"Reality" in the Movie, "The Unknown"

I have recommended the movie, "The Unknown", because of its excellent direction. The movie keeps one spellbound. It captures the audience's attention and emotion, when "Martin"s memory is partially impaired.

Humans live from memory. We learn our language and remember the right words to even communicate with others when we grow up. What if we couldn't remember our words? This was not the case in "The Unknown", as his memory of important emotional facts was intact, but some of the other facts were forgotten due to an accident. Due to the "missing links", he is living in "limbo" land, not able to understand many things happening to him. How does he interpret them?

Whenever humans don't have a grasp on reality, such that they can find security, they find themselves anxious. Anxiety is the state of "not knowing", or fearing that which "might come". Why would this anxiety have any hold on a human being? When experiences continue to confound and there is no rationale for what is happening, humans become anxious about their futures. A "state of peace" or psychologial security is the result of learning about "cause and effects". Behaviors are conditioned by "causes and effects". But, "sometimes the "causes and effects" are not straightforward "laws of nature". These have damaging effects on the psyche. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder could be the result and might have a disorienting effect on the personality.

Humans must have some sense of control about thier life to maintain a sense of dignity and personal orientation about "reality" itself.  "The Unknown" brought to light what it is like to experience a dis-orienting experience where 'life doesn't make sense. The Unknown gave a sense of what life would be like if one lost partial memory and had to "live with it".

Memory or the brain's recording or experience is not the "whole story". Memories have to be itnerpreted to be meaningful, but when some information is "lost" and one is left to interpret without all the 'facts", then what? This made for a great movie.

Go see it. You won't be disappointed!

Another Movie "Under My Belt"aboutf Human Choice/Parallel Universes

Tonight, my husband and I wanted to escape together, but didn't want to battle the crowds that we supposed would be at the local resurants. So, we watched a movie about "Life".

A dying woman and her memories of a past love had burned her heart with regret. The moive kept going back and forth between the aged woman in bed and her two grown daughters and their present struggles to the woman's past life and its struggles.

In her "past life" she'd met a man named "Harris", who she'd fallen in love with at her best friend's wedding. "Fate" did not look down upon their romance as a life long commitment, but a week of making deep memoires that would haunt her on her dying bed. One daughter was intensely interested to find out about "Harris", as her mother mentioned him often upon waking or going to sleep.

One day, the woman's best friend, whose wedding she'd met "Harris", came to visit. The visit was short but the connection was deep and it settled the "haunting" of the dying woman and the curious questions of her daughter. The best friend's advice to the two women, "There are no mistakes in life".

"There are no mistakes in life" is a life based on an understanding of human choice and fallibility within parallel universes. One cannot be outside of "what is/should be". Parallel universes mean that there are many contingent "worlds" that are just as valuable, as another. Human choice at a particular point in time is not evaluated by "wisdom"s fine-tuned experience, but what was of value at a particular point in time.

Particular points in time cannot be evaluated on historical standards, because human choice is a present reality in a particular individual's human development, not an absolute objective of historicizing of life and all that is.

Human choice is necessary for taking individual responsibility. and taking responsibility is about growing up, owning one's life and not blaming others. But, it is also about forgiving oneself and acknowledging human fallibility and fraility. It is knowing that probably could not make another choice, given certain limitations.

I enjoyed the movie in all respects. The story, the acting (Meryl Strep) and the message all were good Valentines for my husband and for myself.

Review of "The Final Cut"

"The Final Cut" was an interesting sci-fi type film, which had implications to society, the greater good, and privacy.

The Zoe implant was a kind of memory system implanted at birth (or later) that videoed a person's life. At the end of life, a person's family would have a "cutter" cut out any extraneous or unwanted memories to present at a 'memorial service".

As this was an expensive "investment" in one's future, not everyone could afford such a "blessing". Those that had the money could afford to control what and how they were remembered. The problem was when a family wanted to "cut out " certain inappropriate behavior of the "remembered video", or when one happened upon their Zoe and got the memories, while still alive. The Zoe was not to be "inspected", except after one's death, and then was "cut" at the discretion of one's family. It was a form of "heritage", I suppose.

At the beginning of the movie, Allan, "the cutter" had had an experience that had impacted his memory such that he became "a cutter". As a boy, he had visited another city and met Louis, who went to investigate an old barn, where Allan proceeded to walk across an old plank and encouraged the other boy to follow.  Louis fell to "his death". Allan found Louis, in what he remembered as "a pool of blood". Allan, had felt responsible for Louis' "death", until the day his memory was retrieved,  and he discovered that "the pool of blood"' was only a can of paint that spilt nearby.

Two situations were illustrative of the problems of "solving  bad behaviors" by "cutting". Isabel wasn't allowed to remember her father's abuse at her father's "cutting". Zoe prevented the "victim" a way to affirm their own sense of reality and gain their respect and dignity.

The other situation was when a woman found her "memories"  before her death, and re-lived those private moments of a past romance. She was rightly outraged at the invasion of privacy.

The moral character that kept warning Alan of the injustice of what he was doing got "his justice" in the end, when Alan was killed and the moral character, retrieved the Zoe implant and got to inspect the "cut" information  from other's lives. These memories were something that could reveal crimes against society, but at what costs?.

I thought the film's re-interpretation of "eternal life" as one's "memory" was an interesting one. And I thought that the message of false guilt and shame that drives people to "atone" for their "sin" was also insightful. And I thought that the aspect of a "moral policemen" whether to justify by "cutting" or to judge by "investigating" another life were two sides of  extremist views.

But, justice and forgiveness was at the forefront of the film's message. Alan could not forgive himself and found himself driven to help others deny their failings by becoming a "cutter". But, what Allan did, in effect, was to further enable the abusor, and deny the victim, justice.

The invasion of privacy is always of importance to free societies where one's feeling and sense of "independence" is an important value. Zoe, in this sense, was like Big Brother. But, while Zoe helped to further "family image",  at the expense of societal norms, Big Brother bans independence from government in personal matters.

Image and reality were the intermingled aspects of this film. Was the memory (image) real? It was, and wasn't.

In Allan's case, he thought his guilt was real, but was imaginary. Myth was an excrusiating "reality" that needed dismantling by reality.

In the case of the little girl and her father, the "reality" and Image was a created one. Myth doesn' t serve anyone's interests in this situation.

So, it seems that myth in real situations can hinder real realities in the real world.

Memory and Meaning

Some think that we are only the products of our experiences. While I do believe that experiences influence us and sometimes determine us in certain ways, I do not believe that they define everything about a human.

Take, for instance, my upbringing as a Baptist. I went to church everytime the doors opened and for the most part, found my friends within her doors. But, my husband and I do not "connect" with Baptists, theologically, or otherwise. We have visited many Baptists churches on many different occasions in the many places we have lived. I do not think that those who want to define another's life based on experience alone will find the "truth" about the "human".

I don't know all there is about brain science, but I do know that many factors go into the mix of what makes a person, a person, as well as the individual's certain bent. Christians, in the West, have understood that the bent of man is "sinful". I do not believe that sin is within, so much as without. What do we do with our life and the experiences in it? How do we interpret the things that transpire? These are the very struggles I have had for the past 14 or so years, as I have evaluated my faith in and through my experience. It has impacted how I have understood my faith.

Ethics is about how we treat our neighbor. And ethics is about how we do "business' and life, in general. While I don't believe that there are specificities of lifestyle, as these are personal convictions and evaluations, I do believe that the values that one is committed to are the ones that impact the life's color as a whole. Ethics is the broad-scale approach to doing "life".

I had understood my faith through theological belief, that meant I was to be included, no matter what. But, belief and belonging, did not match what I experienced in the behavior of community. Different belief systems evaluate their in-groups on different basises....I was floundering as to understand things and put my life together when I went back to school and then experienced my brother's suicide. Sometimes experiencing tragedy that is inexplicable and not experiencing the grace of and in community can be damgaing and damning to one's faith.

I do not by any means mean to sound like I am complaining. No, in fact, I am blessed in many ways to have come to a point of evaluating myself, my life, and my faith in ways that I would not have done otherwise. So, I will give thanks for all of the pain. I do not think that "God ordained anything" in my life. But, I do believe that all things are useful. This is a point of not playing a blame game, but a learning game. It is the mind-set to understand that "life happens" and move on, get over it, after it has been sieved through one's consciousness long enough to have and make meaning to and for one's life.

I am fortunate to have a family around me that we can see regularly. I cherish that and try to allow that to "fill" the need for community. I take pleasure in simple things, like my dog's loyalty, or my grandchild's smile. I will continue to try to "make meaning". But the meaning will not be some "transcendent meaning" or value, but personal meaning. As life is about "what one makes it".

Memory Is Fleeing...and Sometimes Fabricated

This morning while talking with a family member, I was amazed at their recollection of events in the past! I basically did not say anything, as what was meaningful for their point was important to affirm (for their sake). And the value to both of us was what had transpired since the remembered (or "dis-remembered") historical events.

After hanging up the phone, I told my husband what was said and he agreed that what was said was a figment of the imagination (embellishment of the facts) and an attempt to make one's "mistakes of the past" pale into oblivion. We all tend to do this unless we are held accoutable and/are self-reflective enough to recognize certain tendencies or weaknesses. And we all tend to do this is we have low self-esteem.

The recollection of events was not interesting to me because of some need to be "right", but a reflective and aware moment that this person's reality was skewed as it concerned what I had remembered...This is often the case and is why in our courts, the accused is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

But, this experience of memory has value in understanding anything about the past. And in ancient texts, which could or could not be remembering history, it has value. Scriptures have been evaluated upon the mythological and the historical. The facts don't matter if one is only interested in "theological" understanding. But, it is important if there is value in ancient texts that impacts our society today....

Christian faith has no foundation, but Christ. And Christ is not even recognized as a historical figure by all scholars. But the history of Christian faith is within the Jewish tradition, not an isolated "Roman cult". Blood does nothing to "cleanse from sin", except if one chooses to believe some mystical revelational message that has no historical value, other than making someone feel better about themselves.

This is the main reason why I think that reason has to be engaged for there to be development of the individual. And it is not in some mystical faith tradition. It is the development of reason which is separate from faith. And yet, reason cannot be separated from faith because we are finite beings, that have limitations of understanding, and contexts.

While our memory is fleeing before our eyes, we all need to remember what is important and of value. These are values of commitment to the ideals of justice, truth, and value, tempered by mercy, because we recognize the fragility of life and memory, itself.