"On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job"
"You tell God the Father it was a kindness you done. I know you hurtin' and worryin', I can feel it on you, but you oughta quit on it now. Because I want it over and done. I do. I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we's coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand"

This is a quote from The Green Mile, one of the better films I've seen recently. It mixes thoughtfulness with shock and sadness and happiness and horror so well and perfectly that it's hard to come away not feeling some strong things mashing around inside you. There's a bit of the weird and unexplained in there too which I wasn't sure about to start with but I think it makes the story work. John is not just a good man, he is a gifted man and it shouldn't end the way it does.

I think the film raises other issues too, issues that I've talked about in this blog. One is that John Coffey has resigned to his death, welcomes it even. How old is he? How much has he seen on this world; how much can he see?
"That's as good a word as any. He infected us both, didn't he, Mr. Jingles? With life. I'm a hundred and eight years old, Elaine. I was forty-four the year that John Coffey walked the Green Mile. You mustn't blame John. He couldn't have what happened to him... he was just a force of nature. Oh I've lived to see some amazing things Elly. Another century come to past, but I've... I've had to see my friends and loved ones die off through the years... Hal and Melinda... Brutus Howell... my wife... my boy. And you Elaine... you'll die too, and my curse is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my torment you see; it's my punishment, for letting John Coffey ride the lightning; for killing a miracle of God. You'll be gone like all the others. I'll have to stay. I'll die eventually, that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality, but I will await your death... long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already."
Paul says that for letting John die and not saving him, he is cursed with life beyond his years. He has to watch everyone die and know that he cannot die yet. I think this is a well thought out part of the film. What would be seen by many as a gift, is actually a curse. It would be all to easy to make him immortal, but then he wouldn't age. To have your life slowed down, that is far worse I think. Death is coming, just a little bit slower than before. Humans live as long as they do because by the end of your life you're about ready to die. Much longer than that and it's too long. That's just me though. I could be wrong about that. I think 80 years is a very long time. I've lived a nearly quarter of that already and in 50 or 60 years time I think I'll have had enough. Probably even before that.
Sometimes I sit in the shower and just let the hot water crash down around me. Sometimes when I do this I'll try to imagine that I'm not sitting in the bath with the shower over me, that I'm in fact sitting in a bath in a rain forest with hot rain falling all around me. Sometimes I manage to imagine this so well that I almost actually believe that I'm going to see a rain forest when I open my eyes. What if you could actually believe that it was going to be a rain forest? Would you experience the rain forest when you open your eyes? Is the only thing tying you to reality the expectation that it's still going to be there when you open your eyes?

Many philosophers believe that there is nothing to make us believe that the world around us is real. If this is true then maybe the only thing connecting us to reality is ourselves? We can take drugs to partly (or mostly) sever the tie with reality so why can't we do this with our own minds? Maybe it takes a massive amount of will power. You've spent your whole life relying on the fact that reality is still going to be there when you open your eyes. Telling yourself that something different is going to be there is going to be pretty hard.

So Long, So Love.

I sit here and look at this blank page and wonder why I can't think of anything to write any more. Is my mind so small that I've exhausted it in less than 10,000 words? Pretty poor show if you ask me. I'm hoping it's just a temporary loss of thought, but it could well be forever. Life is very stressful at the moment. I have a film to make, all the paperwork to write up for it, several photography shoots to sort out, the paperwork for that too, and revising to do for philosophy. I really can't get motivated to do any of it though. I know many of you would just reply; well your loss, you're the one that's going to fail at life, not me. Ah well. The more you've got to lose, the harder it is to walk away. When you have nothing left, you are totally free. At the risk of sounding cliché, maybe this society in which we have cocooned ourselves is what's holding us back. Eco-warriors are always telling us to get back to nature and maybe that's what we need. I don't think humanity is going to give what we have up all too easily though, I know I wouldn't. The power of humans is adaptability and progression. Stripping us of our progress is just going backwards and then we have to start again. Maybe this is what we need, and to do things right this time. What is 'right' though? Nietzsche thought that we were all retained in an 'eternal return' that reprocessed us through life again and again until we could accept that the would is the way it is and that's how it has to be. He said that if you were given history to control, if you changed it to make it for the better then you had to go back and live another life. He thought that we can only die in peace when we learn that life isn't just about good and evil, pain and pleasure, black and white. It's about the end result too. Yes there are wars and there is death and hate in the world, but there is also an insurmountable amount of love and life and peace in the world too. Maybe we should spend our time thinking about a way to move forward rather than dwell on our mistakes of the past.

Rather hypocritical of me, that comment, however. All I ever do is dwell on my own mistakes and hate myself for them, but we don't always have to practice what we preach, do we? A father might steal food to feed his children, but hide this from them and still teach them to be good people. Life isn't perfect and nor are we. When someone asks me what they should do I'm not going to tell them to do the 'wrong' thing just because I did the wrong thing. I often knowingly do the 'wrong' thing out of self destruction, but that doesn't stop me from wanting other people to make the right choices. Tired now. I'll write a proper entry soon, I promise.

So Long, So Love