Waking Life

I love old movies. I love to discover good films from the past that I haven’t heard of before. I enjoy watching films. Period. That’s why I’ve been trying to search the Net for nice Dish Network Offers or any cable company provider that has many movie channels. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any Dish Network and the lone company that services my residential area do not want to install cable TV in my apartment because my unit is apparently too far from the main line. It’s a real bummer, but lately I realized that it’s OK, too, because even without Dish Network Deals, I can find movies some other way.

Here’s something I’ve watched from a very long time that I recently rediscovered.

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There’s a 2001 movie called Waking Life that is both literally dream-like and innovative. The entire film is a journey into the dream world. It examines questions about life, love, the universe, and consciousness in the framework of a lucid dream, which is a kind of dream in which you know you are dreaming. It’s a dialogue-driven movie, from the writer and director of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Richard Linklater.

Here are a few quotes.

On paradoxes:

An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don’t forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting.

The power of dreams:

…the worst mistake that you could make is to think that you are alive when really you’re asleep in life’s waiting room. The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. ‘Cause if you can do that, you can do anything. Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes. And immediately you wake up and realize that the whole day at work had been a dream. It’s bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free.

Flawed perfection:

I do not await the future, anticipating salvation, absolution, not even enlightenment through process. I subscribe to the premise that this flawed perfection is sufficient and complete in every single, ineffable moment.