Awakenings
Vanilla Sky and This Waking Life, two movies I've seen lately, have made my think a lot about self-awakening, spirituality, society lack thereof, and my own personal self-awakening versus what Vanilla Sky, and other movies and TV shows make me think is what is supposed to happen.
Ten or Twelve years ago you wouldn't have seen movies like this in the theaters. Psychic hotlines only advertised in magazines and were very small, not the big business they are now. People wouldn't want to see them. There has been a severe drop in numbers in religious attendance in the past fifteen yeas or so. People are losing there beliefs in a 2000 year old medieval religion. This was expected to happen, I assume, as we evolve in to more intelligent beings. However this has created a new need for new answers. Society as a whole needs more information than blind faith. We are changing and growing as a people to ask more questions about ourselves and our lives. We want to grow more as human beings and how we live our life not focus it on what happens after death. That is what the problem was with the old religions; they all focused on death. We are evolving to focus on life. What we do now, how interact and affect other people; that's what really matters. Like my friend Jeremy Gantz said the other night, "Tom Cruise didn't go to confession, he went to a psychologist." We don't want to be absolved of our sins to go to heaven or be reincarnated as a better person or class. We long to feel ok with our selves as humans and be happy in our life before we die. These movies about dreams and great awakenings are the need for society to get answers and how to get what the want from life and live it to the fullest.
In the media, they portray these awakenings as a long, sacrificial, self-actualizing journey with lots of lights and nice music playing in the background. In Vanilla Sky it as was the premise he had to kill himself, freeze himself, dream his journey and awoke 150 years later a better man. He had to sacrifice his life to attain his self-awakening. We hear about this same theme in other ways, the man who gives up his job, leaves his family, and goes on a five year trek around the world, climbs huge mountains in Tibet, and confers with monks, only to get his answers be a better man but have his old life be gone or not want him anymore.
I don't see it that way. I believe I had already had my awakening. There were no sermons, great discoveries, long treks, or poetic, gentle music. It happened over the course of a year or so, only a little bit at a time, and it's not over yet. In the movie, Sofia, played by Penélope Cruz, states it best, "Every minute that passes by is another chance to turn it all around." I think my awakening started in California right before I left there. Right before I left I bought a rather nice 1996 Pathfinder that I still use to this day and runs very well. I moved back here, into my parent's house, and got a job other than Kinko's, which had swallowed 2 years of my life. Then it took a few months before I took the next few steps. I wasn't happy at the Phoenix and at the end of six months they were supposed to give me a raise; which they didn't, so I left. I spent two months working at Southers Marsh Golf Course, before getting hired at Harvard University. Around the time I was getting ready to leave the Phoenix, I asked out Jenn, who is now my girlfriend. She doesn't go out with guys who smoke, and among rising costs from tobacco and the inconvenience of smoking, I quit right then and there. I began to save my money and spend less of it. I'm currently looking o move out of my parent's house and into a place of my own. I am very content with my life and things are going my way. It all started out so small then rolled downhill into a giant snowball. Before all this happened I was constantly depressed good hold on to any relationship with friends or girlfriends. Control of my life just seemed out of reach, and tough to do. Too many mistakes I had made and not enough time to correct them. I think that was my first step. Stop trying to fix my mistakes of the past but work them into my future and have them work for me.
