“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Once upon a time there was a point in my life when cinema was capable of providing me with a sense of identity. No matter whatever it was that I chose to watch, no matter which character was presented on screen, I would be able to identify with them in some way.
When I was child, I would often imagine myself soaring across the cosmos with Luke Skywalker, swinging through New York City with Peter Parker or discovering lost and buried treasure with Indiana Jones. These characters always felt larger than life and their journey would help guide me along on my own journey. These adventures gave me hope that I too would one day soon go on a life changing adventure that wouldn’t just help me find whatever it was that I thought I was searching for, but that the eventual destination would provide me with a purpose, some direction and most importantly; a sense of meaning.
There was a time when movies made me believe that I could do anything, and that the characters presented on screen weren’t just a reflection of who I was but who it was I thought I could become and the possibilities weren’t just endless … they were infinite.
The Dream
One of my favorite movies of all time is The Wizard of Oz (1939). It tells the story of a young girl named Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) who yearns for more than simply being left stranded living her dull (but safe) life in the middle of Kansas, until a tornado takes her away to the mystical land of Oz where she would eventually learn the importance of what truly matters in life. This is the type of adventure that I hoped would happen to me.
The more movies I watched, the more they provided me with the false illusion that there would be more to life than the simple day-to-day routine of waking up, going to school and then once again turning on the television when I got back home. Movies made me believe that I didn’t have to put in any effort into finding adventure. I fell into the delusion that if I hoped and wished enough the adventure I was looking for would eventually find me.
This mindset would eventually led to feelings of hopelessness, disappointment and an abundance of overwhelming frustration because my real life adventure was not panning out the same way that I had once imagined it happening in my head when I was young.
When was my life changing adventure going to happen? When was I going to be taken away to a far away land where anything I could ever imagine was possible? When was I going to finally become the hero of the story I had seen so many times play out on the screen? Why wasn’t I running into enemies that I could defeat, meeting the people who were going to change my life, find the allies to trust, mentors I could learn from and the special romantic partners to fall in love with and where were those who would also fall in love with me?
I couldn’t help but wonder why wasn’t my life playing out as if it were a movie …
The Wall
As I continued to grow up, I would eventually hit a “wall”. The only way I can describe the wall is by comparing it to the Shell Beach storyline from Dark City (1998). Everybody in the movie remembers there being a Shell Beach, which was a bright beautiful place where the sun would shine but for some reason nobody could remember how to get back there.
I eventually got to as point in my life where I didn’t know which direction I should go in, or more specifically, which direction I wanted to be heading. Where was my life going besides blending into the crowd and going along with the daily grind? Why was I allowing myself to go along with a simple daily routine? And why did it feel like everybody except myself was seemingly so content with going along with the monotony of life?
I couldn’t help but wonder had nobody else experienced movies the same way I had?
When I first encountered my “wall”, I quickly came to the realization that this was a dead end that I didn’t want to remain stuck in. Here’s what I discovered about the wall: even though I could see it and I could feel it, the wall was just an illusion. It’s wasn’t really there. It wasn’t until I finally realized that I was the one who was putting those walls around myself; I was the one who wasn’t allowing anybody in. I was the one who was refusing to let them join me along my journey and I was the one who wasn’t providing other people with the opportunity to get to know who I truly was. (This was all unintentionally, of course).
… but the question soon switched from; how was I going to break down these walls and it quickly became how was I going to stop standing in my own way?
The Door
For anybody who has seen The Truman Show (1998), they know full well how it ends. Much like Dorothy, Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives a simple life that he inevitably gets bored of and the only way he can figure out how to escape is to inevitably face his fears. At the end of the movie, he opens a door and he choses to walk through it. This simple action can be interpreted in many different ways … but for me it’s symbolic of taking “a leap of faith”.
This was me at one point in time and it took a long, long time to discover my “door”.
As I tried navigating the sea of life without knowing where exactly I was going, I would eventually crash into an invisible wall without knowing where I ought to go next. There was suddenly a hallway with many doors that I could chose from and as I went up one side of the hallway and down the other, checking each one them, but they were all locked. No matter where I went, no matter how far and wide I’d expand my search, I couldn’t find my “door”.
I felt trapped and any way I could find to escape that trap only helped to reinforce it.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was trying too hard as well as I was looking in the wrong place. No matter how hard I banged and pleaded, the door that I wanted to open was forever going to remain shut. if only I had enough patience to go with the flow and not rush things, I would eventually come to discover that I wouldn’t have to jiggle the handle or pick the lock … the door that I was meant to walk through would open up all on its own.
Waking Up
Lastly, we come to Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix (1999) who lived a simple life as Thomas Anderson. By day he appeared to be nothing more than your average, ordinary, every day office worker. By night, a computer hacker who chose to hide himself away from the world yearning for something more. Much like myself, he too was seeking something but just didn’t know what it was that was looking for nor how to go about finding it.
It felt like I was “awake” but at the same I was somehow very much still “dreaming”.
It’s only when I look back at the situation that I realize, much like Neo, what I was waiting for was for somebody to come save me like some damsel in distress. Instead of going out an finding adventure in the world that I had been born into, I chose to hide myself away in my room. That’s where my imagination would be able to thrive. That’s where my dreams would be able to come to life. The only world I have ever felt I belonged was within a fantasy.
More and more, it felt less and less likely that I was ever going to finally become “the hero of the story” that I had always imagined myself becoming, and as much as I wanted to go back to the beginning of my journey and begin again … there was no starting over.
It took a long time but I eventually “woke up” to the reality of the situation: what I constantly saw happening in movies was never going to pan out the same way in real life. Whatever “reality” I felt I was going to escape into was never going to happen. If I truly wanted to live my life as the adventure that I saw on the screen then I would have to choose to turn off the television and go out into the real world and seek it out for myself.
Unfortunately for me, the adventure I wanted to live out wouldn’t come to pass …
Conclusion
There was a time where I once thought that it was other people who were blocking me from getting to where it was that I wanted to go and they were constantly stopping me from becoming the “hero” I had once dreamt as myself once becoming; that it wasn’t me who was the problem, but everyone else who was constantly preventing me from the adventure I had constantly seen on my beloved movies and television shows of years long past.
It’s only after I look back at how far I have come am I able to see the role that only I am capable of playing. I am the main character, I’m the sidekick, the wise mentor and the damsel in distress. I am all of these character tropes and more. I’m also none of them.
These character tropes don’t define who I am as an adventurer but I have found myself playing at least one of them at one point in my life. Even if I haven’t been cast in the role that I would’ve liked to have landed, playing these different roles has helped to shape me from who I was into who I am, and who it is that I hope to eventually become.
Sometimes, I wish I could click my heels three times and go back to that lost and confused little child I used to be and tell myself that everything is going to be okay. I would tell myself that I don’t have to go on a life changing journey in order to find who I was but I wouldn’t be who I have become without that false sense of delusion that I have to be larger than life.
These days, I don’t care about losing myself in movies or television because I have come to accept that those types of adventures only happen in movies, not real life. I don’t have to soar across the cosmos and take down the Empire, swing through the city and thwart evil vigilantes plans or travel to distant lands in order to obtain the so-called Holy Grail.
I’m slowly coming to accept that these characters aren’t real and their adventures aren’t meant to be taken seriously nor re-created or emulated. They aren’t there for me to bring to life but rather their stories are simply meant to act as a guide and help me along the way on my own path in life even if I don’t know which direction it is that I’m heading towards.
I’ve since come to the conclusion that what I’ve was searching for this whole time wasn’t a life changing adventure, certainly not in the same way I way it had been presented to me on screen but rather something that was standing in front of me the whole time. What movies provided me was a the illusion that I had to do something bigger than myself but even that’s an illusion because what it is that I’ve been searching for my entire life: was myself.
Hopefully, one day soon, I will accept that whatever life I chose to dream up, it doesn’t always have to align with that of reality because dreams are just that — Dreams. All I have ever had to do was simply be myself and adventure would find me and what I hope to do is stop living in a dream and start living in the moment. I might just like how it feels.
Maybe I’m still asleep … but something tells me that I’m a lot farther along on my own journey than I’m giving myself credit for, and maybe when I decide to trek out onto my next adventure, I will remember that I don’t have to put my hope and faith into anything other than myself, no matter which fictional characters’ journey I chose to identify with next.