In our most recent class contemplative practice we were asked to envision the world in three different ways. This included having a perspective of our Earth as getting worse, getting better, and it being in a state of things are what they are. I learned a lot about the state of the world in my own perspective and how I really do feel about the predicament of our future as a society. Going through having a perspective of the world worsening did not play in my favor. I found myself distracted and uninterested in hearing that perspective. I always thought of myself as having a perspective of the world as getting better, but when forced to see it as this way I could only envision the bad, ironically enough. Every crazy sci-fi movie I’ve seen has this plot where the world is falling to pieces and it’s complete dystopia, but it’s a key piece in the story to remedy what’s wrong and give the “good guy” a win. I had this sort of epiphany during this section of the contemplative practice about how our earth is in the part of our movie where everything is supposed to be bad, like there is a reason. This tied in beautifully to the perspective that things are what they are. There is a purpose in what is happening around us and the story is still being formed and there are an infinite number of ways that the current plot can be developed. I don’t necessarily know if things can get better or worse in the Anthropocene, rather they just are.
“We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” (Interstellar)
Sources:
Nolan, Christopher, Jonathan Nolan, Emma Thomas, Lynda R. Obst, Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, John Lithgow, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Hans Zimmer, Lee Smith, Hoyte . Hoytema, and Nathan Crowley. Interstellar. , 2015.