Why "127 Hours" Is One Of My Favorite Movies

In case you didn't know, 127 Hours is a movie. More specifically, it's a brilliant movie.

HERE'S WHY:

People have brains, and brains, like most things, don't always work properly, whether it's due to some chemical complication, getting the head flattened by a falling anvil, not having enough oxygen, not having a brain at all, or having the brain surgically removed for medical research.

A lot of people with malfunctioning brains are clinically depressed.

If you've seen that episode of The Office (or if you're unfortunate/fortunate enough to have first-hand experience), you know that it's difficult to be depressed and not have thoughts about suicide. 

Suicide, in my opinion (which isn't necessarily right), is one of the worst things a person can do, both to himself and to his friends and family. 

The reason I think 127 Hours is a great movie is that it shows the extremes a person went to in order to stay alive. It shows a man coming to the conclusion that life is so important, I have to break my own bones, rip the skin and muscle in my arm apart with a dull knife, and tear out everything holding my arm together. Also I have to drink my own pee, which is almost as horrifying. 

I don't want to sound all "WOE IS ME," but I have been through some issues with mental illness and watching a re-enactment of the lengths someone once went to in order to keep himself alive is a great reminder that LIFE is PRECIOUS even if it's not a barrel of laughs. 

[Aron has a sort of vision of his future son who watches him cut his own arm off.]

Bottom line: if you're depressed, watch this movie. Or not. Not all people are the same. But seriously, watch this movie, just don't watch when he's drinking his own pee.  

A Thought On What's Good About War And Poverty

A few days ago, my family was having a discussion at the dinner table on which country is the best one to live in. The general consensus was America, because we have a lot of freedom and we're comparatively economically stable. 

This was a bit of poop in my party, because I've always had the impression that other countries are better because the family unit is more secure and in poorer countries they don't rely so much on electronics and what-not, so that they have more time to spend with actual people. And maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression I've always had. 

As much as I like watching movies and bumming around on Pinterest and Facebook, for a long time now a part of me has wished that I didn't have these things so that I would do more reading or chatting with people. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of very good things about electronics, it's just that at the moment, I'd rather enjoy the good things about not having them. 

One thing I don't like about America is that enough is never enough, at least the way I see it. We have freedom, but a lot of people go on about how we don't have enough freedom, and we need to be able to eat whatever we want without getting fat and have sex whenever we want without getting pregnant, both of which lead to all sorts of pills and what-not, which seems a bit unhealthy to me. Then there's that Lowe's commercial that always says, "Lowe's: never stop improving." If you never stop improving, when the hell are you going to be happy?

 In my opinion at least, freedom isn't necessarily such a great thing. I think it can make people stupid. And what's more, some of the best people in history come from times of conflict and oppression. All the best stories are about hard times and places where people's main goal is to live and be happy. A lot of people in America have all the freedoms they could want, and they're still not happy. 

The thing is, I think people are Knights In Shining Armor, and we need dragons to kill and princesses to save, otherwise we go kaput. People who live in impoverished or oppressed countries have their dragons, and their dragons have often brought out the best in them. In America I think, our dragons are more subtle and conniving and difficult to see. That's all I got to say about that. 

Harry Potter Race Update and More Mental Diarrhea

Update on The Great Harry Potter Race of 2014: Isaac is ahead of me in Goblet of Fire by about 2 chapters. This is bad, but hopefully it will give him confidence to stop reading and relax for a bit while I catch up and get ahead of him and leave him in the dust, begging for mercy.

Isaac said the Goblet of Fire movie was messed up today, and I told him that I'd heard him the first billion times he said that, and I feel a bit guilty for that, but whatever. There were bits of the movie that stank hellishly, and there were bits of the movie that were brilliant. Whether or not you think the movie was good depends on which bits you pay attention to.

I need to expel some mental diarrhea, so if you're reading this, you can stop now, because the rest is just me saying what I'm thinking to get it out of my head.

My family and I watched a movie the other night, and everybody was laughing all through it, but after it was done they all went, "Meh, that was all right." I think they didn't want to say it was a good movie because it was pretty much filled to the brim with stupidity, even though most of the stupidity was brilliant. I just think, if you get something out of a movie and if it makes you laugh, then that's enough to make it a "good" movie. If you're able to tune out whatever rottenness there is and focus on what's good or fun about it, then it's good enough. And the same goes for books. I heard some adult people talking about Harry Potter 7, and one person said, "wasn't it good?" and the other person said, "it was a page-turner." Even if it could have been written better, doesn't the fact that it's a page-turner make it good enough? People aren't going to think you're a moron if you say it was a good book. If you like something, you're allowed to say it's good.

Like, for instance, my dad didn't like The Hobbit very much and thought that Walter Mitty was way better. I loved Walter Mitty, but I still prefer The Hobbit. No particular good reason, I just liked it better. I think likes and dislikes don't depend on good reasons, they just come from the gut, and people shouldn't have to back up their likes and dislikes with concrete reasoning, if that's a thing. Sometimes when people ask me, "was this movie good?" I say something like, "I liked it. I dunno if you're going to like it, but I liked it." And if they don't like it, that's ok, it doesn't make them superior than me for having better taste, it just means our guts told us different things.

Like I said, I'm just saying this for my own benefit, because it's been in my brain for a long time and I want to stop thinking about it. When people make fun of music or books or movies that I like, a bit of me thinks that they think I'm inferior for liking what I like, and so I mentally start defending things that I like to convince myself that it's all right to like them, and it goes around in a loop and doesn't stop until I blog about it, which I've now done, so I'm going to stop now and have some coffee.

A Thought on "Ignorance of Scripture"

Ok, I'm just going to come out and say this: I don't enjoy reading the Bible. I know that it's the story of Christ and it's part of the reason we have hope, but every time I think about picking it up, my brain goes into shock because I worry that I'm going to misinterpret everything and that I'm going to get cocky for reading it, and that somehow I'm not going to do it right.

I know St. Jerome said "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ," but I freeze up every time I consider picking up the Bible. Once and a while I'll read my favorite psalms or my favorite bits of the Gospel, and I get my weekly dose of Scripture at Mass, but I've never read the Bible page by page.

I'm not sure "ignorance of Christ" is necessarily a bad thing. I ought to know a little about Him, at least, but I think it's a little like that bit from The Return of the King (because everything always has to be about Tolkien all the time) when Pippin says,

"Dear me! We Tooks and Brandybucks, we can't live long on the heights."

"No," said Merry. "I can't. Not yet, at any rate. But at least, Pippin, we can see them and honour them. It is best to love first what you are fitted to love, I suppose: you must start somewhere and have some roots, and the soil of the Shire is deep. Still, there are things deeper and higher, and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace but for them, whether he knows about them or not. I am glad that I know about them, a little."

I don't know if I'm living my life the right way, but the way I'm doing it is knowing just a little about Christ and then trying to find Him in things that I'm not petrified of. And maybe I should read the Bible even though I'm petrified, but I don't feel like I'm doing anything terrible by not reading it. That is all.

A Thought On Boredom and Fun

I know I just posted something about ten seconds ago, but I'm going to post another thing because I feel like it, and it's my blog and I am The Boss Of My Blog, so here goes:

When I was posting said previous post about ten seconds ago, I thought of saying something like "I was bored, so I made this thing," when the more accurate statement would be something along the lines of, "I'm not bored, and I haven't been bored in the last 20 minutes because I've been making this thing."

For the last 20 years, I've been justifying the things that I do by saying, "I was bored," when the truth is that I'm rarely bored. And when I am bored, I think it's my duty to escape boredom. I make all these weird movie crossovers and references and puns and conspiracy theories, which might get annoying, but I'm easily entertained, and I'm not bored. It's fun. And I'm going to keep doing it. I'm not going to keep doing it because I'm bored, I'm going to keep doing it because it's fun.

Do I sound defensive? I'm not trying to sound defensive. I don't need to defend myself against anybody, because so far nobody's come up to me and given me what-for for putting Zoolander quotes in with Lord of the Rings dialogue or anything like that. I'm just saying, I'm not bored, and I enjoy being not bored, and in the words of John Finnemore, "I like having fun, because fun is fun." I'm just trying to appreciate the funness and non-boredity of my life. That is all. Goodnight!

A Quote I Found: "Stop making people feel bad for liking things that make them happy."

I need to tell myself this with regards to myself and stuff that I like.



http://www.pinterest.com/pin/348114246169353766/

If it makes you happy, that's great (unless it involves murder or coconut shrimp). Some people are crazy geeks who love stuff, and they can't turn it off. When I find myself liking something "too much," my inner cynical moron comes on and tells me I'm an idiot for being such a fanatic. So, if you're like me and you have an inner cynical moron, just stab him in the face and tell him to go eat beans and carry on with your awesome fanaticism.

That is all.

Why We Laugh

Today, I was laughing at something, and then I realized that the only reason I was laughing at it was that I related to it. Then it occurred to me that a lot of times people laugh at things just because they can relate to them. Which is weird, because it only happens with certain things that we relate to. I don't see someone wearing pants and say, "Hey, you're wearing pants! I'm wearing pants too! HAHAHAHAHA!" But if someone in class said something like, "YOU LEFT A SMIDGEN OF MARKER ON THE BOARD. ERASE IT OR WE WILL ALL DIE," I would laugh because I think that every single time it happens.

I was thinking of saying something very intelligent regarding the reasons why we laugh here, but I can't think of anything. I'm a doctor, not a Happy Laughing Person Psychologist. And I need to finish my homework. Good night!