Everyone must see "What the @%*&?"

I'm just watching it, and it's absolutely brilliant.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/

What I really got from this film, which is something that's tying some old loose ends in my own life at the moment, is that not only do we create our own lives, but we create the reality that surrounds us as well. By being who we are, and by not being some creation that fits in with the ideals and expectations of others around us, we become far more like the gods that we were really meant to be and are truly capable of being.

Speaking personally, the things I've disclosed about myself on this website are a little shaky. It feels as if I'm emerging from some hiding place that I've been in for a long time.

I'm understanding, as I reflect on past diary entries and the daily exercises of "the morning pages" that are part of The Artist's Way course, that I've been far, far, far too concerned with the opinions of others and of fitting in with the status quo.

Having said that, I've done as best I can to avoid being a part of it, but it has been a struggle and I've felt self conscious and a bit of an outcast.

There's so much pressure from certain quarters of society to be something or someone that can be pigeonholed easily. We want to fit it, but fitting in always means trading some part of our identity, doesn't it?

Some people reading these pages may think I'm a self indulgent wanker, writing all this stuff. And a part of me is feeling extremely sensitive about that. But why? I mean, who is the kind of person that's not going to want me to be anything less than who I am?

Is it any wonder that people are on antidepressants when they're trying so hard to not be who they want to be, for fear of being judged and disliked, shunned and alienated?

In a little celebration of my new found freedom, I went dancing at a club last night. Everyone was dancing salsa, and as I wasn't too hot at partner salsa, I danced on my own, for a while, anyway.

Part of me was telling me that a near 49 year old man can't do that on his own, but when I looked at how many men were standing around at the edge of the dancefloor, I really considered that it wasn't me that was the crazy one, but them.

I think a lot of the women were surprised that I danced on my own. Dancing is something many women feel far more free about than men, at least to do solo.

But I figured, with all the female liberation that's gone on in past decades, isn't it about time that there were some other minor taboos lifted, as well?

In my youth, I was always the one who'd do stuff that was individual and crazy, and I got thinking, after all the more sober kids would tell me I was "a nutter" and a "loony", that perhaps I was.

But to hell with that. This is my life, and I'll live it the way I want to.

To quote Jimi Hendrix: "I'm the one that's gotta die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to" Amen.

And that's something that came up in the film. But the heroine, instead of taking UP drugs like poor Jimi H, threw them away.

One of the key points in the film was that part of the brain (the hypothalamus) produces proteins that change us. Proteins that stop or make us age; proteins that cause us to have more or less energy, to get thin or fat or be sad or happy or whatever...but these are all produced as much by the imagination as by "real" stimuli.

So we are, in essence, products of our own minds.

And look at what a creative leader is: an artist or shaman is someone who spends his or her life looking at the very thing of existence. His role is to simply explore reality, and help the rest of his clan to see it through his eyes.

If I do that, then great.

But going back to the business of competition and creativity, and the simple matter of doing what one has to do irrespective of what others think, I know again that that's where I've had a problem in the past.

Will anyone read any of this?

Who knows? Maybe it'll never, ever be read by anyone.

Isn't that amazing? It might be absolutely nobody's cup of tea at all, or it might be exactly the thing that presses someone's buttons, but they don't get to read it because the random event generator that turns the pages over on the blog doesn't turn to this one, and he or she never sees it.

That's something that gets explored in the film as well: that there are an infinite number of infinite alternatives at any given moment in spacetime. But reality only gets established in the one that gets observed. And that's where the crucial part of the whole malarkey is.

Another absolutely significant thing is that the mystery is where everything is really happening.

I liked the understanding that we live in a reality that may not be the reality we think it is. Using the example that throughout history we've always thought we've known exactly what reality is (the Earth was flat, then it was round, then a sphere etc) it brought home that what we may think is something may well be something else entirely.

And I liked the example of the Indians not being able to see Columbus. Because they'd never seen such ships, they couldn't actually see them. I know that experiments have been done with animals where they've been deprived of any visual imagery that included vertical lines. The animals weren't able to see lines as a result.

Could this be why we don't see UFOs? Why some people see ghosts, but others don't? Why children see spirits till they're told that they can't?

I think so.

I see the world differently to the way many others see it, I'm sure. I know I see reality. But it seems that so many others can't see the reality that I can.

Anyway...This is my mind wandering.

I have no idea who may be reading this. I know there have been a few hits on the site. From whose, I have no idea. But I really love the idea that I'm finding an identity. It feels good to be who I am again. It feels good to talk about this kind of stuff without feeling like people think I'm a loony. And not caring if they do.

So if it's anything it's just an exercise in standing in the light.

I know I'm an old hippy as well, though...

Another thing in the film is the point they made about personality and identity being an arrangement of neurons in the brain. Stop using one set (by changing behaviours) and you change who you are. Again, that's related to decision making. When I decide to do something, neurons in my brain fire, connect with other neurons, and behaviours get formed. And habits and addiction.

Anyway, I could rattle on about all this for hours, but it isn't getting the cup of tea I need made.

But I have a feeling this will all lead somewhere rather interesting.

Rather interesting indeed!

I love that I'm being more creative. Not that I'm being brilliant, necessarily, but that I'm being more prolific. And true creativity is based on being prolific. As the saying goes, I take care of the quantity and God takes care of the quality.

One thing has already come out of all this creative stuff: a photo I took of a man in a leather hat, that's been getting a lot of praise on the Flickr site. If only that as been a very good artistic work from all this, then that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I know that I've been creating my reality!