Emily Dune

On a recent overnight flight from London, I threw on a film. It was a story about love, tragedy, silliness, fear, abuse, dogma, being the “other”, finding yourself, jealousy, intrigue and many other things. It was a story so well told, using cinematography, sound, music and the power of suggestion, that often you were totally engrossed with your emotions playing the tune of directors bidding. The acting was sublime, there were no actors, just the characters.

The movie was set in rural England, in the 1840’s and though it has some costume design and some cinematic filters, I didn’t detect much more from the realms of CGI. Ie the movie was organic, human and based on real people. Despite all the emotion, it was light hearted and uplifting.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. The film was called Emily. It should get the praise and the audience it deserves.

Shortly after completing said movie, I put on Dune. A story about a boy who is “the chosen one” on a mining planet (Arakis) deep in space, far into the future. Here, humans no longer resemble the humans of today. There are vast empires, political / resource wars and copious amounts of CGI. If you ever get a chance to watch this fabulous movie do it also. Though I do recommend reading the 900 page book first, it’s not necessary.

Two fabulous movies in two vastly different genres.

Which got me thinking about creativity and what is actually good and why?

Which first got me thinking about happiness.

The normal mode of thinking is. I will do a,b, c, d, then make lots of money, people will love me, I will have joyous sex everyday, or some equivalent and then I will be happy.

Substitute, yoga and meditation for money and, the sex, with meeting god, and you have the spiritual version of the same story.

I bet you have some version of this story too. I know I certainly have. Perhaps it’s buying a house, getting a dream job, becoming famous, getting your kids into a great school or becoming a guitar god. There’s always something.

But I started thinking about turning this equation on its head. How about I will just be happy and then do the other stuff (a, b, c, d..) as I see fit. Yes the Six Pack can come after happiness, as can the eating healthy, making a great business deal or writing the next great song.

Or how about just going the way of Mark Manson and just not giving a flying fuck about such things.

Some people will really not like this attitude. They will think, “how can this loser be happy when I am not!”.

Fear not, happy people will congregate around you. Like gravity. And if they don’t, who really does give a flying F. Oh by the way, that cunt can be you too. You can start despising yourself. Humans are contradictory beings. That’s half the fun of it.

And thus we can circle back onto creativity and those movies.

There’s a love put into them. That’s what makes them good. But I believe that love comes from first, not giving a fuck and being happy anyway. Not in the ordinary sense of happiness, not the happiness of the serotonin rush after the dopamine hit. But in the freedom to create and simply let it be, without judgement.

Just get out there and write, sing, dance or do whatever you want to do. Someone close to me just found a love in running. All the power to her.

And ultimately happiness is the freedom to be crap at it and still be in love with whatever you are doing.

Amen.

And That’s

The Vikid Truth.

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