Sometimes the feeling arises that whatever is, is never enough. It must be better, or stronger, or wiser, or fuller, or simply different. We seem to take endless actions, caught up in being the change that will make what the current circumstance, thoughts and feelings perfect, or at least more amenable. These actions can arise even if there is no conscious effort. These actions can seem to take care of themselves. There is instinct, we opine, and there is control-freakishness. If only I can let go and let God (or Oneness, or whatever we are labelling the play of life today) I will at last be happy and content. I will be the person I was meant to be. I will be better, newer, wiser, more compassionate, less selfish, and released from the bondage of self. I will stop identifying with the packet of causes and conditions I'm calling the ego, and my ego will at last be content. Because whatever it is that these causes and conditions are right now is not enough; or it is wrong; or it is flawed; or it is not as it is meant to be.
It's amazing, how the very same set of conditions and feelings and perceptions can be both lacking and full. How wondrous that the very same existence can be seen as either missing something, or absolutely complete. What is looked for, what is sought, is what looks for it; it is life just exactly as it is this moment. You need not "wake up". The mind will say, well, there is some change of perception that's not here yet. But it is here, it is now, because there is nothing else.
It's amazing, how the very same set of conditions and feelings and perceptions can be both lacking and full. How wondrous that the very same existence can be seen as either missing something, or absolutely complete. What is looked for, what is sought, is what looks for it; it is life just exactly as it is this moment. You need not "wake up". The mind will say, well, there is some change of perception that's not here yet. But it is here, it is now, because there is nothing else.
A film can be made or ruined by the opening title sequence. In Dr. Strangelove, the slow, languid movement of one jet towing another to the paradoxical strains of "Try a Little Tenderness" as a backdrop for hand-lettered typography counters perfectly the chaos and futility of the film to come. Or, if you're on a shoestring, compose your own creepy, urgent electronic theme, carve a jack o'lantern, put the titles on the right in matching orange, and ever so slowly move in closer to the pumpkin's face and you have the brilliant opening for the classic horror Halloween. The following clips are two examples of very different moods. The first is Repo Man, a quickly edited green-on-black map of the areas in the western US pertinent to the film's action, driven by Iggy Pop's classic punk riffs with an American accent. The second is the masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird, with the symbolic childhood treasures in Scout's cigar box lain out for us to see, introducing us fittingly to her story. Each is a prime example of hooking us in and setting the mood. Enjoy.
To kill a mockingbird Ouverture by jedall
To kill a mockingbird Ouverture by jedall
