Consciousness, Conformity, And Indoctrination

An escape route from the trap we are in

How do we see the truth about where we are right now or any time?

What holds us back? Why aren’t things better? Does it really have to be this way? Why do so few folks seem to have good ideas? How come it is so hard to execute things when we know they are needed? Ah… the questions, the questions!

The most likely explanation is often the simplest (Occam’s Razor). For me The Matrix remains the last great Hollywood movie. It wrapped the biggest philosophical question in maximalist pop action candy spectacle loaded with style and attitude of the highest cool. For all the bullet-time, red pill blue pill and Keanu of it though, for me it is the simple truth that life is a false construct that made it sing for me. It is the one thing we can’t forget, even when it is so hard to see. Especially then! We have to remind ourselves of it in order to see through it. None of this is real. We have built everything on lies and false beliefs. Yay! Double yay – because it means we can build something else, something a bit more true, in its stead. So let’s get moving, yeah?

And yeah, it’s worth noting that Barbie used the same premise to great success this summer, albeit in quite some different clothes and shades. So yeah, we love it; we love to see that life is a lie, at least for how we are living it.

We are in a system and the system is in us. This much we know is true. But let’s see through the walls. This is a fantastic time to be alive because we have recognized that what was long taken for granted never really needed to be. We get indoctrinated from birth but we can free ourselves as we age. It is almost like a rebirth. Here we are and we can begin again. To me that is the choice of adulthood: to begin again but this time mindfully. We have to shake that old stuff off. Over and over and over again. Rinse and repeat. Groundhog Day. Live. Die. Repeat. We are good students and were trained by the some of the best, handed across through history, across time, space, and dimension. Only problem is never was the way they thought it was and we aren’t yet free to conceive of the alternative.

So what does this have to do with filmmaking or the film business? This is about the creative process – you know the third leg of this newsletter. To start, allow me to confess: “us in the system, and the system in us” is one of my favorite themes to find (and apply) to creative work. When my wife, Vanessa Hope, found it, shared it, and analyzed it, it was a little bit of a “eureka!” for me. And when I say Vanessa “found it”, it is like any “discovery”; someone else found it, had it, shared it first. It was always here. But it was that thing I needed then and hadn’t recognized yet. It was the thing I had but overlooked. It was a good day and a welcome gift. Thank you, Vanessa.

But we all need to use it now.

If you want to improve things or make the world a better place, you have to first recognize where we are. And then you have to understand why it got that way. You have to look for the clues and the tells. This is equally true if you want to disrupt the status quo or make anything distinct.  Examining the world in all the aspects important to you should be part of anyone’s creative process. And if you don’t know that yet, if you aren’t committed to it, if you haven’t embraced it as part of your creative process, I don’t think you’ve begun. But let’s fix that. There’s no better time than now, so…