Gene's Blog

The Last Mimzy

I don’t rent many movies, most genre’s that at one time appealed to me, do no longer.  What I mean by that, is over the years I have lost interest in many things that at one time I had a lot of interest in.  I think of that as growth, change certainly, but growth as well.  For instance, I used to enjoy thriller-type movies, we all love, or many of us do given the success of such movies, the sensation of being safely scared out of our wits as with the “Jason” or “Michael Meyer” type movies.  Actually I lost interest in those a long time ago, but I used to enjoy action movies too of the “Arnold” variety, the summer of 1997 found me unable to be in the presence of all that killing, the only one of that genre that I can still stomach, even enjoy, is the original Highlander – I so love the soundtrack, Queen, Freddy Mercury‘s heavenly voice, and the ultimate outcome which though arrived at violently, is ultimately about hope.

So, you can understand, that what is available now that I can enjoy is a rather limited selection.  I have some favorites but they all tend to be now movies that demonstrate something good, even wonderful about us, we spirits here having this human experience.  I just love the American President, Contact, Regarding Henry, the Kid with Bruce Willis in an interesting role, a handful of others, all movies that I find hope in, that I find what I consider to be the best part of us in.  So, though there aren’t really all that many movies, I do find interest in these days, still sometimes, Jenna will take me to Hollywood Video and lead me through the place, I’ll look at lots of things, most of which I have no interest whatsoever in, but what will eventually happen is I’ll find myself standing in front of something which does, that she wants me to see.  For instance, City of Angels, lol, which they have but one copy of and which is not new, but which she actually had me ask for by name a few months ago and which she has since asked me to watch once again – that is the movie in which I first heard Sarah McLachlan, by the way.  I’ve come to some very out of the way movies this way as I am wandering and she just sort of stops me, or I stop somehow, right in front of what she wants me to say – not at all unlike the way Book 1 came to me. 

This past week, I was up that way on another errand and she asked me to go in, so I did, this guidance works in what I’m sure some will think an odd way, she doesn’t tell me WHAT to do, but urges me toward something she wants me to do, or see.  We do have very specific conversations, long ones sometimes, about a lot of things, but when it comes to choices, those are always mine and mine alone.  Again, because this is my experience not hers, and there are no scripts.  Free will here really does mean exactly that.  So as I wandered the store, looking at the new things, nothing really struck my eye, until I came to the Last Mimzy, a kids movie really, or so I thought upon first glance.  But she said, THIS, is what I’d like you to see, gene.  So I picked it up.  It is a sci-fi movie, really, and though I love sci-fi, I don’t watch a lot of those movies, because, well, again, they are too violent for my taste. 

I want to tell a little story here about how that came to be.  I think it was a gradual sort of weaning process that began in me long before Brandon died.  I used to be just a voracious reader, we are talking many books a week growing, mostly mysteries as those were what my mother, the only other reader in my family, liked.  I found a couple people at my work who shared that interest and we began exchanging Robert Ludlum and Dick Francis books, but sometime 15 years or so ago, my taste just began to change, I was troubled by the violence in fiction, I think I started to see our “fantasies” as affecting our lives.  I know there are no studies that prove television, or movie, violence begets physical violence, but I think the more one sees that, the more  one becomes inured to other people’s suffering, the more one comes to believe that the end justifies the means.  And I don’t.  Believe that.  This was, of course, Jenna’s gentle influence in me that caused this gradual turn away from that genre of print and screen media.  It is a rare show I will watch that has much violence in it.  For instance, in its first season, I really liked Criminal Minds, because of the thoughtful, insightful way they were able to characterize human behavior, but they had to come up with a new serial killer, ever more horrible, every single week to keep the show going.  And that is NOT what our world is, it is NOT what our country is.  There are people here who do evil things, yes, (don’t worry we’ll talk about judging another time, what that means for us as human beings I mean) but we do not have new serial killers every week.  They are, blessedly, rare, few and far between.  So Criminal Minds lost me.  I could not live with the horrors they dreamt up no matter how brilliantly acted and presented they were. 

When the movie part of this first became obvious to me was the summer after Brandon died.  I tried to go see a new “Arnold” movie, xxxxx, and I found myself so overcome by the violence in it, that I left after less than 15 minutes, I was literally panic-stricken by it, I felt like I could die right there in the theater and I just couldn’t stay.  I thought maybe it was ALL movies, but it wasn’t, Contact came out that summer and I made my oldest, my remaining, son, go with me – just in case.  But it was wondrous, not horrifying – I was already a Carl Sagan fan and had read his only novel, but still, I wasn’t sure if it was movies, the crowd, or the dark, or the genre that had terrified me so.  I learned watching Contact that it wasn’t the theater, the crowd, it was the violence.   The next summer, on the CWG list, people were extolling the virtues of Saving Private Ryan, what great lessons it taught.  My question to the group was, given its subject matter, was, was it bloody and violent?  Yes, was the answer, but the overarching lesson was not.  I knew I could not see it, so I listened to the discussion and said that if I ever did see it, it would have to be when it came out on video, so I could watch it on a small screen, in a place where I could shut it off for periods and watch it in chunks if I needed too.  I have seen it now.  About a year ago.  And, yes, the idea that drove it was a noble one, and I was able to deal with the violence of it – I’m stronger now than I was back then, but I am as horrified by movie violence as ever.  Even more so by the real violence taking place all over our world, but so graphically depicted in what happens in the middle east every day.  There is no greater blasphemy, in my opinion, than killing in the name of God.

Back to science fiction.  :^).  I said I loved it, but that isn’t completely true, I really have only read two authors, and all of their work, I own, most I have read so many times, I could write them from memory, lol.  I don’t agree with all of what they wrote, by any means, but there is so much eternal truth in their work, and so much good, that for the most part, I can excuse any excesses I found.  And I really only found those in Robert Heinlein‘s work, he has SO much right, so beautifully, but I cannot abide the way he has characters treat each, beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land, a wonderful book in many ways, his characters, grew ever more rude personally, sort of in the way people who know each other well are teasingly insulting to each other?  I can’t stand that.  It is passive-aggressive cruelty in my opinion.  We ought be more loving to those closest to us than to anyone else, in my judgment, not less.  A cruel comment is a cruel comment no matter how much you love the person to whom it is made.  Those of you who have been to my main site, know this is what brought on, or accelerated my awakening, interpersonal communication of less than a polite nature.   I have bought, read, and thrown away one of Robert’s books at least three times over this issue.  His early work was directed toward teens and young adults, I still have those and I love them, this issue was there too just not to the degree that it appeared later.  I just find that unfortunate, because he was SO far ahead of his time in SO many other ways.  The other sci-fi author I read, though I came to him as an adult, was Isaac Asimov, I have nothing to criticize about him.  I loved everything he wrote, I think it was prescient and compelling.  And coming. 

So, the last Mimzy, we come full circle, though a “young” movie, Jenna wanted me to see it.   When she does this, wants me to see something in particular, whenever we get to that point in the movie, or book for that matter, she tells me clearly, THIS is what I brought you here to see, gene.  And in this case, though the whole movie is wonderful, what she wanted me to see was at the very end.  A little speech that, really, ends the movie.  I paused and copied down what was said.  “But Emma’s tears were the instruction’s for an awakening.  Our precious quality of humanity had been turned off.  And it spread like wild flowers.  People shed their protective suits and over time humanity blossomed again.”. 

In my opinion, humanity has YET to blossom.  We have NEVER been all that we can be on this planet.  THAT is what I think is coming, an age, not an era, but an age, where we will become a true civilization, one people – one world.  Where will be able to lay down our weapons and build a little bit of heaven right here on this beautiful blue oasis of love given us by our Creator for this very purpose.  That humanity is due for an awakening to the truth of ourselves, to remember who we really are, and to begin to live THAT experience here on Earth.  And then, we may take ourselves to the stars, where experience of all manner can be had, where what has happened here may well be forgotten, until sometime in the millennia to come, Emma’s tears are remembered and humanity blossoms again wherever it has taken root.  It requires will and strength and sometimes violence to gain a foothold on a planet, to become the dominant species on a planet, and in that doing, the truth of us can be lost as we become immersed in the experience of simply living.  Robert talks about this beautifully in one of his very best books, Time Enough For Love (the story of darling dora), but the experience of forgetting who we are only to eventually re-member, is how we ourselves evolve, from creatures, back into the love we are.  The last Mimzy is worth seeing, dear ones.  much love, :^) gene