Get A Life: A Requiem For “Avatar”
Your Basic Blue Alian Life-Form
There have been many times where I have read a good story and wished that I could live in that story. The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis comes to mind, and Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter perhaps – and many others. Nevertheless, while a good story can touch on heart-strings and even the deep spiritual longings of our soul, never have I entertained the idea that it would be better to be dead than not be in some story – as I reflect on it, I realize that even were it possible, those stories had their share of difficulties. It would not have been an adventure otherwise.
But alas, now I read this…
Audiences experience ‘Avatar’ blues
According to this article, there are many people who have seen this movie about a race of ten foot blue people called the Na’vi who live in an idyllic world called “Pandora”. They live in perfect harmony with their environment – in other words they have no desire beyond their existence and are in essence no different than animals in a tropical rain forest. They are portrayed as intelligent and gentle, but can be violent when pissed off.
Now I have several beefs with the movie, not the least which is how it portrays humans as greedy “capitalists” intent on extracting valuable resources from this “exo-moon” without any regard to the indigenous life. This is a tired plot, and frankly is proven untrue by the fact that the movie was made by HUMANS. But I digress….back to the issue on human self esteem. Still, the movie is certainly cool and despite the plot issues I mentioned, it has some very cool qualities. Nevertheless, it is a movie of a utopia that does not exist, and in our current state, cannot.
We have a group of individuals who do not have the self-esteem to realize that their own lives in the real world is more worthy than this pseudo-life they have seen on the screen. They actually want to live as Na’vi and not as themselves – some even to the point of contemplating suicide!
To what can we attribute this kind of thinking? One who desires to become a master achiever in life certainly would not want fall into this kind of trap – so we should try to understand why someone might.
To me, this kind of thinking has two central areas: a dissatisfaction with their own lives, and an unrealistic understanding of reality. The sad truth is – even if their wish were to be granted, people with this sort of mindset would quickly be in the doldrums even on “Pandora” and would be seeking the next “thing to be”.
It is a mental “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” syndrome.
Now, I am going to say something controversial to some – too bad, this is my blog: The deep longing in the heart for a place of peace. love, and endless adventure comes from the GSV.
GSV stands for: God Shaped Vacuum.
Those people don’t know it, but they are longing for God who in fact can take you to Pandora – and is the only way you can get there (by his Son, Jesus Christ). If you want to know more about this, send me an email at : dave[@]celticcrosseng.com (I reformatted that so that email scrapers cannot get to it).
The other issue is not recognizing reality for what it is. Reality is a hard teacher – it does not give any cares for fools – and wishing you lived in an idyllic floating island Paradise will not make it so. Much better to be successful in life and explore the infinite things our creator has made for us in this world, and always to anticipate the next.
But lets get to the next only after we have squeezed every last drop out of our lives here and now!
David T. McKee
|
