Was delivering ( I guess) a lecture on film at the Northwestern University in Chicago. This was a film history class and I am one of the most film illiterate people I know on the planet. By the time I got to be a film maker it was too late to catch up. Yet the students and I had a very interesting session. We plunged straight in to the ideas of ‘not knowing’. How do you approach story telling without knowing the outcome. How do you completely surprise yourself. Is any art, including film making, an attempt towards exploration of the unknown ? For if it is not, then it is not art is it ? How do actually go out and try NOT to make sense, but allow the inherent tensions that exist within that exploration to surface, the inherent contradictions within you to surface, and these contradictions then begin to tell the story. Or some semblance of a story. Something emerges that you cannot take credit for, for the film had, or the story had it’s own organic being. The story and you meet not in the realm of sense, but somewhere outside in the largesse of the universe where the story is not trying to make sense but is somehow provoking thought processes that have so much contradiction in them that they make sense and do not make sense at the same time. Like a boiling pot – with somehow sense coming to the surface but disintegrating into ‘no sense’ and sinking back, merely to give rise to the illusion and a tantalizing glimpse of sense again, only to fall back again into no-sense. Like all great poetry. Leaving the viewer/reader to connect the dots to try and create something of logic or of sense in it all. Or not.
Is this a dream I live in ?
” Is this a dream I live in ?” you asked me as we travelled in the car back from your tennis lesson. “But how would I know, for the word ‘dream’ does not come when I am really dreaming. What happens when I wake up ?” I was completely taken aback by your question, for you are still just 7 years old. Taken aback because for centuries the mystics and the wise ones have been grappling with this question. Except they may not call it a dream. They call it Maya, the illusion. Life is an illusion. It means the same thing.
Problem today is that many philosophers and mystics look down upon the ‘dream life’. Like ‘because it is an illusion, therefore it is something silly’. Not to be taken seriously. No my love, life is to be taken very seriously, for every thought, every action, every moment, every passion dissolves into a great churning that is your life. What is called your karma. And your karma is the connection between your universal self, your atman or soul, your god self, or anything you would like to call it, and your ‘maya self’, or your ‘dream self’. It is what you experience when you wake up !….
Global Food Shortage, who are we kidding ? It’s your daily starbucks that could be causing it !
Just came back from New York, where every paper is talking about food shortage, and the scepter of the US having to hoard food. In a country where it is impossible to eat your way through one serving, and where the biggest battle is not against terrorism but against over eating, it is a difficult idea to comprehend. And what did Condolizza Rice mean when she said part of the problem is a change in the eating habits of a more prosperous India and China. Like the world’s problem are increasing because we are eating better or living better ? That is not true in any case, except for a mere 5% of India’s population. But lets get this right. There has ALWAYS been a world food shortage. Since I can remember in any case. People in the US may not have noticed it, and those of us living in India, China, Africa and elsewhere may choose to avert our eyes to what is staring us in the face, but we have always been surrounded by people that live in a constant state of malnutrition and starvation.
So what do we mean when we say that prices are rising and food riots are breaking out ? What we mean is that something has gone wrong in the supply chain. That somewhere people have started to profit more from the supply chain, and somewhere people are hoarding. THAT THE PRICE OF FOOD HAS GONE OUT OF THE RANGE OF MOST POOR PEOPLE. But who controls that price, and if it is market forces, who controls those market forces ? Certainly not the individual farmers.
New Media : How are we exploring the net ?
Just added the category for New Media. Our world and the way we interact with each other is changing. Social behaviour is changing because of it. So we should be sharing points of view on it. In Asia Internet surfing is increasingly done on cell phones. It is estimated that in India 65 % of the basic internet usage is done on the cell phone. We seem to be jumping the PC technology straight into mobile technology. But in rest of Asia, for completely different reasons, the same is happening. In Korea and Japan the internet download speeds are faster than the rest of the world with more killer apps available. In the US the Iphone has spurred huge use of the interent on the mobile device. But how will this be paid for ? This is a very interesting article on the challenges faced by the Google type advertising models
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080427_580014_page_2.htm
Faith, Prayer, Mythology,
🙂 says :”i am surprised that you put mythology above PRAYER and FAITH !”
faith, prayer, mythology gods and goddesses are all ways to keep going beyond your sense of the individual self – they enable you to break out of the prison of individuality, the prison of the mind, and allow something much deeper inside you to connect to something far more expansive. More expansive emotionally, more expansive instinctually , more expansive spiritually, and more expansive creatively.
We call that being in touch with expansiveness an awareness of the universal self, of being in touch with consciousness, or even being n the presence of God. So being in CONSTANT touch with either Myth, or Prayer or Faith, almost with every breath is what I am talking about. That being n constant touch is what mystics have called the ‘state of being in constant and universal love’. And it is so important not to make this ‘being in constant touch’ become too specific.
For there is something ‘breeze like’ about the infinite. The more you turn it into finite ways and methods and laws, the more you try and make them logical, the more you look upon this as methodology, the more you are turning the potential, the constant whiffs of breeze, the ‘presence’, the attitude , the unknown emotional feelings of the spirit, into dogma and a set of rules, or a method. In those cases the very Myths you are using, the very faith and prayers you are using turn finally into rules, dogma, obsession and then excuses and weapons for destruction and conflict – as we see religious conflicts all over the world. Shekhar
Will McCain decide between Obama and Clinton ?
Have you noticed how the Democratic party has shifted from ‘Between Obama and Clinton, who will be the best next President of the United States’ to ‘which one of them can beat McCain’ ?? Senator McCain has (as I previously predicted on this blog) come in from behind and taken advantage of the political bickering between Obama and Clinton. The two are acting as if the is not a race for the Presidency of the United States, but a high school election. Personally I think the world outside would love to see Obama as the next US president- for it gives a great message that the US is going to once again open it ‘liberal doors’. I would love to see Obama as president
However, given the economic situation in the US, the war in Iraq is no longer the major pre-occupation of the people of the US…..
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Mythology and Culture : Open Forum
Where do our fundamental roots lie ? In Culture or in Mythology. Is our culture defined by our Myths, or is it the other way round ? Or is one inseparable from the other ? Can I, for example, live in completely different culture, adapt to that culture, and yet my being is incomplete with my own mythology ? I personally have been able to constantly adapt to other cultures (I am a gypsy) , but when I wake up in the morning I reconstruct myself from the night before by delving deep into my mythology. Not prayers, nor faith. Just Mythology. I guess being in NY and being part of a completely multi cultural experience in film making, where the other directors are Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French, – this questions begs discussion. Any takers ?
Are Ghosts and Spirits real ?: Filming in the presence of Anthny Minghella’s Spirit
Koizen asked : you have opinions of Astrophysicist, gods, spirituality…why not Ghosts… spirits ? Koizen, I actually do not disbelieve in ghosts or spirits, nor do i subscribe to the fear factor associated with ghosts. I believe we live in the constant ‘presence’ of consciousness of all beings and thought, including our own consciousness too. But none of that is defined or individual. It is all interconnected and formless. However any passionate desire to ‘feel’ that presence will create an individuality of that presence in the form we imagine. It is not ‘present’ in it’s individual form, till our desire, fear, passion or love creates around us that individual presence.
left right left right, and so life marches on in two conflicting brains
As I look back at my life, I have been accused of being impractical (I am), a dreamer (I am) a wanderer (completely), the famous comment ‘you treat life like it was just play’ – yes I do. ‘Act your age’ – I can remember forever. People have said I have an over active imagination (yes, completely), that I should be more serious about life (I agree, but I do not know really know what they mean). The point I have been making is that while I have always accepted these accusations, I have lived under the burden of guilt of all these accusations. I have consistently tried to change them, but neither have I been able to change myself, nor have I been able to be free of considering myself somewhat an irresponsible human being…
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Shia Lebouf, Julie christie, John Hurt in New York I love you
So I finished filming my episode and have delivered the first rough cut. When I arrived in New York just a few days before the shoot, we had no cast. But as we went through the lists almost as if by some act of destiny or magic my first choices were not only available, but also willing to fly from all over the world to come and shoot with me these two days. I think this was as much out of incredible respect for Anthony Minghella’s last script as much as it was for working with me. I do ot need t say anything about the talents of actors like John Hurt and Julie Christie. They are a pleasure to work with and have consistently performed outstandingly over the years. With John Hurt it was a double pleasure as we became incredibly good friends when we were both n the jury of the Marrakech Film Festival. But the surprise was Shia Lebouf…
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