Is the weight of guilt a stronger motivator than the search for excellence?
Guilt has the power of goading even the most innocent person into wrongdoing and overcompensation. Guilt can change a person’s personality so dramatically that it becomes hard to recognize the original personality if it ever reveals itself again. But the funny bit is that guilt is a construct of the mind, enforced by our set of perceived values which in turn are created by the norms established in society over thousands of years of cultural evolution.
The search for excellence on the other hand is a pursuit of an internal desire. It is the search for something which transcends a person beyond material gains and emotions. It is something that changes the way one looks at the world. In the search of excellence, a person has to leave behind many things that tie them down to a particular place. This is not easy for many to accept, thus, it is not a common motivator.
While guilt and excellence are not really two sides of the same coin, they do mirror each other in many other ways. Each stand on opposite sides of the fence in its ability to stoke the human spirit. While guilt moves through one like a negative emotion constantly scratching at one’s conscious, the search for excellence moves through one like a niggling tickle which keeps pushing till the world stands up and takes notice. For the masters of this world, it is never one or the other. In fact, it is a balance of the two in a measured manner. Else, one runs the risk of being pulled into one of them completely.
In the Full Metal Alchemist, the story of the Elric brothers takes centre stage. Set in an alternative world, designed like a European nation during the industrial revolution, the brothers are alchemists who use their powers to control elements and capture dangerous criminals who are alchemists as well. The over arching story of the animated series is the race to become masters of the art of alchemy. As a master of the alchemic arts, one can control all the elements in nature and wield them in the way they please. While it is a proposition that could do the world a great deal of good, in the wrong hands, it could destroy the world all together.
Edward and Alfonse Elric are prodigious talents in the realm of alchemy. Since a young age, both of them showed immense talent and potential to go on to become great alchemists. But when Edward conducts a transmutation to retrieve their dead mother, it backfires. Alfonse is pulled into the Gate of Truth and is about to disappear forever, when Edward sacrifices his arm and leg to retrieve his brother’s soul. Once retrieved, he binds his brother’s soul to an armor suit. Although severely damaged, they are still two of the greatest alchemists to ever walk the earth. Subsequently, they become state alchemists to capture criminals who have joined the “dark side”, using alchemy to forward their own individual ambitions.
While their search to achieve excellence is an ongoing journey throughout the manga, it is easy to see that it is Edward’s guilt that drives him more than his search for excellence. His guilt stems from his insistence on reviving their dead mother and then for destroying his brother’s body, when even he knew he wasn’t ready to conduct a successful transmutation. After the incident, Edward makes it his life’s mission to recover his brother’s body. In order to do so, they must recover the philosopher’s stone and re-enter the Gate of Truth.
What started out as a journey to become the greatest alchemists of the world, ended up being an attempt to restore sanity, physical and emotional. For Edward, after his brother’s transformation, it dawned on him that he must accept his own limitations. He must accept that he isn’t the greatest. Edward almost immediately recedes into a shell of insecurity and tasks himself with the job of restoring his brother’s former body. Even though acquiring the Philosopher’s Stone and wielding its power is meant only for the most powerful alchemists, Edward’s desire to use it doesn’t stem from his search for excellence. It stems from his guilt for destroying his brother’s body.
Mind bending tricks and alchemy aside, the relationship of the brothers and how they keep going shows how they mature with time. They learn that excellence is not about knowing all the tricks. They learn that guilt is a great motivator, but it would also be their destruction if it is allowed to take over. To balance the two is to have samurai-like discipline in evaluating what is important and what isn’t. As the series progresses, they work to achieve exactly that.
In the end, to say that guilt is a greater motivator than the search for excellence is an ill-informed inference. It depends on the personality of the individual and the circumstance they find themselves in. They greatest of men can become prey to cannibalizing effect of guilt and the most meek individual may find reason to restart their life in the search of excellence.
In the case of the Elric brothers, their lives together are about balance guilt and professional greatness in a way so that they can rest in peace when their day finally comes. It should never be so that one didn’t try to achieve their goals and even less so because of the guilt of a mistake of the past.
