AVATAR - "Oel ngati kameie", 8 Mar 2010

AVATAR - "Oel ngati kameie", 8 Mar 2010

(Last few weeks)

Shrikanth's following comment aptly summarizes the general opinion of my friend-circle and the consensus of Tomatometer* reviews on the movie AVATAR: "It wasn't really an original story or superb (non-art) direction. Read the screenplay and you'll realize that it was all in the visual effects - a lot of the dialogues were downright corny."

 I don't disagree.

 Yet I am ABSOLUTELY fascinated by it. So much so that I am risking my public image (already a questionable construct) for it. Most of my friends have said that I am nuts. Gentler ones are expressing a mild surprise and disbelief. Brash ones are openly questioning my qualifications and sanity.

Obviously, I was keen to resolve the matter but this whole thing had become like a big blob of blurr. Unmoved. There was no way in and no way out. It was just there.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(Today) 

When so many of you commented on my update, the final push came. 

Priya questioning Priya

So, I have been in two minds about AVATAR:

Priya1: I don't care what people think. I am totally in love with it, head over heels and all that. I am in AVATAR-heaven and I don't need to know why. A fact.

Priya2: Movie is pretty average on story-telling, script and originality front. Also a fact.

 These two persons weighing on my mind, not too heavily but in a curious sort-of a way.

 The Flash

Two paragraphs from Jill Bolte's TED talk** are running in my head:

Our right hemisphere is all about this present moment. It's all about right here right now. Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems. And then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like. What this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now, all we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect. We are whole. And we are beautiful.

My left hemisphere is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past, and it's all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment. And start picking details and more details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information. Associates it with everything in the past we've ever learned and projects into the future all of our possibilities. And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It's that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It's that little voice that says to me, "Hey, you gotta remember to pick up bananas on your way home, and eat 'em in the morning." It's that calculating intelligence that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important, it's that little voice that says to me, "I am. I am." And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me "I am," I become separate. I become a single solid individual separate from the energy flow around me and separate from you.

 Priya2, my left brain, was not happy. She wanted to 'reconcile' the two facts and explain this "fascination" to myself and my friends. She was feeling angry, lonely and ignored because Priya1, was winning. She was far far ahead. Priya1, on the other hand, was oblivious to all since she only existed as that feeling of 'floating happiness' in the right brain. A response to James Cameron's brilliant, imaginative and absorbing filmmaking.

 Now, "I See them" both. They are not connected, and cannot be connected.

 Aah! Free at last..

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 To All

irayo for your comments!

Both Priya's are working inside without conflict and they will continue to live happily as long as they "see" each other.... i.e.... left does not try to "destroy" the right and right does not "ignore" the left.

You are probably right about the Academy Awards. They are meant to award originality and technique, not the feeling. HAHA. 

In Conclusion

Strong emotions are as real as hard facts. They are my 'reality' for that time because they are very gripping and hard to escape from. Unless and until I am able to watch them from a distance, their hold does not lessen. I mean, I like what I 'really' like and I don't like what I 'really' don't like (aging backwards linguistically, 13 instead of 3-).

 When I "See" this, I can be at peace.

 (The End)

 p.s: Sam Worthington is dangerously close to George Clooney on my list of crushes!!!

 *http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/?critic=creamcrop#contentReviews

 ** Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk: http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Existential Pain (At the top of Maslow’s ladder), 15 Mar 2016

All readers of my notes are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Existential Pain (EP). If you are a new to these ideas, please go back to my old notes. Or at least google. Or Stop. So, existential pain is back. For the last 2-3 years when I was suffering from labor pains of new motherhood (literally and figuratively), I kept consoling myself to look at the bright side, “See, you no longer have the existential pain... ” But it was there. Lurking in the back. Just waiting for an opportune moment to come out. It is interesting to be at the tail end of youth and at the beginning of real adulthood. Late 30s and 40s that is. Yeah yeah, 40 is the new 20 and what not but who are we kidding really? Would I have done ANY of the things I am doing right now when I was ACTUALLY 20?!! (BTW, these are not the 40s blues, I am not 40 yet even though it is imminent). But they are blues. Blues of the EP when you are at the top of the Maslow’s ladder (ML). By now most of us are settled (...
Read more

Existential Pain (Eternal Boredom of the Spotty Mind), 2 Nov 2009

Existential Pain (Eternal Boredom of the Spotty Mind), 2 Nov 2009 Returning back to the now-customary ritual of struggling with "keeping patience". Wait. Why? Didn't you just get a lovely new shiny buddie (a BMW!)? Yes, I did. Thank you. Aren't you happy then? I was on Saturday. Today is Monday. As it turns out, things have a tendency of getting old quickly (surprise surprise). Greener pastures are always somewhere else. Never here. So...? Yes, I am back to the  eternal boredom caused by my spotty mind,  popularly known as  existential pain  in the circle of intellectuals/philosophers/thinkers. What is this 'existential pain'? ummm...pain caused by existence on this earth...I guess..? I don't know. But I do know that it exists, because I am experiencing it. It causes extreme boredom. A symptom so severe that even when you have an important report due by end of day today, unbeknownst to yourself, you start typing a fb note vehemently. Did you google it? Of ...
Read more

Existential Pain (2012 Unhealthy Watermelons)

Existential Pain (Unhealthy Watermelons), 23 April 2012 Existential Pain. I thought I had transcended it. Evolved. To a better life where these existential pain notes* are no longer needed. But this note is looking at me mockingly and I can no longer hold it in. So here we go.  I guess we  never really grow up. Or grow out. We just take it all in and Expand. Different experiences of life that come to us from start to end always stay inside us. In the form of a feeling, a memory, a lesson, a thought or whatever depending on our personality type. In a sense, they do actually make us who we are today. They govern our reactions and choices. They form our likes and dislikes. So subtly that we don't even notice it.  This is how this works: My mom asked me couple of days ago, " Why do you keep buying melons when you don't eat them?" She is not wrong. I buy a watermelon, cut it nicely and store it in the fridge carefully. Then either I forget about it or get t...
Read more