or, "Midway discussion of 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' (Kundera) because I am too lazy to finish the whole thing (for now)".
Chance
"Chance and Chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute."
As I alluded to my previous post on "Probability and Determinism", the fundamental reason we think things (on a non-quantum scale) are uncertain is because of ignorance. We can model ignorance using probability and call it uncertainty, but really it is a shortcut to give some quantification on phenomena we cannot explain fully. We want to be certain about uncertainties, and be able to make sensible decisions based on what we can infer, and not what we don't know, or cannot infer.
Then we should read Kundera's statement as a realization that the unknown speaks more than the known. What is known is obvious, while the unknown is valuable and educational. I cannot but feel slightly dissatisfied with this statement. Does this mean that learning, a process converting the unknown to known, is a process of devaluation, to make something interesting into something common and dull? While some knowledge I do consider as dull, such as methodical, instructional and formulaic knowledge, I do consider learning one of the (few) things I truly enjoy.
Perhaps we should reconsider what it means to "know". As a collective society, we "know" that objects fall when dropped. In fact we also "know" how fast it will drop to a good accuracy. Individually, we can claim to "know" this by choosing to believe, examining the theoretical formalism behind why such claims are "true", and even going ahead to perform experiments to confirm such claims. There is a subtle difference between the collective "knowing" and the individual "knowing", because inherently a collection of minds is different from a single mind. And, perhaps for some subjects, the meaning of "true" also suffers from ambiguity, or should not exist at all, even when we expect some "truth" to exist. A good example is economics.
All of these are, by definition, day in and day out occurrences (We hope that they'd better be!). Are they not interesting in itself? Practically, certainly they are interesting. We apply what we know, consistently and certainly, to design and build in engineering, for example. Theoretically, or rather, spiritually, I can confirm at least one person would find such things interesting. Perhaps that person is a bit weird.
I am by no means dismissing the statement, however. Certainly, the unknown is much more thrilling. Only from unknown can the known be born, and only from surprises can theories be formulated. Willingness to take chances is why people travel, why we want to meet new people and make new connections, even if such connections are really instrumental or ephemeral.
I am dissatisfied because it seems that we should subject ourselves to the mercy of fate, and be swept along by chance encounters, chance occurrences. I used to adopt this sort of Taoist (at huge risk of butchering this word here) stance, but I believe I have changed much since then.
Then again, this interpretation could be completely wrong. Really, to experience chance means that we should defy fate, which tends to iron out creases and confine people to routines. "We are fated to stay with what we have when we are born: our talents, our personalities, our background." is the sort of attitude that someone who subjects himself to fate would say. We need to go and explore the unknown, explore what fate does not have in her journals, to form our own path. I feel that this is the message Kundera is going for, if we consider the actions of Tereza in the novel.
To conclude, perhaps I will just note how brilliant it is that this short statement alludes to such the primordial, yet intense conflicts of multiple sets of dichotomies, always in tension with each other.
Transience
"Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."
I have been quite recently reminded of the transience of life.
Humans have achieved much throughout history, and in the process also extended their lifespan by a great degree. Yet, even if we understand the phenomenon of the transience of life — that one day we must depart from the world — we cannot internalize this fact. It is surprising, to say the least, but we invent theories, hypotheses and fantasies about how the "afterlife" should be. Perhaps out of curiosity, we explore the yet unknown, as to where our souls go after we die, but more so out of a strong sense of fear, for we grow attached to what we have achieved and do not wish to terminate our lives, despite all the imperfections and suffering in the physical world we live in.
If transience is scary, is eternity reassurance? Maquia in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms belongs to the Iorphs, a tribe that lives much longer than humans. The film touches on multiple themes, including motherhood, love, racism etc. but one of the major thread that connects the thematic fabric woven by the film is this specific detail about the Iorphs. Racine, the leader of the Iorphs, warns Maquia to not ever fall in love, for then she will truly know loneliness [1]. A scene with the family dog at Maquia's host family dying forebodes this thematic thread: witnessing the aging and passing of others. The same could be said about the young witnessing the inevitable leaving of those senior to them. One may imagine the same repeated over and over to people who one comes across, and the degree of tragedy that really is.
Perhaps as a coping mechanism, we do feel that the life we have is a reasonably long one. In a sense, we feel that a second or minute is short, while a decade is quite long. Our perception of time is much affected by our lifespan. A dog's life is transient to us, and our lives are transient compared to someone such as Maquia, which in turn is also transient on the scale of the universe. The oft raised example of "the pale blue dot" description of the Earth by Carl Sagan really brings out our incapability to comprehend the incredible insignificance of our lives compared to the grand universe. In this brief and transient life, we, collectively as humans, really do not matter; yet we are far from capable of dealing with this fact, somehow like our difficulty in getting up from the bed despite having slept every day.
Kundera mentions the idea of recurrence, almost as a necessary consequence of eternity. Maquia will find another person to love, and they will spend their life with her, from birth to death, and back again. Kundera argues that a recurrent idea is a much stronger one. "There is an infinite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French heads." Influential as a dictator, romantic as a poet, ingenious as a scientist, one must eventually perish, and have his influence gradually fade. We are not recurrent, thus we are weak. We embody lightness, an unbearable lightness.
Implicitly assumed here is the inability for humans to be, in a sense, creative with our lives. Our lives are bound to be recurrent, visiting the same point more than once, if we extend our lifespan to infinity, unless we also experience infinitely many things. Even in our pitifully finite lifespan, we are doomed to repeat a routine: get up in the morning, commute to work, perform more or less the same tasks, go home, and rest. It appears that we are used to transience, though it is a concept we cannot grasp, and refuse to admit.
There is no preparing for the moment we succumb to transience. Even if we fully acknowledge its existence scientifically, we are simply not equipped emotionally to do so. This in itself is quite scary.
[1]: This love extends beyond the "romantic" sort of love. Captivated by this quote in the teaser I thought the film was about something else entirely but I am pleasantly surprised by the depth; it goes beyond what I expected.
I have been quite recently reminded of the transience of life.
Humans have achieved much throughout history, and in the process also extended their lifespan by a great degree. Yet, even if we understand the phenomenon of the transience of life — that one day we must depart from the world — we cannot internalize this fact. It is surprising, to say the least, but we invent theories, hypotheses and fantasies about how the "afterlife" should be. Perhaps out of curiosity, we explore the yet unknown, as to where our souls go after we die, but more so out of a strong sense of fear, for we grow attached to what we have achieved and do not wish to terminate our lives, despite all the imperfections and suffering in the physical world we live in.
If transience is scary, is eternity reassurance? Maquia in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms belongs to the Iorphs, a tribe that lives much longer than humans. The film touches on multiple themes, including motherhood, love, racism etc. but one of the major thread that connects the thematic fabric woven by the film is this specific detail about the Iorphs. Racine, the leader of the Iorphs, warns Maquia to not ever fall in love, for then she will truly know loneliness [1]. A scene with the family dog at Maquia's host family dying forebodes this thematic thread: witnessing the aging and passing of others. The same could be said about the young witnessing the inevitable leaving of those senior to them. One may imagine the same repeated over and over to people who one comes across, and the degree of tragedy that really is.
Perhaps as a coping mechanism, we do feel that the life we have is a reasonably long one. In a sense, we feel that a second or minute is short, while a decade is quite long. Our perception of time is much affected by our lifespan. A dog's life is transient to us, and our lives are transient compared to someone such as Maquia, which in turn is also transient on the scale of the universe. The oft raised example of "the pale blue dot" description of the Earth by Carl Sagan really brings out our incapability to comprehend the incredible insignificance of our lives compared to the grand universe. In this brief and transient life, we, collectively as humans, really do not matter; yet we are far from capable of dealing with this fact, somehow like our difficulty in getting up from the bed despite having slept every day.
Kundera mentions the idea of recurrence, almost as a necessary consequence of eternity. Maquia will find another person to love, and they will spend their life with her, from birth to death, and back again. Kundera argues that a recurrent idea is a much stronger one. "There is an infinite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French heads." Influential as a dictator, romantic as a poet, ingenious as a scientist, one must eventually perish, and have his influence gradually fade. We are not recurrent, thus we are weak. We embody lightness, an unbearable lightness.
Implicitly assumed here is the inability for humans to be, in a sense, creative with our lives. Our lives are bound to be recurrent, visiting the same point more than once, if we extend our lifespan to infinity, unless we also experience infinitely many things. Even in our pitifully finite lifespan, we are doomed to repeat a routine: get up in the morning, commute to work, perform more or less the same tasks, go home, and rest. It appears that we are used to transience, though it is a concept we cannot grasp, and refuse to admit.
There is no preparing for the moment we succumb to transience. Even if we fully acknowledge its existence scientifically, we are simply not equipped emotionally to do so. This in itself is quite scary.
[1]: This love extends beyond the "romantic" sort of love. Captivated by this quote in the teaser I thought the film was about something else entirely but I am pleasantly surprised by the depth; it goes beyond what I expected.
ED Discussion 23: Uchiage Hanabi [Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?] by DAOKO/Kenshi Yonezu
"We watched the fireworks bloom in a flash;
Surely this summer is far from over.
When it unraveled and tied our uncertain hearts,
I wished that night would go on forever."
If this night would go on forever, we could go to the beach, a faraway place through that train route we never dared to explore. We could go and watch the fireworks, and we could watch it again: from the ground, from atop a tower. Surely, in this infinitely recurring world, we would see the fireworks erupting in a planar circle.
The question whether fireworks should be viewed from the bottom, like we always do, or from a level plane, all up in the sky, is pointless. We know for a fact that the view will not change. However, if we allow for an infinite number of viewings, and ask what if the fireworks indeed spread in a plane, we will eventually see it. The particles from within the shell would arrange themselves so perfectly, it so happens to find a physical moment to accommodate this.
This is the nature of infinity.
This film does not really contain much, but it does tie three important concepts together: Infinity, possibilities, and recurrence. The film is admittedly mediocre in terms of its presentation: The characters are forgettable, and the narrative is a bit of a mess; but in terms of atmosphere and tone, which are the main players in bringing together the message of the film, I can say that this film is worth a watch.
Spontaneity defines the direction of the plot. The serendipitous discovery of the power of the crystal ball, on the exact day that Nazuna is leaving the town, sets forth the desire to rebel: Nazuna against her family, Norimichi against his friends, and both in terms of fate itself. The ball catalyzes this stand off against the most fundamental law, time itself. Only if one rebels against the routine will one find the traces of infinity, that which enables possibilities.
In a meta-narrative sense, the artists behind this film embody spontaneity by taking much liberty in presentation, prompting the general dismissal of this film for its roughness. I find it very fitting though; I for one am used to abstracting away from minute details (which are often times important, really) and embracing a film/show for its ambiance. The somewhat unclear and muddled story brings a desire to ponder; the wild fantastical arthouse-esque presentation prompts the want of an answer, somewhere hidden within the rough shell that is this film.
Two revolving objects are prominent in this film: the round staircase and the turning wind turbines. They lurk around without explicitly being mentioned, but appear repeatedly. They come back again and again to encourage exactly a sense of recurrence. The crystal ball enables Norimichi to repeat the past, and realize the what-if's. Though repetitive, no two instances are technically the same, as we get to traverse different paths in each iteration. I suppose then we should call them restarts, but the scope of possibilities is so infinite that no two settings are really the same, even if the previous history is identical: we are bound to make different choices (no matter how infinitesimally different), which then causes the tree-like timeline to bifurcates, springing onto a totally different future. This is how recurrence connects with infinity.
The film is not one to be scrutinized, for it suffers much if we insist on doing so. Rather, if we look into the metaphorical crystal ball, as it shatters into countless shards, we can truly see what we would have thought to be impossible, and on top of that, much more where we would not even begin to imagine. The key to tying all this together is not solely a magical item, but the bravery to ask what if, to dive deep into the unknown waters. Who knows, on a depressingly ordinary summer day, you might be able to leap into a world that belongs only to yourself, where even something so transient as fireworks could manifest in an infinite number of amazing forms.
The film is not one to be scrutinized, for it suffers much if we insist on doing so. Rather, if we look into the metaphorical crystal ball, as it shatters into countless shards, we can truly see what we would have thought to be impossible, and on top of that, much more where we would not even begin to imagine. The key to tying all this together is not solely a magical item, but the bravery to ask what if, to dive deep into the unknown waters. Who knows, on a depressingly ordinary summer day, you might be able to leap into a world that belongs only to yourself, where even something so transient as fireworks could manifest in an infinite number of amazing forms.
