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District 9 was both disturbing and touching, and after I finished watching it I felt stirs of emotion. I felt sadness for all the bad things people do to each other, and I started feeling guilty about all the bad things I'd ever done or even thought about doing to other people.
But I didn't get carried away. I'm a philosopher, remember? I just think about crap. It doesn't mean anything. Normally when a movie stirs something in me I dwell on the emotion. This time I extracted myself from the emotion and tried to examine why this movie made me feel this way.
In the movie there was lots of betrayal, misunderstanding and resulting violence. The story played my emotions in such a way that it caused me to start feeling guilt, to start comparing myself to the "bad guys" or at least the people with the really screwed up priorities. Why? How? What is it about that series of images on the screen that stimulated the flow of some chemicals in my brain and completely altered my mental state? It's just a movie. It's just a story. Yes, there are strong parallels between the movie and reality, but it isn't my reality, it isn't reality for anyone I know, and there's nothing I can do about it anyway. So why should it bother me? And why should it make me start comparing myself and my own deeds to fictional characters who've done far worse than I ever have?
I suppose the spiritual side of me would say something about my repulsion for things that are "wrong" or "evil" or my "connectedness" to doing "good" and "right." I'm full of love. I have a heart. That sort of thing.
But perhaps the scientific side of me would say it's nothing more than chemical reactions. Like all primates and most animals, we're visual beings. We see something, and we've got a biologically programmed response hard coded within. An elk sees a wolf, or anything that looks like a wolf, and it instantly goes on the alert. It'll probably run. Like other primates, we're social creatures. We "care" about each other because it's beneficial for the survival of the group. Even in modern society where much of the reason for our actions has been obscured, the programming is still there. For example, humans are so easily seduced by junk food because, in nature, foods that contain fat, salt and sweet, and that's easy to obtain, are highly desirable because they occur so infrequently. Extra calories are good when starvation looms around every corner. But our programming didn't account for being surrounded by sweet, salty and fatty foods at all times, and as a result we're fat. Very fat. Unlike every other living thing, we have to go against our programming and choose fresh vegetables over McBurgers, and make ourselves run and lift heavy things in order to stay healthy and lean. Every other species does exactly the opposite, just as they are programmed to, and it works well in the wild. When we do as we're programmed, we become this guy.
It's known that in many animal species, the presence of babies produces a chemical change in adult males to make them more docile, even protective, of the offspring. Do they "love" the babies or is it merely beneficial for the species if dad doesn't eat them?
This interests me because of my tendency to internalize things. I'll visit a historic site where some great tragedy occurred, and then for days I'll be seriously bummed about it. "How can I go about living a happy-go-lucky life when so much tragedy lives in the world?" That's the summary of my thoughts almost every time. But why? There has always been tragedy in the world and there always will be. My being down about it isn't going to change any of that. This isn't a great revelation, but there's a difference between knowing something and knowing something. It's the difference between knowledge and wisdom. A brain full of facts doesn't make one wise. It's knowing how to use what's in the bucket that makes one wise.
I've been applying all of this to different aspects of my life with interesting and so far pleasing results. Is it wrong to say "I don't care" and then act like you really mean it? Where does one draw the line? Does there even need to be a line and why? According to who? In the end, how much of this matters?
I had brunch this morning with an extremely liberal friend of mine. We had some lively debate at the table. I find myself more and more disagreeing - quite strongly, at times - with the ultra-left. It's not that I'm agreeing more with the ultra-right; they're nutcases too. I suppose I find myself drifting somewhere near the middle, though arguably my "middle" is still very much hugging the left. I'm just not subscribing much to extreme views these days, no matter how happy or optimistic they may sound, partly because I'm less certain of them, and partly because I don't think it really matters. I guess if I were to summarize my attitude lately, I'd put it like this: "I'm going to do what makes me happy, and do what I know I must in order to increase my happiness. The rest of you can go to hell." Though of course that's not entirely true. I may be eating some bananas now, but I still believe in the myriad benefits of eating local and haven't abandoned doing what I think is "the right thing" for my body, my community and my taste buds. I guess the real change has come from me pretty much losing hope in "saving the world" and asking myself why I ever cared at all about the perpetuation of the human race. Do I really care if people are still walking the earth in 500 years? Nope. The Universe brought us here, and it will do with us as it sees fit. All of the craziness, all of the good, the bad and the ugly are not of my design and not within my control. Oh sure I don't want to bring unnecessary suffering to my fellow human, but it is a dog-eat-dog world. Nature set it up that way, not me, and I've found some level of comfort or acceptance with that which works for me.
And I'm not done with trying to give something back to the Earth. Some people think they're giving back by not eating animals. Others like to recycle or drive hybrids or write books about global warming. Yet others just like to make the rest of us feel guilty for being alive. As for me, I give back in my own way too. The greatest way I know to give back is to never have kids. No disrespect at all to people who have kids or plan on having kids. Thank God my mom had kids. But for me, I just want to have some fun and extract more joy out of life, even if it isn't maximally green. I mean, why not? Being "green" only delays the inevitable. Even if we all became model "green" citizens, the earth simply cannot support ten or fifteen billion people. I can't see the future, but maybe it's our lot in life. Viruses don't worry that they're going to kill their host. They just have a field day until the lights go out. Introduce rats to Hawaii and they go nuts, with no regard for how many species they wipe out or what'll happen when they eat themselves out of house and home. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, but that seems to be how nature designed things. I suppose our real curse, unlike the rat and the virus, isn't our eventual demise, but our ability to see the consequences of our actions without actually being able to stop ourselves from acting.
So if you're one of the 2% of all humans alive at this moment who has a safe, comfortable place to sleep, fresh water to drink, enough food to eat, a government that can't totally oppress you and enough of your faculties to realize it, then let's toast. Drink to the good times and celebrate your incredible good fortune, because as far as we can tell you are indeed a rarity in the Universe.
Cheers.
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