The Now: Approved By Smart Guys

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” – Albert Einstein

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

Your Favorite Movies Tell You About You

I picked up my sister from the airport today. I haven’t seen her for a while. I was finally able to give her the DVD that I got her for Christmas, a movie called Chaos Theory with Ryan Reynolds. She has a thing for Ryan Reynolds because he’s “cute” and “funny”… This time, however, he plays quite an unremarkable square, and this movie was a little less funny than a usual Ryan Reynolds flick, having intense dramatic dilemmas, cry scenes, etc.

This movie does contain a theme that is held by some of my favorite movies of all time; the character experiences a revelation, epiphany, or paradigm shift, that throws his mundane reality out of wack, sometimes painful, but resulting in an awakening. Sort of like:

Fight Club

Vanilla Sky

American Beauty

Office Space

There’s something subconsciously appealing to becoming a person with nothing left to lose. I think it’s a collapse we’re all afraid to experience, whether or not we expect the resulting outcome of rebirth and liberation. Lust for comfort suffocates the soul. The world knows by now that there are a wide array of minds and personality types encapsulated in each human being, yet we are put through a mediocre school system that indirectly teaches that uniqueness is unacceptable, and that having a goal to live a banal domestic life amongst a 40-hours-per-week office job is 100% acceptable.

Of course there are apparent downsides to not following the professional corporate work approach. Money can be hard to come by. But what I’ve observed is that money has ways of flying out the door, no matter how much you’re making, and money has ways of coming, no matter what you’re doing.

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making plans.” -John Lennon

This is a video where a 14-year-old snagged an interview from John Lennon in his hotel room almost 40 years ago.