Is Cameron Crowe.
F for Forrest.
Posted by pawan
in Thursday, April 18, 2013
The last time I watched Forrest Gump five years ago, I was still a teenager clueless than ever before (I'm clueless now too, but with a direction) trying to find a way to express myself. A friend from the neighborhood gave me five movies in my newly bought flash drive for me to watch and that has stuck to become a habit for me ever since. And as a teenager trying to find a voice (and as an young adult, trying to find my voice harder still) I tried to get an opinion on the things I wanted to have an opinion on, irrespective of the truth I felt or the truth I had to understand. To get noticed I disliked things that many people liked (I still dislike many things which many people like - but the question isn't very statistically accurate now that I see it, I might perceive me to be a part of the minority when I might not be) and it started out with popular cinema and that impression has stuck ever since (first for the voice and later that voice became the taste, in campy horror films I found my voice and then later in campy horror movies I found my taste).
And I'll leave you this tragi-comic theme song from Dark Star, something that might be a draw good enough to the movie itself.
One of the first movies that I vehemently disliked when I watched it for the first time five years ago, was Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump and the reasons behind my dislike for the movie are quite hazy now, but if I can recollect well enough, it had something to do with people liking to see losers to win in the movies. I had, by accident, a chance to prove myself wrong tonight, as I found an old disc of Forrest Gump lying around and I decided to watch a part of the movie that I wanted to revisit since the first time - the film's use of Jackson Browne's 'Running on Empty', a song which was my only take away from the movie. But I ended up watching the movie from the half an hour mark and not for a second did I want to bulge from my seat in front of the computer. Looking at the movie now, it made a lot of sense (probably not as much maybe, I have my doubts now) especially when I realized when I was wrong about my idea of Forrest being a loser.
Post college, which has been a year for now, I have in many ways tried to understand the proper way to lead a life, to find inspiration and to live. As I was plunged neck deep in the rat race five years ago, Forrest seemed like a loser, now, today, he is the right kind of hero I'd want to be learning from. Behind all the complexities I thought constitute a man's personality, I found false inspiration. As a person, more of these matter to me now, freedom, love and happiness. And the faith in the belief that infinite love leads to infinite happiness. And it is in Forrest I've seen such happiness (towards the end of the movie, Forrest ends up as one of the happiest movie characters I've seen) because of his capacity to love and be simple. Simple in choice of things and simple in deeds. And Forrest didn't aspire to become any of those, he was simply himself, he loved. That's a good takeaway (and I'm not the movie morality demanding person technically, considering my interests lie in severed guts and fake blood) from a movie that has all the phlegm developing qualities of a Spielberg production, something which has been digestible for once.
Shit happens.
Keep smiling.
But don't forget running.
P.S.: Watched some really great movies this week (advantages of falling sick you might say) and I was never into sharing the names of movies I watch (I have this selfish thing going inside me where I never wanted people to watch all the movies that I do, yeah - that's childish in a way, but I'd like to see movies as my possession, the movies I watch and love are completely my property) but I think this is a good time to break that rule. Here's a list of the movies I watched:
- Dark Star (Highly Recommended, this low budget sci-fi is a must for intelligent life forms, the last ten minutes of the movie has got me cracking up since the last three days, whenever I think of it. A review might follow some day. John Carpenter's finest)
- Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter again, with finest doubling as an adjective here too)
- F for Fake (Not so qualified to talk about this movie yet, this video can be a nice example as to why )
- Last Year in Marienbad (Same reasoning of the above applies here)
- Forrest Gump (Obvious)
- Brazil (Requires an essential second viewing, like all the other movies on the list, to get the dry, dark humor [and tragedy] right, but Terry Gilliam is a man who doesn't dream like one.)
- Dead & Buried (The Dan O' Bannon connection is purely coincidental though the John Carpenter thing was pretty intentional, but a good horror movie if the huge holes in the script are ignored.)
- Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (Baader-Meinhof meets Mani Ratnam)
And I'll leave you this tragi-comic theme song from Dark Star, something that might be a draw good enough to the movie itself.
On Boredom
Posted by pawan
in Tuesday, April 9, 2013
l“In the future, data is everything” – White Noise, Don Delillo.
Boredom as opposed to fun, excitement, amazing,
mind blowing, awesome, New, young, live (life), do, go and all the verbal
equivalents of an average Joe with a college degree.
Boredom as related to isolation,
loneliness, internet disconnection and nothing to do.
As the main drawbacks of the 20th
century lifestyles have been drag netted over years of research – boredom sits
on a high throne, amused at its
camouflaging deceit – one which involves of it being natural in its truest
sense – boring. Nobody cares for something boring, atleast you wouldn’t. As a lifestyle disease, boredom has
penetrated the deepest strata of the information hungry society - corroding the
very bones that bolster the structural framework of this massive information consuming
organism – man.
Man resorts to massive bouts of binge eating
to satiate his mind’s needs to be freed from the corrupt ions of boredom. But
as massive amounts of information is being ingested by man on an ever
decreasing time frame - his familiarity with the topics which he consumes reaches
a peak after which the information become overtly familiar until such a flow of
data becomes ordinary and unpalatable by degenerating into something old and repetitive – in other words, boring. As the
initial surge in information gobbling was a direct result to rappel one’s sense
of boredom, the information explosion only acts as catalyst to cause a violent
increase in one’s perception of boredom.
What is boredom?
Let me not answer that question in terms of
psychological weight – as my area of expertise in that subject is next to
zilch. Neither am I going to give a philosophical angle to the whole issue of
Boredom and how it stems from man’s desire for more and the likes. I will deal
with this question on a completely offhand, realistic and unscientific manner –
as my academic abilities on this subject permit me to.
Boredom by contemporary terms can be
defined as something like this:
“The feeling that you don’t want to be left all to yourself, alone, when you have so much to stimulate and titillate your brain with. And the feeling which precedes post the acceptance of the unknown knowledge – one where the need to do something overrides everything”
Boredom can be simply called as the fear of
losing out something in the way of living life, especially when you know that
there are hundreds and thousands of entertainment modes made to keep you out of
boredom – and your curious phobia on missing out on everything that
entertainment has to provide to deliver you from the current mental vegetation.
This rapid information consumption has
also a flip side (already mentioned before) which stabs in the back of the same
networks that propagate this information – the man as he feeds on more
information gets fatigued by it at the end of the day, leaving the propagators
of information to find newer ways to entice and satisfy man’s addiction problem
to boredom. This is the case with the information hungry, ever changing in
their digestion related to all kinds of bits and bytes.
This is not true with another segment of
the boring humans – the ones which are illiterate to newer and better kinds of
information floating in the electronic networks (almost all the information
relay is due to electronics these days, from the newspaper your read to the pub
you go to, all rely on electronics [and electricity] to propagate information) and stick to the one unending format of
entertainment as their means to salvation, the unadventurous and non curious
type of information junkie who is satisfied with his share of Comedy Central,
News, TV soaps and ESPN. This kind of information seeker is easier to please,
with minor tweaks and changes here and there to suit his needs after a post
work boredom scenario – where much experimentation isn't paid attention to.
Both the kinds of boredom we've discussed
above dig us deeper into the consumer upheavals that disturb most members of the
society (a TV has to be purchased, a book has to be bought and the internet has
to be paid for – boredom becomes a knowledge accession desire, whose alleged
cure comes at a price) with the sufferers paying more to get us out of the self
induced boredom.
Without a cure, boredom is a strong detractor
of the way of life in a knowledge driven society. Boredom is a state in which
an individual gets time to spend some quality time with himself – asking the
questions that help to define his/her life. If not on a daily basis, once in a
considerable amount of time the event mentioned has a high probability to occur..
It is this moment that the capitalistic mechanisms of the society seek to alter
with making the purported cure for boredom common by flaring up the rumour that
such a thought can be unproductive – and with the cure of modern day
entertainment, one can avoid such thoughts of confrontation with one’s self
which can at times can unveil an often cynical worldview, which can cut off the
individual’s experience with his consumerist peers. This is undesired if throes
of individuals find out the hidden programming done to them at such micro level
– will oppose it after branding it unethical – and find means to provide
greater calm of one’s self by approaching
non- consumerist (not necessarily, but atleast a meaningful) way of
life. But the development of such a community is far from being a possibility
thanks to the information explosion phenomenon which creates a complex
structure of self image which is often shattering if the consumption pattern is
not embraced (“Oh! He doesn’t watch any TV, sad for him”)
Another industry which thrives from the
phenomenon of boredom is the recreational drugs industry [as you know alcohol,
nicotine and marijuana (and the higher exotic narcotics)] The perceived self degenerating effects (-of the
self reasoning, or on a lesser level not to think of another day and live in
the present moment) of boredom and the self questioning it arouses, has been
given another infectious cure, drugs.
Boredom is usually a momentary problem. And
the real solution to any kinds of boredom is the unpredictable future. And if
on a weekend you’re holed up at a pretty safe place on the planet (ignoring
earthquakes and tornadoes) and you are
convinced that nothing spectacular is going to happen in the next few hours,
you have a problem. You’ll be bored. And as general human tendencies go – you’d
like to change the scene in your favour (and assuming that you don’t dwell in
blockbuster cinema palaces and get your thumbs tight around video game
consoles) and you’d like to change it fast. A few drinks, a few smokes, a
couple of joints maybe and then soak in the unpredictable haze of your
thoughts. Getting lost and getting amused by your own unchannelled thoughts is
nice way to get rid of boredom and these mediums become ever necessary from
time thereafter to become necessary aids to battle out your boredom.
Boredom –> Substance Abuse.
Substance abuse on a greater scale
effectively leads to depression, which is as equally fatal as the predecessor
in the process chain.
Boredom –> Substance Abuse –>
Depression.
If the boredom is not momentary, something
that clings on to you for a considerable amount of time making your life vapid
and uninteresting, the feeling boils up to lead to greater doors of depression
and anxiety. This can be fatal in the case of mental, emotional development and
all the other ills associated with depression.
As you can see, the more one tries to
control their state of boredom – the more harm they’re causing to themselves
both mentally and physically. This is not the case with everyone, as they’re a
few who actually move their bottoms to do something else or just sit back and
understand the core root of the state of their mind and analyze it in order to
understand themselves better.
As modern day society goes, man is reduced
to become a one-dimensional being in terms of understanding himself. And as the
society progresses into the future, he becomes more lazy in the name of
convenience and listens to the world which tells him not to think for himself
(unless it comes to thinking about his insurance
or the much primal food) and
offers him a service which does the thinking for him (well, the freedom with
insurance is also limited to taking insurance with a certain company, your say
is phenomenally reduced from everything thereon) This has led to an entire generation of
masses who’re confused on their existence, who’re confused on the greater
purpose of life (as it has always been since the dawn of civilization. In fact,
if not for death, nobody would’ve pondered on those questions in the first
place) and especially a generation that’s afraid to confront the truth and
that’s unable to think for itself (career, family and other selfish gains also
are thought but are schemed). Boredom is a self incurred state which has been
exploited as a harmless condition and entertainment is dangled as an effective carrot
to wipe the strains of boredom out. The mechanisms that are in place to cure
your boredom are only a greater part of the whole to get you into the system of
buying more and make your permanent addicts of paid information (aka
entertainment, in a much toned down version) and information control systems.
“Boredom is the fear of self” - Marie Joséphine de Suin.
The opportunities of self realization we
get while we’re bored are the cues given by our minds to help ourselves
understand us better. And if this can be understood, then lots of valuable
time, energy, money and health can be saved and saved for good. And this
understanding gives the cure to boredom and helps one defeat it with a much
desired by-product left behind – happiness.
“Bliss—a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.” – David Foster Wallace.
Curiosity is one of the key identities that
helps propel the human race towards a common singularity – a sense of complete
equilibrium across all strata of the society (though we are nowhere near that
as of today) and it is this curiosity that built bridges and dug out mines and
sailed the oceans. Man is ever curious to learn, mimic and enjoy. But untreated
excessive curiousness transforms into a business opportunity that has been
hacked and mauled upon to change the very way we live, see, eat and breathe.
"To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is."- Issac Asimov.
This when translated for the 21st
century audience, to discovery anything, first stop being curious about
entertainment – rest will follow.
Peace.
(Got Bored?)
Ads
Disclaimer
Feeds
get latest updates on news and subscribes to our feeds
Wibiya Widget
WeBox