Pain, or how Evangelion taught me (how) to cope.

(vague spoiler warning for a 20 something year old film/anime)

One More Final: “I need you”

Pain. It’s the most synonymous feeling we share as humans. Pain is universal, unforgiving, and most of all is a test in how we learn to address the monster in our weird little brains. Pain is the harbinger of despair, anger, and a swath of other immense emotions. Statistically on any given day, about 7 percent of the people reading this have felt pain in the form of major depression. You share this feeling on a surface level with so many other people and you’re not alone — or so you’re told. You’re probably not okay. We’re not okay.

The day I watched the acclaimed finale of the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, aptly titled “The End of Evangelion”, was a desolate yet discrete day. I assigned myself to my bed next to my dog, low in spirits as always. I solemnly suppressed my feelings as I knew one good day would eventually happen out of the next consecutive ten. That’s all I really needed. I hedged my bets on things going wonderfully because I was so fucking scared to face those low standards I set for myself. Hopeless in nature because I knew giving anyone these feelings or forming a bond might just make things worse.

As I watched The End of Evangelion I suddenly learned what it meant to embody several emotions at once. I found myself in these characters and how they deliberately tried their best to not let anyone through. I was almost assured immediately by the end of it that I could face my pain and that I could learn hope in its truest fashion. Not just hope in the form of: “I can do this” but, “I’ll do this, I’ll live - because the alternative is nothingness inside of a bedroom”

I should probably backtrack a bit and speak about what this show I’m referencing even is. Let’s talk about Evangelion, it’s creator, and how I found therapy in the weirdest of places.

The year is 1995. Mecha anime, a sub-genre of the medium that heavily focuses on mechanical innovation (Robots, cyborgs, androids) is at it’s peak. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, the most popular show in the genre, is thriving in the west with sales galore. It’s an understatement to say that Mecha based shows were capitalistic in nature in order to sell merchandise. The usual play-by-play of characters winning the battle and saving the world was the norm. Loss and existentialism were foreign concept to not just the sub genre but anime as a whole.

At the time a young artist by the name of Hideaki Anno (And the founder of Gainax, an animation studio) was given the green-light with full creative freedom to direct an anime. Famously coming out of a four year long deep depression after directing the successful Miyazaki blessed Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and dropping out of a hellishly developed sequel to Royal Space Force, Anno was given the honors to create something and was essentially guaranteed exposure by King Records director at the time, Toshimichi Ootsuki, under the condition that the property was not based on anything and was a completely original work. He promised Anno: “Bring me something, anything, and I’ll make sure it gets green-lit”. Thus Neon Genesis Evangelion (sometimes shortened to Evangelion) was birthed. This history perched here because of the utter importance that lies beneath the shows driving force. Eva’s thesis and Anno’s depressive state.

“I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion — myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years. A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead. Then one thought. ‘You can’t run away,’ came to me, and I restarted this production. It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.”

This is the Nature from where Evangelion divided itself from other Mecha Anime. Hope is an anchor instead of a cheerful overcoming theme in this show.

In Evangelion, circa 2015, we follow 14 year old Shinji Ikari, a weak, timid boy who has the fate of the world’s future to fight for about 8 minutes into its runtime, thrust onto him by his father Gendo. Shinji has a knack for running away and carries a grossly strained relationship with Gendo as he comes face to face with his father for the first time in years. His average life is irreversibly changed when he is whisked away into the depths of Nerv, an organization put together to fight humanities threat: the Angels. Burst into a terrifying new destiny he’s essentially forced to become the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01 with the fate of mankind rest on his shoulders. Shinji is tasked with defeating each of these threats who, if aren’t defeated may cause a Third Impact. Whereas the Second Impact almost ruined the earth and wiped out half of humanity. As a result of a Third Impact, all souls would be gathered and united as one being. This would create an existence where nobody existed singularly, but merely as part of the whole. Human Instrumentality. And this is also where the show shines its creators light onto a greater meaning.

In Instrumentality, the flaws in every living being would be complemented by the strengths in others, thus erasing the insecurities in people’s hearts. The perfect being. Erasing the human identity, All the flaws, fights, and fury we’ve come to know blurred into no more. Imagine that — an existence with no pain. Is that even existing at all?

In the End of Evangelion the fear is spiked and a Third Impact occurs. Shinji is given the choice by another character, a godlike one, to fulfill instrumentality. Shinji fights tooth and nail with the brooding concept of depression throughout the show. He runs away from anyone who bears an emotion to him and thinks lowly of himself, existence for Shinji is worthless. Loneliness his ally. Almost the last person you’d want to decide the fate of humanity.

Is all of the suffering we encounter as humans worth it? The pain we cause each other on a daily basis is insurmountable. Do I deserve to know and bond with others, knowing they’ll most likely hurt me.

In 2019 there was a girl. I remember she lay in my bed on my fifth day of knowing her and feeling an overwhelming amount of love that I had been denied by a previous partner. I remember laying with her and us listening to an ethereal noise escape my Bluetooth speakers. Something we had never heard. Bliss as we listen in unison.

I remember crying not because I was happy or elated but I felt acceptance in the most crucial of manners. I picked up her arm and lay my hand tattoo against hers. You could feel the ink brush against each other, even if it was a placebo. “Grl power” — written on her forearm.

She asked if I was okay and I replied “for the first time, yes, absolutely” I remember wanting that moment to last for years. Please stay nighttime forever. Don’t age me. Just let me forget that time is a thing. Let me stay in your arms. Let me understand that I won’t ever be hurt. If I don’t get close to anyone I can’t get hurt. I can’t hurt anyone. I slither snake-like out of the meaningful people close to me and I so badly want the gears to stay in place.

Never leave my arms. Love absolute.

A week later I felt the most grueling blow and the purest meaning of suffering. A simple text. “I’m back with him”

Those four words were so easy to push me back into the cynical brush of nature I was so accustomed to. And then came a bottle of vodka, a sip of hatred. Glorious forgetfulness. Pain. What was a will to live became an urge to die so badly I was beyond death. Too cowardly to even fulfill it in fear of hurting more people. Does the hurt end? Was I a fool in gaining and immediately losing that person?

A year later I lay in my nest. A viewing of The End of Evangelion was another day. My dog half asleep by now. When given the choice Shinji decides to forgo the concept of instrumentality. To let pain and misunderstandings live on. To let whoever wants to exist, exist. Throughout all this fight and torture a young adult finds the peace within suffering because those bits of happiness sandwiched in between are beauty. Instrumentality is dead.

I lay there as i thought about the girl, and what this show taught me. I have come to the conclusion that these situations will happen no matter what and we trudge. We keep going because eventually at one point we will meet peace with someone. Where the suffering was worth it and where the outcome betrayed the odds. You tell that person that you love them and you both know this might end in agony that’s okay because right now you’re the gift, and all that matters is that this moment is happening in this very existence of these minimal years we have left.

All I can mutter right now to the people I know is that I love them. I love them so much and the idea that time and pain are cohorts fighting against us is the most saddening thing because I genuinely never want anyone to hurt again. Shinji chooses suffering because the trend towards thoughtlessness is not love. It’s just mere agreement, a fallacy in which love has no place.

We need each other and I’ll take those chances if it means agony will be guaranteed. If it means that a moment like that might happen again then so be it. I’ll keep moving forward.

“Then what is your hand for? Then what is your heart for? Why are you here?”