Why Human Transmutation Fails in all of us (a reflection on Full Metal Alchemist)
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I am a huge fan of Full Metal Alchemist. In fact, it is my favorite. And I have soo many reasons why. One reason is that this manga is full of content that will allow us to question humanity, morality and God.
In the opening pages of the series, Ed and Al (the protagonists) are introduced in a run down city where everyone believed in the teachings of a certain Father Cornello. Ed states that he is not religious and then goes on to enumerate the components of a human body. Here, the author Hiromu Arakawa established the protagonists as a genius young lad whose wisdom could be close to God. He then says that no one has ever completed a human transmutation, hence, he’s searching for that “something missing” so that he can accomplish a successful human transmutation.
[image error]I am entering my 2nd Trimester in pregnancy as of this writing and one of the things I am fascinated about is that this experience has so far been a divine moment where I am “making a human.” And by this I always have to mind what to eat. Eat for two, sleep for two (Kinda like how Ed eats a lot and sleeps a lot only to find out that he’s compensating for another body… His brother’s body in another dimension). Etcetera etcetera (and by now I feel like I’m feeding Edward Elrich right here)…. So that the baby will come out healthy and strong. I have so far been fascinated by how a human is being created inside me and what this human will turn out to be depends on what I intake.
I find myself standing in front of that human transmutation circle, pouring out all the elements and ingredients I know to form a human. Except, unlike Ed, who failed creating human at one point in his life, this is 100% human and will be born in the natural process God designed human creation to be. Foolproof.
And then it also takes me back to that moment in the story of FMA where Ed and Al witnessed the natural birth of a baby with Winry’s help. If I remember it right, it was a surreal and awesome experience to them..something that made them helpless for the first…er..second time. I couldn’t help but think though, that somewhere in between there was the realization too that they can never be able to create human the way nature does it (and I think it was placed in the story for a clear contrast of human transmutation vs. the natural cycle of life).
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The author Hiromu Arakawa is a woman and a mother at that. Now that I think about it, she experienced first hand the process of creating a human. And she knew that no science can supercede the natural process of making humans. Even if it would seemingly succeed, the price to pay is huge (say, at the cost of genocide?) or a mishap will happen along the way. She knew from the onset that no one can achieve being God. And no medicine or science can create, but only God. And there’s so much truth in that. Even if you are a God-like genius like Ed.
This is also a reflection of how we humans, in our feebleness, think that we know it all in life whereas in truth we only know a tiny fraction of how to go about things because we’re only short-visioned finite beings. We don’t know it all. And we act like we do. And then we wonder why in all our awesomeness we meet defeat and failure. And then that’s when we remember God. we blame God for our mess.
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The thing is: we cannot achieve anything unless we go back to our Creator, the infinite one; the One who holds all wisdom and truth; the One who knows entirely how to go about this life. And when we recognize that it is His genius that we need, that it is His wisdom we need to rely on to get through the hardships of our lives, we experience a meaning of life that we will never be able to understand if we try to define things on our own. The moment we let go, like Ed who in the end let all his wisdom go in exchange for Al, we see the beauty of life for what it truly is.
The point is, stop trying to attempt your own human transmutation. Live according to your Creator. Foolproof.
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagines, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9 ESV)
