Ok, not really. But, yesterday I watched two movies that exacerbated all my ideas of the evilness of humanity. I started with Children of Men. Honestly, an amazingly fascinating, horrific, awesome movie that scared the shit out of me. Not in the jumpy, gore-ish, hands over the eyes sort of way. But in an oh-my-gosh-this-could-happen sort of way. It's 2027 and London is the only existing city. Every other major city has been demolished. Infertility has plagued humanity, leaving the world sterile. The youngest child in the world dies at the beginning, leaving the remaining world hopeless. Clive Owen is the unlikely hero who is an ex-activist and has given up hope, just barely making it through his days with the help of a bottle of booze. Through a course of events he ends up protecting a woman who is carrying a baby, against all odds. She is hope for the existence of humanity. He must deliver her to The Human Project for protection. It's 2 hours 15 minutes of war, Bosnian-style refugee camps, hate, constant gunfire, strife, agony. I was so overcome with grief and horror at the end of the movie, I cried. It made me think, what if we continue to invade countries for political gain, spreading little Americas all over the globe without any care given to our spending crisis. We will fall.
Then, I ate some chili.
Then, I watched "Bury My Hear at Wounded Knee" - an HBO original movie. It was a poigniant re-telling of the catastrophe of events that happened to Native Americans as they moved into the 19th century. A stark reminder of how white people tried to give them each an acre of unusable land in the Dakotas and force their religion, education and way of life on Native Americans, all the while knowing that with unusable land, they wouldn't be able to farm or create any sort of life, so there would be no worry of a next generation of native people to cause problems. White men of the time feared the Native American tribal dances and rituals and their fear caused them to react with violence. It's hard to think about the fact that white people helped to wipe Native American culture almost completely off the map.
Then, I got depressed.
Then I watched a segment of 60 Minutes. It was about a tribe of Thai people that survived the tsunami because of their ability to sense disaster. They also talked to a French sociologist who was the foremost authority on these people - the tribe whose name, apologetically, I can not remember. He had been living and studying them for 20 years. They are a nomadic tribe that live on large boats, build thatch-roof huts if they decide to land and make a village from time to time; have a language that doesn't have a word for "want", "hello" or "good-bye." THey catch a fish for breakfast, eat it, and go about their day. When they are hungry for lunch, they catch another fish. They subsist. All of a sudden, that didn't seem so bad to me. No phones, no guns, no hate, no turmoil, no TV, no celebrity, no posturing, no posing, no overspending.
Gentleman Lover and I have long discussed moving to Orcas Island and becoming tomato farmers. We hadn't planned on doing it so soon, but after a Sunday evening of doom and gloom, I'm considering it.
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