The Mazy Thoughts of Me

Just saw Avatar a few days ago.  Had the privilege of seeing it in an Imax theater in 3D.  What a trip.  Actually really enjoyed it, but I must say, there was certainly a lot of thought provoking moments that would either make you cringe and crawl, or actually consider in a positive way what the story might mean.  The way I figure it, you can look at in 3 different ways:  (Surely my original disclaimer will apply here)

1.  At its roots lies some very interesting similarities between almost any religion and that of environmentalism (which may lie at the root of most “green” philosophies).

When it comes to the spiritual character of the soul, most religions contain doctrine related to what attributes men and women should be building into them.  I found many of these attributes in the movie.

Humility

Before anyone can achieve great levels of spiritual enlightenment, happiness, a concept of self, concept of God, or whatever platitude the respective religion promotes, one must have humility.  The ability to do away with ego, pride, self promotion for personal or “non spiritual” gain.  The ability to recognize a power, person, or thing that is greater than you and me.  We are hard pressed to find any treasure trove’s of humility in our world today.  Some would argue that it is due to technology and all the conveniences we have that lead to pride or the lack of humility, as there is no need to recognize anything greater than we are.

In the case of Avatar, the convenience of the world was represented in the idea of mineral that could be mined by humans to somehow make life back on earth bigger, better, and more convenient.  It was also represented by the men and women, the guns, ships, and weapons, all used in a very prideful way to gain greater access to that mineral at just about any cost.

The humility represented was in Jack Sully, a paraplegic marine employed to control his own avatar.  His original intent was to help the prideful, worldly side gain access to the mineral.  He didn’t recognize a being or power greater than himself and didn’t really care due to his condition.  As time went on, Sully started to gain humility in the idea that the power of Pandora is something greater than he was and should be revered, respected, and that it could produce happiness or spiritual satisfaction for him if he were to do so.

In most cases, the transition from pride to humility requires a life changing event, challenge, trial, or trigger to cause one to question his own identity, to ask all the big questions, to feel small enough to see the bigger picture.  While not the primary focus in this movie, and usually not the primary focus in any movie like it, I find it interesting that this element is always present.  The element of a character needing humility before they can recognize or choose what is being presented as truth in front of them.

God

Coming soon.

Justification for War and Defense

Coming soon.

Respect for Nature

2.  It was a blathering diatribe of colors and undeveloped characters about holiness of the environment and all things green.

Coming Soon.

3. In its pure and simple form (if you can strip out all the political, spiritual, or mental judgments about the movie), it was just a fun ride.

Coming Soon.

This is my first disclaimer…. and that was my official first disclaimer of this introductory disclaimer.  I think this will ultimately be the disclaimer of all disclaimers so I’m sure I will come back and edit this until its absolutely a correct and accurate disclaimer.  Given that, how will you know when I’ve changed my disclaimer unless I’ve told you somehow? I’ll reserve the idea of never being able to achieve the perfect disclaimer for a future entry.  For now, here is my first disclaimer:

Througout posts on this blog, I will be making reference to scripture, historical events, facial features, colors, bodily functions (including just in case), spiritual intuition, and many other oddities, all through the spectrum of my own eyes, heart, and experiences.  You may find yourself saying any of the following while reading any of my posts:

“Gosh, that is so historically innacurate.”

“This guy is going to hell for being so scripturally off base.”

“I’m so glad I’m not him.”

“Hey, I like ice cream as well.”

… and many others.  To this I say (and this is at the core of my disclaimer): I am in no way staking a claim on truth, fact, history, political high roads, spiritual monopolies, religious perfection, correct principles, whether the colors you see are the same as the colors I see, or any other idea you may or may not find yourself agreeing with on this blog.  There are quite enough truths out there for all of us.

My intent with this blog is to simply share my perspective, what makes me passionate, what gets in my grill, and what truth looks like to me.  Just because truth looks like something to me doesn’t mean it will look the same way to you, although I do believe that all perspectives of truth probably lead back to some great truth that we can all agree on (you might disagree, in which case I would invite you to keep re-reading this disclaimer until you can get past it, in which case you may find yourself in an endless loop, in which case I am happy because you’re not bothering other people with your oversensitive character and hang ups about what one thinks of truth).

Ultimately, I am only one man with but one perspective.  I come with all the regular run ‘o the mill weeknesses, pride, laziness, distractions, short attention span, receding hair line, addiction to cheese curls, and all the rest that comes burned into my circuits as I journey through this life.  How absolute truth could ever come out of such beings is well beyond my small pea sized brain, but we probably get a lot closer to it when we combine our perspectives together and see where we agree, disagree, celebrate, discourage, smile, or cry about.  Whether you like or dislike the Constitution of the United States, it is still an amazing amalgamation of the mettle of a group of men.  It would seem to me that only one ingredient was necessary to take the perspectives of many to get as close to truth as possible and that was passion.  They were all passionate about it, passionate to share it, passionate to hear it, passionate to implement it, even passionate enough to die for it.  Such passion, love, desire, character to me is the great offsetting element to all of the weeknesses listed above.  The attributes of the “un-man” if you will.  It is one of my greatest desires to have such passion, to build such character.  To get there, I’ll start by sharing, learning, listening.  Such is the goal of my blog and such is the extent of my disclaimer, yea, the disclaimer of all disclaimers.

Thanks for bearing with me, or no thanks if that is offensive to you.