Perceptions

As I watch myself take my first steps into the blogosphere, I am acutely aware that what follows will be mind-melding of sorts, which means that a shift will occur in my consciousness, with or without my awareness. When I talk to you, any response imprints on me, literally, so I am different from what I was before talking to you. My brain neurons alter. I am changed. I am new. When you read this, my thoughts imprint on you. You are changed. You are new.

Those thoughts inevitably brought me back to a movie that profoundly changed me: 2001, a Space Odyssey. So much has been written about the ending. But it’s the beginning that altered my perception. Fundamentally, when I saw it for the first time, I felt that I had never seen movies before. I sat there in shock and awe. In the sense that I discussed above, it altered me. (Not the least of which because I entered into the consciousness of an ape.)

The movie begins with a black screen, which lasts several minutes. What comes before anything is not-anything or nothing. The scene finally opens to ape-men type creatures in their prehistoric environment when a monolith, a huge, black, erect rectangle appears, clearly an object placed there by an intelligence far beyond that of the ape-men. The curious apes finally dare to touch it, hesitantly. Nothing becomes something, though not that we can see or be aware of immediately. Those apes are now something “else.” This “else” becomes apparent in a scene in which two warring ape factions are facing off, threatening each other with gestures, all they have. The leader of one faction is brandishing a large bone, swinging it onto the ground from one side to the other, in hopes of intimidating the other faction. He begins to notice that as the large bone hits the bones on the ground around him, they shatter. (This section of the movie is titled, “The Dawn of Man.”) We watch the ape’s consciousness slowly transform, as will the world from here on in. He realizes that, as with the ground-strewn bones, he can “break/injure/kill” the other apes. The dawn of weaponry, new perception–civilization. In exultation, he tosses the bone into the air, where it rotates in slow motion and slowly morphs into a spaceship, abbreviating the evolution from that ape’s altered perception to today. Stunning.

 (The movie continues with a an exquisite “ballet” sequence of a spaceship in slow motion moving through space to the accompaniment of Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” based on the work by Nietzsche, which (among many other things) exalts man’s ability to re-define himself. It’s not necessary to know this. The space “dance” is enthralling.)

As we go forward in our conversations here, we, too, will be altering each other. We, too are curious, and are willing to be changed by each other. That’s what web-logs are for.

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In my next blog I will introduce myself and define the content of our meetings/conversations. I look forward to talking and sharing–and changing.