Blessings & Curses Part 2: Effects of Pop Culture

Took today to 'turtle' - to stay at home & relax. Paint G.I. Joes, watch TV, make waffles, rest.... went out long enough to start getting my license renewed & to pick up a few groceries & things. But otherwise it was time at home.

Throughout the day had various bits of pop-culture helping direct my thoughts. Finished reading the Marvel Comics 'Civil War' series. It's been running from the summer on. In the story a group of heroes try to take down a villain who causes a major catastrophe that kills a school full of children. This sparks public outrage & the government quickly passes an act that all superheroes have to register with the government, reveal their secret identities, receive training & act as agents of the government. Some heroes sign up quickly & back the government & public opinion & decide that it's right to be registered as human weapons. Others feel it's an invasion of privacy, a restriction of free speech & a taking away their rights. This causes a huge split in the Marvel comics universe & leads to many, many books of hero fighting hero - mostly in an attempt to suck in fan boys like myself to spend lots of money buying various Civil War tie in comics.....

.... the story ends (assuming of course that the rest of you sane people aren't going to ever want to read these things) with a huge battle that destroys part of New York. In a pivotal moment in the battle, Captain America, champion of rights & freedoms & leader of the anti-registration side, is battling Iron Man, champion of the pro-registration side, & Cap ends up being attacked by a bunch of average guys. Cap pleads with them that he's fighting for them & their rights & they tell him that he's not 'cause the battle is wrecking the city & Cap sees this & surrenders, refusing to put any more people in harms way & feeling that he's gone astray in his quest to fight for personal freedoms 'cause he's now hurting those he's sworn to protect. Later Cap is lambasted in an interview with a reporter who was previously one of his strongest supporters & who now berates him that he's fighting for an america that doesn't exist. She asks him if he knows what MySpace is or who won the last American Idol. She tries to show him that he doesn't know what america is really like anymore & she sums up her argument by saying:

"Your problem is that you're fighting for an ideal -- it's all you know how to do. America is no longer about mom & apple pie... it's about high cholesterol and Paris Hilton and scheming your way to the top. The country I love treats its celebrities like royalty and its teachers like dirt. But at least i walk its streets every day. At least I know what it is."

& then later in the book, the same reporter ends up applauding Iron Man for manipulating circumstances, causing crises, using villains to murder people to stir things up... all for the sake of causing fear/crises that would make people want to embrace the pro-registration side as the only way to keep the peace & stay 'safe'....

This has bothered me for the rest of the day.... I felt betrayed by the conclusion to the story. I know, I know, the story will go on & the folks at Marvel comics will use this to sell more books & create more stories & make more money off of the controversy or the unknown of all the changes... but yeah, I sort of don't care or have the money to find out. I felt like the writers were being irresponsible with this conclusion, though in reality it doesn't matter. The writers write to sell the books &, hopefully, also to tell story. The story has made me think, moved me (made me mad), etc. So this is all the qualities of good story telling that you've connected with your audience in some way... but yeah, being an idealist, this is not the conclusion I was looking to hear.

Spent a lot of the rest of the day wondering if anyone wants to be saved any more.... Saved from what? Well, I don't know... here in North America we live a safe life. We live 'free'. We have our restrictions, sure. We pay taxes, we keep the law, we work our 9 to 5 & shovel our walks & keep our neighborhoods clean & happy. We are free to work, to earn, to buy what we want, go where we will, do what we want. We can read anything, say anything. We live 'free' here, so what do we need saving from?

But somehow still, our souls are choked by fear. We live in a society that speaks constantly of fear... Fear of death, fear of loneliness, fear of being unlovely, unloved, fear of not having enough. And so we live in this fear that calls us to hoard, to barricade ourselves in houses & urban assault vehicles (SUVs) & build up RRSPs & portfolios & to provide 'cushions' & 'buffers' for ourselves. So much of our consumer society is driven by this fear. Most of our advertising slogans speak subtly that we will not be enough/have enough unless we get this or that product... and there are so many distractions to keep us occupied, distracted, medicated.... we try to protect ourselves from feeling... we keep running on the treadmill to try to stay happy, to stay one step ahead of the things that pull at the corners of our minds, the depression, the sadness, the great expanse of endless longing.... we numb these voices because they mess with our sense of 'freedom', of security of satisfaction &, if they ran rampant, would point out that we are living hollow lives in a hollow shell of society.....

... watched the trailer for '300' sometime later in the day. It gives me goosebumps... there is something about it - 300 men standing as free people to fight a losing battle against a million... Watching the trailer made me want to scream out "This is SPARTA!!" & kick people down wells.... watching the trailer brought up all kinds of violent thoughts... wanting to get into a fight for the sake of fighting, for the sake of feeling something.... for testing mettle, for finding out if you are really 'enough' deep down... when really all you feel like is that you're some pansy engineer with more flab than muscle & who wouldn't know the first thing about brawling, let alone staring down an army of a million strong....

....been thinking about the movie Ghost Rider (more on that later) & the line about those who sell their soul for love can change the world (likely bad theology there, but whatever). The caretaker in the movie says this & then goes on to say that becoming cursed for the sake of love is doing something for the right reasons... that losing all for love maybe puts God on your side & this, the caretaker says, makes you "unpredictable"....

Today in the parking lot of safeway with thoughts of Sparta on my mind, I so longed to be unpredictable; to do something 'off the radar'... something unexpected. In Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" she speaks that this is where the story becomes interesting, powerful, when the characters suddenly do things outside of what is normal for them. It's these sudden twists & turns that really moves the plot along, that changes the story from something routine & brings the story to a point of crisis - some place where character is revealed or established....

But yeah, nothing too out of the ordinary came. I chose to stay home instead of going out with friends. Chose solitude & rest instead of companionship & the unknown possibilities. Why? 'cause I felt like it. In an odd sense, staying home is confronting fears (though maybe embracing others).... Staying home instead of going out makes me a 'loser'.... I have nothing to do on a Saturday night but be by myself... heading out with friends makes me feel like i'm active, like I have a social life, like I'm a somebody. Maybe I'll meet people, Maybe I'll meet a girl. Maybe I'll find some moment of destiny, some revelation of who I am or what I'm here for.... and so all of these thoughts of possibilities whirl through my head & my gut/heart says 'stay home' & rest. & so choosing home means choosing to trust what my heart wants instead of listening to the voices of not-enough telling me what I'm missing out on by running to the next thing.... (again, not to say that time with friends is 'bad' - it's the heart motivation out of fear that's the sketchy bit that I have to fight against).

So watched 'Demolition Man' tonight to help fill my quota of violence & mayhem... But again, the same message is there. The tension between safety vs. risk, security vs. freedom. The movie paints a picture of a society that, out of fear, out of seeing chaos & bloodshed, decides to turn itself over to a higher power of government that will solve everything for them & give them safety & security in exchange for personal freedoms....

.... so much of life right now - in North America & in my own heart - is this battleground. Life is in the living. Living involves change & risk & choice - there is suffering, failure, brutality, danger in life & the only way to have the stuff that really matters, the things that make life rich, we have to fight for them in some way or another- they don't just seem to fall in our lap... but it's so much easier to live the security, to work hard to be 'safe' instead of being alive... & so often we trade off our freedom, our ability to choose, & hand it to someone else to make decisions for us... we do this with government. We do this especially in the church... again, we don't take responsibility for ourselves, we instead look to others to guide us, lead us.... and yeah, that somehow always leads to chains....

& so we live in this tension.... safety vs. risk, security vs. freedom.... both are blessing & curse rolled into one & living with the tension is doubly so... too many days I live like any other sheepy.... far too compliant..... God I long for being unpredictable (though am terrified of it at the same time).....