|
|
beautiful, passionate, moving
I must say one thing from the onset: i'm an athiest, a hardcore skeptic, a nonbeliever who thinks that, when we die, we die and that's it; organized religion is far more harmful than not, and humanity will be far better off when we finally purge it from our lives.
... but this is one of the biggest reasons why this film resonated with me -- the mindset of the athiest (or the believer) need not be closed, and as much as we've learned, there will always be more to learn (and what we learn tomorrow may very well invalidate what we thought we knew today). The idea that we somehow live on is not what this film communicates to me -- rather, it's the premise that we're part of something bigger than does. We don't need to look any farther than our local compost heap to see evidence (of the reproducible, testable, independently verifiable and falsifiable kind) of this, for right there -- right before our eyes -- death leads to birth. In the film, when the male character drinks of the tree, thinking he will live forever, only to find that the tree sprouts from him (and he ceases to be), this statement is made.
... and yet, even though "we" cease to be when we die, our lives are filled with meaning and purpose -- meaning and purpose which _we_ create for ourselves and one another. Our passion, comes from this meaning, our fire comes from our quest to fullfill this purpose; there is no "god" required at all. To love another, to do everything in your power to save them from death (only to ultimately fail), to remember them when they're no longer with us, to walk barefoot through the snow, to strive for understanding of the human scope and whatever small window we can grasp at that's outside of it -- these are the important things. What comes after we die does not pertain to us as individuals -- when we die, "we" don't live on; it's over and that's it. But after we die, our bodies are returned to the process which birthed us, and the _process_ is the thing that continues on, and new life starts from where we ended. And this I find incredibly beautiful.
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
-
John Michael
,
posted 06/30/07
|