The irony

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Friday, May 31, 2013, 21:23 (3990 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Kermit, Friday, May 31, 2013, 21:35

I wholeheartedly agree with Cody that we need to give our real life adventure the attention it deserves. These silly entertainments we pursue, however, can sometimes show us how.

I disagree. Baudrillard explains it well.

Entertainment not only distracts from real life adventure, but it distorts our ability not only to have a real life adventure, but also distorts what real life means.

"I want to climb Mount Everest" someone says. Why? "Because I want to do something adventurous!" How do you know it'll be an adventure? "Because everybody wants to climb it!" Whether it is or is not an adventure isn't the point; the point is that it's adventurous because it's agreed upon that it is. You don't question it. It's a fiction you now accept as reality. This conception of Everest is now more real than the real Everest could ever be.

It adds up. Television, news, the internet, fashion, and yes video games. You're in the Matrix. It's worse than the Matrix actually, since the Matrix is binary. You are either in or out. But the Matrix we are in isn't. There's no in or out; it all blends together as one to the point where you can't tell the difference between the real and the hyperreal. (Consequently this is why Baudrillard himself says the Matrix got his ideas all wrong).

This is why I'm actually quite exited for Don Jon. She watches romantic comedies. He watches porn. Both have had the perspectives skewed on how relationships work. Haha! Watch them try to have one!

Think it doesn't happen to you? You're wrong. You just don't even realize it since it's very difficult to figure out what's real and what's hyperreal. And here's the thing. You don't even know which of your pursuits you want because you want to pursue them purely on your own, or whether you want to pursue it because you have been taught to want it because of the Matrix. Think of how many things are desirable simply because it's pleasurable to be doing something that's seen as desirable.

It's depressing because the adventure can come to you. With a computer, it can all come to you virtually. You can read it, listen to it, or see it. But when everything is available everywhere, everywhere becomes nowhere.

So what do you do? I struggled with this for a while seeing as how I make movies. The bottom line, is that you need to do a bit of soul searching and try to wade your way out of the Matrix. Easier said than done, and I think in any modern society it's almost impossible to be fully out. But the first step becomes understanding and loving yourself, not characters and situations of fiction or documented reality.

The entertainment is for when we wish not to adventure. It's for when we want to be Cypher eating that steak. Let's be honest, that steak is delicious. Nothing wrong but eating it, as long as you know you're in the matrix when you do.

This might disappoint you, but it's possible we still agree (mostly).

I don't know who the someone is you refer to, but it doesn't sound like me. You played the "I make movies card," so I guess I'll play the age card. I was reading poststructuralists while you were just learning to read. I get it, so don't assume you're the only non-yahoo who's thought about these issues. The difference might be that after I got it, I found that philosophical hall of mirrors from which there is no escape to be nihilistic, and rejected it. I've done a quite a lot of soul-searching, and I continue to. Like you, I'm a bit of a snob about what I spend my time on. That's why I'm a Bungie fan. That's why most of what's popular doesn't interest me. I watch very little TV.

I said to someone tonight, Why do I want to see Star Trek or Iron Man? Only to participate in the cultural conversation, and frankly that doesn't feel like enough of a reason. Why do I want to see Don Juan? No doubt for some of the same reasons you do. I think that, as pretentious as this might sound, it could be a bit of entertainment that has something valuable to say about the human condition. Maybe. I may be a bigger snob than you because I don't think Joseph Gordon-Levitt, likeable as he is, is all that.

You seemed not to notice my qualifiers in my previous post. I talked about what at best stories can sometimes do. I have less and less interest in anything that I don't think has the potential to be great. What's great? What enlivens us. What holds up a mirror so that we can better understand and love and accept ourselves and others. Ever experience art so powerful that it changes your understanding of the world in a positive way? I bet you have, and I bet you value that. I have, and I do, too.