I've been on a small disaster movie kick over the last week, watching in short nightly instalments. Started with the Day After Tomorrow, which I've seen and mostly enjoyed. Then I watched 2012, which I've never seen and found to be a bit over the top. I also realize that "over the top" might be silly way to assess a movie about the end of the world but I stand by it.
What both of these movies have in common is a strange sort of optimism towards humanity as a collective in the face of massive adversity. Roland Emmerich, the director of both films, seems to believe in people ultimately doing the right thing. It's a theme that comes across very heavy handed in 2012; but I think Emmerich is intentionally doing so. There's a whole subplot about John Cusack's character being a writer whose work is criticized for being too optimistic about the way humanity would work together. He's held in deep contrast with Oliver Platt's character, the White House's Chief of Staff who represents self-preservation at all costs. Guess which POV wins in the end?
There is a sort of dissonance watching a movie like that in 2023. Most of our narratives have turned highly cynical - and for good reason. However, I think there's an interesting meta lesson to be learned from 2012 and Emmerich's charitable view of people. It was, in part, Cusack's writing that saved humanity. His work helped inspired Chiwetel Ejiofor's character to plead for the people with the means to save as many as they could. Despite being dismissed as naive, it made a difference in the overall trajectory of how that group of people chose to act as a society. Maybe we need those stories even if they feel out of place or overly simplistic. Maybe we need to choose to let narrative of what humanity can be find a spot in our future.
Better that than letting the other narrative win.
One of the first major books I'm reading for my Directed Reading course is a book by Luke Bretherton called 'Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy.' It's basically an overview of political theology, which is the stream that the rest of my readings and writings will fall within.
Anyways, I came across this interesting idea while reading this morning; Bretherton makes a distinction between politics and war, suggesting that war and violence signals the end of politics and the start of something else.
"The bullet and the ballot box are mutually exclusive routes to solving shared problems."
He gets there because his view of politics is based in relational power with others rather than power over others. It is an understanding of power that requires a commitment to listening and negotiating rather than coercing and dominating.
It also requires a commitment to non-violence, something that is largely lacking in our society these days.
Been a wild past few weeks so I haven't really put down any thoughts on here.
Throughout the holidays my sister was diagnosed with colon cancer and then had surgery to have that removed. She's doing well and the surgery went great so we're all thankful.
As a result of that, my own health anxieties have been elevated and I've had to have a few tests done to ensure I'm clear.
I'm in the process of putting some of the essays I've written in the past onto this site. It's a bit time consuming as I have to convert them and make a few edits. Yesterday I put one up that I wrote last year that I quite enjoyed.
I'm doing a reading course right now that should inspire more writing on here so hopefully that kicks this habit back into gear.
I haven't really used this for personal updates like this in the past but I thought maybe I'd jot a few down for context.
Really enjoyed this interview with author Haruki Murakami. When asked, if he believes that humanity has any chance of righting itself, Murakami responded,
“I want to believe so. Since it’s also the reason that stories exist.”
Love that. Humans tell stories to inspire hope. A hope that calls us to be better than we have been because it truly believes that we are capable of change. Stories that call us to work together, to sacrifice, to overcome; even when the evidence isn’t always there. A mentor of mine once told me that it is the job of each generation to dig through the rubbish heaps of history and pull out forgotten or abandoned stories and reclaim them for themselves. It seems that stories that can inspire that sort of hope are what we need most of today.
A coworker shared this article in which the author describes the social media version of motherhood:
Where life-style accounts feature memes about maternal exhaustion and infographics detailing various reasons a woman raising a child might crumble under her several thousand daily tasks. (“Hey mama ❤️ I see you out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders,” an average caption might begin, gesturing toward support while suggesting that an impossible individual burden is simply what motherhood means.)”
(Emphasis mine)
There's a lot more to the article, it's worth reading in full.