Cornellius Posted October 29, 2013 Posted October 29, 2013 I should warn you about the nature of this post. It connects with the call I had with Stefan two days ago, especially the theme of living to stand up to evildoers. It kind of runs deep. And it feels obsessive, for one. Growth anxiety rears its ugly head; taking the red pill makes me deathly afraid that some of the engine noises outdoors might be the chopper to chop my head off, that FDR was Goldstein's book, and that the real world... was Julia. But I'm sure some can see the beauty in the whole thing. The Social Network is The Shining for the youth of today. And Mark Zuckerberg is Danny Torrance without the sheltering help of his imaginary friend Tony and Mr. Hallorann. Mark Zuckerberg is one of the dusty skeletons inside the hallway of the Overlook hotel, sitting in a sea of (get ready for it) spider webs, in one of many frightening moments of a movie that gets scarier and scarier, and as self-knowledge deepens in the audience, deepens in resonance. Being the genesis of this post, I am genuinely inspired by the characters Eduardo Saverin and Erica Albright in the 2010 film The Social Network. Although they're imperfect, riddled by some defenses, which is fully to the advantage of the movie, there is an aura of peace to them. A priceless ability to stop and be observant. Receptive. Open, vulnerable. It's that vulnerability that turns out to be displaced, as Mark Zuckerberg brutally exploits the opening itself. And leads to more isolation for everybody. Inflicts his isolation on everybody. That exploration is in the framework of dealing with loneliness difficulties I've been busting my ass off to sort out. A feeling of insanity, a feeling that I'm slipping through life without a single human soul to hang on to through meaningful contact, right through to the event horizon of the Sulaco airlock. I mean the edge. Forget that one. If no one's available, I think that the living inspiration of people who are just about my age, of young angelic beings, is exactly the change I needed from many of my previous inspirations, namely the Greek composer Vangelis. My fanhood comes down repetedly to old artists past their prime. Vangelis. Robert Smith from The Cure. Thom Yorke from Radiohead. The deceased Stanley Kubrick and Ingmar Bergman. Ridley Scott. Aphex Twin. Roger Waters. Jon Anderson. What an eerie discovery. And a beefy stronghold for the floodwaters of my conscience. I'm 19 and sometimes, yeah, I feel old. Old as can be. Actually older than that. The overall direction of those artistic discoveries can only be of a neurotic origin. A highly stylised extension of my family life. A deadly F117 Nighthawk in the Baghdad sky. A Mark Zuckerberg enterprise of social isolation and mortar shelling. It doesn't feel like a distraction from prior abuse. It doesn't even feel like a vindication of the world. It feels like an orgy of catartic wonder. Which makes it all the more dangerous. The universe of the old folks infects me with the gangrene that my personal prime may be past, in my case my childhood, and that nothing is worth trying anymore. That apparently, I'm ashes of a burnt fire. A log that ended up axed up by Jack Torrance and his creepy face of impending catastrophe. Who acted out on his defenseless family. Conversely, the two young folks in The Social Network are the Redrum alarm yell. They don't exclaim MURDER, just as Wendy in her sleep, is simply subjected to the continuous utterances of her dissociated son's and her own unconscious: Redrum, redrum, redrum. They're the characters in a movie, slipping unnoticed past my defenses, exploding the LETHAL quicksand stronghold of defenses, right from within. And they could have been Mark’s saving grace. But he was quick to turn on them. At the moment, I'm not Wendy, the mother in The Shining. I haven't run out of time, I know I haven't. No. I'm not the old neurotic who dresses like Goofy. I'm Danny Torrance, winning against my dad in the maze. And I can't wait to be in that Snowcat heading away from the Overlook hotel. Leave this other maze of bitter coloured carpet and papier peint patterns, jet set furniture, tamed Apache ornaments, and peaceful hallways, with its nuanced and acquired taste that no child has even a hint of warming up to. Not to mention, a gold room shrieking of history, and an ocean of blood covered up in vain behind an elevator door. I wish not to discredit any of the old artists I mentionned above. After all, Mr. Kubrick made The Shining, and I believe that the man is the Stefan Molyneux of filmmaking. The one man in his business who took the red pill in every one of the real worlds he woke up in, and ended up with the ability to focus his sight with certainty, and probably died an anarchist. But from where I stand, if I had one instance of thanks to give out, they would be for Mr. David Fincher. The modern aura of The Social Network. The cinematography. The truthful, the honest, the clear-as-can-be depiction of the teenage partying/planmaking clique-intensive frenzy of the Occident. The sharp and contemporary music that transcends the right moments. The themes of digital escapism. The suave acting. The choice to include a time-lapse shot of San Francisco downtown at night, to give the audience breathing space with brilliant efficiency. Fincher's hairstyle. That all of this. Built a bridge between the important themes and my conscience by telling the tale of the 21st century world that STILL in fact lies before me, clearing the path clean for the Redrum awakening that might well save my life today. Stanley Kubrick was really into dream sequences. These entire movies are both dream-like messages of absolute anarchistic liberty. And liberty has all the side effects needed to fix the world. p.s.: Stefan Molyneux is Mr. Hallorann with several obvious nuances (for one skin color) and one (fortunate) difference. And rationality is... well, you know. p.s. 2: If there's anything at all pompous or narcissistic about my post, please point it out. But re-uploading it, I just adopted a "the hell with appearances" attitude. I mean, the truth is this: last night, I wrote all that. I suppose I'd feel better if I said that the post was a Bohemian Rhapsody of my written carreer so far. Shine on you crazy diamonds. Fin
Cornellius Posted October 29, 2013 Author Posted October 29, 2013 I recently had a dream that tells the same story as what I'm talking about here.
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