This video was very enlightening to me. I do not know much about the Berlin Wall, and now I know slightly more. What intrigues me about the situation that led to the wall is that the Germans thought they could keep the east and west apart. They may have been successful in separating the east from the west for a short period of time, but one thing they did not account for is the ingenuity of humans.

It amazes me that when humans are presented with an obstacle or told they cannot do something, their first instinct is to find a way around the obstacle or prove that they can do what they want. Where does this quality stem from? Are we spoiled children who want what we want? Or are we good children who want everyone to be able to play equally so we find a way to make that happen? I think the reason people found a way around the wall was because they had family on the other side. It seems like most of what we are driven to do in life is driven by our family and our need to provide for and prolong the life of our family.

Now if family drove the need to get around the wall, maybe it also drove the need to put the wall up. Everyone was leaving the east to be with their families in the west. The west also offered better job opportunities. Did the government think that if they blocked the way in and out of the east with a giant wall for 30 years that people would forget about their families and be content to stay where they were told? If anything, this obstacle would make them want to see their families in the west even more.

Instead of dividing the east and the west, why could they not come together and help each other? I guess controlling a fractured city seemed easier than controlling an entire city. Control seems to be another component of human nature that presents itself to me as a double-edged sword. On one hand control can be useful in maintaining structure and order, but it can also be oppressive. I wonder if we can ever truly have control. No one has maintained control for as long as they would have liked People seem to always find a way to take control back from tyrants, so maybe control is something we can only ever achieve in our own minds.

I hope one day that we will stop building walls to keep people in or out and stop trying to control humanity. To think that we could control people like that is foolish. In the end human nature will win out. The obstacle will be overcome, and we will be reunited as one.