Imagine an all-wooden hall. The door is shut, the windows half-open.
The source of an eerie unnatural glow are a few tubelights.
There are vases which are rumbling with voices, people, creatures and things casually strolling about – some of them real (everything/one I know of),
some fragments of others' imaginations (hippogrriffs, tyler durden, gargoyles)
and some of my own (confidential; some half-formed)
There are millions of boxes strewn about all over.
Amongst all these, there are banners hanging up – displaying slogans, quotes and statements.
Welcome to my brain.
(There are many more details in there which I will not disclose right now because you and I do not have eternity for this post).
The banner I focus on right now says –
'the human race is a highly intelligent one.'
As I see the banner with sharp clarity, one of the boxes 'POPS!' to reveal a jack-in-the-box.
It's wicked smile mocks my beaming pride for us humans.
“If you are so intelligent – how come most individuals and your planet as a whole are so messed up?”, it asks.
“We are'nt messed up”, says my voice – booming in the hall through invisible speakers.
Then the jack-in-the-box says –
“I am souha's dissappointment with copenhagen turning to hopenhagen and then into flopenhagen.
I am souha's unnending dissatisfaction with this world.
I am souha's weird identification with that rolling stones' song.
I am souha's ability to deny her own thought.”
(“You are also souha's subtle obsession with fight club's “I am jack's...” dialogues”, my voice booms, irritated)
Suddenly – a marquee board descends from above the ceiling – 'Attention all matter in here', it reads in dim red. Words continue as every object in the hall stops and looks at the marquee:
'I need to switch off.'
'How does one do that?'
That irritating box-ed jack continues staring at me coldly.
More words in marquee:
'Distraction.
All thoughts to use diversion to the following code:
Classification: Want.
Code: to watch the movie “avatar” today.'
The movement in the hall resumes, exactly as it was before. Only now little circles and squares appear from thin air. The squares sit in one place while the circles move their hand just above the surface of the squares as if to manouvre invisible joysticks.
As a result: I get up – eat, talk on the phone, dress up well and leave. I am cheerful.
And have come to watch avatar in 3D!
I saw the movie and in a word I was – uhm... REVELA-ted?!
(the sketched roald dahl in my brain hall winks happily at me for inventing another one)
What I mean is the movie was FANTASTIC – and FANTASTIC of a degree that draws from our reality and gives something back to me.
That 'something' gives me a new and strangely clearer view of our reality.
'tis a movie that made me think - with ferocity.
(Brain hall at this point is beautiful – with thoughts taking shape of spheres of fire & colours and shooting through the hall, dissappearing just before they touch anything; a comet-fall of thought, if you will.)
Being the grammar nerd that I am, I suddenly start thinking how a word is defined equally by both – its synonym and its antonym.
How we are defined equally by both – by that which we are pro and by that which we are anti.
By that which we are; And by its opposite.
Avatar showed me a glimpse of that antonym world. And oh, it was beautiful!
Needs were needs, nothing more.
There was a higher, more evovled network between everything.
Na'vis (the people of this antonym world) respected nature and everything in it.
Dying, they knew – was returning energy that had been borrowed. It was not the end of the world.
The focus was not living for what you become, but for what you are and how that fits in nature's scheme.
They loved their mother and were true to her.
Most importantly, they lived THE song - “Imagine”, by John Lennon.
At least they did before human aliens came along to destroy all they had for a precious metal buried deep within the tree in which they lived
(yes, the TREE, IN WHICH THEY LIVED – do you see the difference?!).
You can guess what the humans did to get that precious metal. If you cant, try and wiggle out of your nice little bubblewrap. Humans blew up everything.
Bill is right. We are about out of ideas on this (our) planet.
We are almost EXACT opposites of the world of the Na'vis.
Presents quite a sad picture, doesnt it.
Just like a Na'vi says in the end – the aliens went back, to their dying home.
Also, it was quite nice to see humans cheer for the na'avi side. Against the humans.
But these very specimens let the message drain out from their mind-sieve even though it hit them between the eyes – “Its only a movie, let it go...”
Sorry, I wont.
As a race, we have characterised ourselves with bad choices. Too many of them.
Profit over welfare, lies over truth, betrayal politics over loyalty, honesty.
We have been going on like this for zillions of lifetimes now.
It is safe to say we are'nt headed for a happy place.
Not a surprise – considering we choose (yes, CHOOSE, continous present) silly entertainment over evolution. We CHOOSE to let ourselves be blinded by everything we are spoonfed.
We, unlike the Na'vis, do not see.
I turn to the jack that started it all and I admit: Maybe humans are not that intelligent after all.
With that, the banner falls and in the brain hall, forth comes Master Oogway, (the wise tortoise from Kung Fu Panda): one often discovers his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it...
The Jack-in-the-box smiles again – and I know thats not the last of it i'll be seeing.of it.
As the banner falls down, the marquee box descends again – a little brighter than before, with the words: Another One Bites The Dust.
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