The Metaphysical Marathon

I've been feeling metaphysical lately.
What does metaphysical feel like, you ask?

Hard to define exactly. Feeling metaphysical probably means that I've been thinking about hypothetical situations a lot. It also might mean that I've been listening to Radiohead and Beck. I haven't been listening to Radiohead or Beck, so perhaps I just imagined this metaphysical movement. Maybe I just hypothesized the whole thing and it never really existed.

Which of course, would be a very metaphysical thing to do.

I like to remedy - or perhaps explain - my varying moods through film. If I'm feeling silly and childish, I usually watch a series of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell movies; maybe some Disney. If I'm feelin' confident and cool, George Clooney inevitably makes his way into my little film festivals.

When I started journalism school, I watched, as preparation: "All the Presidents Men", "His Girl Friday", "Network", "Bruce Almighty", "Goodnight and Goodluck", "Medium Cool", and "The Paper".

So what does one watch when feeling metaphysical? I think my mood started when I went to go see "Stranger Than Fiction" last week. I recommend it highly.
Oddly, Jim Carrey is a good fix for metaphysical feelings as well as silly and/or childish ones. I started with "The Truman Show", and moved on to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I ended with "Vanilla Sky" but Carrey isn't in that movie, Tom Cruise was. Perhaps Jim would have made the film even stronger.
I can't be sure.

"The Truman Show"

I like to start my movie marathons on a positive note, and amongst this batch, "The Truman Show" is as positive as it gets.
I love movies that reflect me back on to myself, like looking into a mirror. Not every movie I enjoy does this, but my favorite ones do. This one does.
I've mentioned before my childhood belief that I was watched and videotaped at every moment of my life. "The Truman Show" was released in 1998, but I felt like Truman in 1988.
Sometimes, I really want to believe the world revolves around me.
I know, I know. "Narcissist much?"
I'm not as vain as that last statement must make me sound. If I desired the world pay rapt attention to every muscle twitch, trivial decision and devoid glance I made, I would be a horribly self-serving human being.
I'd be Paris Hilton.*
I like the idea that the world is interested in what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, but not at all interested in knowing that this is going on. My stance on this is exactly the same as every action my daughter choses to take once she turns 16. I'll love my daughter and do what I can, but I don't want to know about the parties she goes to, boys she sees, liquids she drinks, or underwear she buys. I just won't want to know.
I'll form an ideal in my head when she turns 13 and assume that's the case until my wife informs me 25 years later that our daughter is engaged to be married.
That's what all the best parents do.

And like Jim Carrey's Truman, who rejects his "fame" immediately upon realizing he has it, I too reject fame as my driving force. It's not fame or attention I seek, I guess it's influence. I liked the idea, as a seven-year-old, that cameras were watching my every move. That being said, I never actually spotted one of those cameras. And had I done so, there'd be no end to my crippling fear of society. I wanted people to watch, but I didn't want those people to have personalities or faces.
It's kinda like this blog. I write so that somebody might one day read all this garbage, but God forbid those somebodies talk to me about it, I shrivel like a frightened turtle.
What's that about?

"Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind"

I like the idea that no matter what we do, there is a part of us bigger than science.

Both Jim Carrey's character (Joel) and Kate Winslet's character (Clementine) erase one another from their memories. Clementine did it because she was bored and Joel did it because he found out what she had done. But even after science removes them from each other, they reconnect accidentally.
Which brings us to fate.
An idea that - above all others - I'd love to believe in. Believing in fate would require me to let go of a lot of things I'm scared to let go of. It would also require some concession that we aren't in control of what happens.
"Eternal Sunshine" seems to exemplyify "losing control". Clementine and Joel shared a lot of great memories, but life moved on and left them cold toward one another. To be fair, they were cold without one another as well. Joel tried desperately to hang onto Clementine within his own dreams. It seemed that even after we literally erase our memories of a person or event, we can't erase their intangible effect on us?
And anyway, once both Joel and Clementine were rid of one another, they still wandered back toegther like bad pennies or a bottled message floating back to the desserted island.

Writing this, I feel very young and very naive. I picture my Mom disregarding this blog, perhaps wondering why I even care. Maybe that's not fair, maybe my Mom philosophizes and hypothesizes more than I do.

Anyway, I like the idea of fate. I've liked the idea for as long as I can remember, but I don't know that I've ever believed in it.

"Vanilla Sky"

Sometimes when I floss my teeth, I jam the floss hard into my gums. I'm not sure why I do this - it hurts. But this particular pain, it doesn't hurt like breaking an arm or slamming my finger with a hammer, it's a satisfying pain. I can't explain it any better than that I don't mind hurting myself with the floss. It doesn't cut in enough to draw blood or tears, but it could never be described as pleasant. If I wasn't ready for it, I would freak out if someone else administered this feeling in me.
This psychological tendency has something to do with my enjoyment of "Vanilla Sky," a movie that in no way can be seen as a pleasant experience, but deeply moves me everytime I see it.
I only know one other person who liked this film. Following "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" with "Vanilla Sky" seemed to critics and fans as a misstep for director Cameron Crowe, but for me, it seemed triumphant and maybe even a little genius.
Nah. Not genius, but unexpected and different, which is often confused with genius.
I imagine I like this film because it reminds me of my past relationships. I'm speaking primarily of romantic relationships, but I suppose a multitude of friendships would qualify here.
If you haven't seen the movie, then the rest of this section is going to be confusing as hell because I am barely smart enough to comprehend the film, but nowhere near smart enough to explain it to someone else.
Tom Cruise is in it, and his presence is really the only bad aspect of the film. Penelope Cruz is unusually likeable and managed to stave off her normally lifeless persona in this film. The biggest feat is Cameron Diaz who is horrifying in the film. I love Diaz, but cringed everytime she came on screen.

I think "Vanilla Sky", more than any other film, mirrors my attitude toward my past. Diaz represents the girls that seemed so perfect and without warning turned into... horrible, horrible life lessons.
It should be noted for self-preservation that I do not fashion myself as Tom Cruise-ish in any way. I'm way taller.
So for the record: I don't think I'm Paris Hilton and I don't think I'm Tom Cruise.
Penelope Cruz represents all those that came in and out of my life at the wrong time, or with the wrong objectives, or the wrong outlook. In the film, her lovely romance with Cruise gets cut crushingly short and he spends the remainder of his life longing for her, pining for that small moment of perfection between the two of them.
I dunno. Am I alone in wanting this? Haven't we all experienced moments of pure and absolute perfection and don't we live our lives to retrieve those moments again? Why else do people stay in crappy relationships, stale friendships and dysfunctional families?
Watching "Vanilla Sky" there is always a part of me that wonders where my past went. I'll always have memories (unless I forget them) and a few exported members of my past have been and will continue to be promoted to members of my present, but in general it's gone.
I am all that's left of my past.
I had friends, loved ones, girlfriends and peers that seem so distant now that I sometimes wonder if I dreamed them, as Cruise indeed wonders in the movie.
I mix up memories of trips and experiences with the people I experienced them all with, it becomes amorphous and vague and it's only going to get worse.
"Vanilla Sky" is tragic because only half of what Cruise experiences is real, but he has no idea which half it is and therefore, almost none of it is preserved. It's all gone.

And perhaps you don't agree, perhaps you're more forward-thinking than I am. But letting go of your past is a tragedy second only to forgetting it altogether.

================================================================

* I'm not Paris Hilton and I'd hate for people to end this blog with it in their mind that she and I are basically the same person. Please trust that none of my intentions align themselves with Ms. Hilton's.
I would never carry my dog in my purse.
I would never carry a purse.
I would never own a dog that I was strong enough to carry.
I would also not allow my dog to carry a purse, which isn't somerthing that Paris Hilton has done, but it seems like something she'll do eventually, so I'd like to make a pre-emptive strike against it here.