poverty striking the land and its occupants. 

Soon the Englishman strikes a friendship with a young local and confesses to him that as a foreigner, he just can’t bring himself to understand how come a nation with such immense richness  in natural resources becomes home to such tremendous levels of poverty.

The local boy smiles and tells him - paraphrasing from memory - *“Look my friend, I will tell you a story that may sound a joke at first, but it may very well explain why we live under so much poverty and corruption and how we’ve arrived to this situation.”*

# The Parable of the Two Brothers

![Alt Text](http://i.imgur.com/4ZhPzosh.jpg)

There were two brothers walking around the desert for several hours, tired and dehydrated they started searching for any source of water along the sandy brown dunes that hammer you with their vastness.

In the distance, a shiny object appears.

Invigorated by a new hope, the two brothers rushed towards the gleamy object hoping that they saw the reflection of the sun shining over water.

As they arrive, their hopes of finding water were immediately crushed but they found a pretty little thing that would change their lives forever.

They found a lamp, a magic lamp.

The older brother grabs the lamp, he rubs it with his hands and a genie came out and says:

*“Your wish is my command!”* 

*“You have one wish and one wish only, but you can ask for anything you want, anything in the world and I will grant it to you”. He tells the older brother.*

*“But remember this: Whatever you wish for I will also give it to your younger brother, and I will give it to him twice”.*

The older brother stops for a second to reflect about it.

He starts thinking: “So wait, if I ask for 20 goats I would get my 20 goats, but my brother would get 40?”

“If I ask for a hundred goats, I would get one hundred goats but my brother would get two hundreds?”

After some long considerate and collected assessment, he looks at the genie and says:

*“I want you to gouge my eye out!”*

# They Game We Should’ve Never Played

![Alt Text](http://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/crag/files/2015/05/Puppets_pulling_strings_by_carp3di3m.jpg)

You often hear that as a society, we’re experiencing some new type of polarization the which we’ve never seen before.

And to some degree, I can understand. I mean, we live in a world that people vote for politicians just to piss off the opposing party, knowing full well that they’re going against their own self-interest in the process.

This phenomenon is currently known as “The Lesser of Two Evils” and it consists of supporting one flavor of evil, as long as “those who think differently” suffer a little more than you do.

But as the old proverb goes: *When you dance with the devil you don’t change him, the devil changes you.*

It’s a game we should’ve never played in the first place, but we always keep playing. Until such point where everyone forgets that exiting the game was always a possibility.

Instead, we all remain trapped in that platonic cave where nobody dares to step out towards the light because nobody wants to remember how they’ve been trapped in the dark for all this time.

The darkness slowly starts consuming everybody’s soul and the only comfort comes from feeding off the other party’s despair. 

The inner fears and frustrations compile and compound as we refuse to face the root of the problem, our inability to escape from the game we shouldn’t have played in the first place.

There is always time, all we have to do is face our fears and escape the game. The problem is that it’s much easier to blame it all on the other group.

We say to ourselves that everything wrong with the country must be their fault, and their fault alone. So let’s transfer all our rage and frustrations towards them. 

They do the same as well. We end up pulling each other down and we all remain trapped in the dark cave.

That’s the game we never should’ve played. We all lose and the devil wins.

> ### *“When the devil asks you to dance you better say never, cause a dance with the devil might last you forever”.* **― Immortal Technique.**

*Image Sources: [1](https://news.entertainmentearth.com/2015/01/22/dark-horse-game-of-thrones-map-marker-set/) - [2](https://holyname.com/project/donate-to-poor-children/) - [3](https://rebrn.com/re/magic-lamp-wallpaper-3022096/) - [4](https://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/crag/2015/05/22/when-your-inner-puppet-pulls-the-strings/)*