WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?
Many movies from about ten years ago might seem slightly dated. Artistically, some of them stand the test of time, and others don’t even have to rely on their dramatic quality because the content is so timeless.
What The Bleep Do We Know? is among these, simply because it is more of a documentary delving into the quantum mechanics of life, and how it applies to us.
Wait… wait… Did I lose you at “quantum mechanics”? Here, wait, quick! Let me bring you back with a picture of an actress’ ass:
Seriously, though… This movie changed my life.
It’s namely a documentary, but it applies the scientific concepts conveyed via a mini dramatized story about a deaf woman – who is a super anxious, depressed photographer – trying to find inner peace despite her proclivity toward self loathing to the point of needing a plethora of pills to mentally survive each day.
As the documentary progresses, the storyline portrays in parallel the purported ideas being brought to light by a bunch of professors, neuroscientists, and and other miscellaneous sci-pros that get interviewed.
While some concepts blew my mind to the point where I kept rewinding to try and “get it” (to no avail), others were mind blowing from more of a “wow, I never thought of it that way” standpoint.
WHAT OUR THOUGHTS DO TO US
For example, the scene with water:
It’s inarguable; the biggest scientific fact that gets spouted at us broken record style is about stress. Why? Because we’re vain bastards, and we don’t want to look old. We all know stress can cause premature aging because of the hormones that flood us when we get into repeat freakout mode. So, if we try to de-stress and allow more positivity into our lives, then we can reverse it.
ADDICTED TO DEPRESSION
Yeah, this one was a real reminder of how easily we can let “funks” become our new residence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqqq5eme4X0
In short, the idea is that whatever your emotional habits are (perpetually promiscuous, comical, miserable, mean, happy – whatever), the longer you repeat that behavior or subject yourself to that emotional experience, the more chance you have of ALWAYS being that way, because those little networks in your brain have reconnected to make it that way.
While the the video is great, an easier way I think of it is like this:
Let’s say there are two places and a bridge that takes you to either of them. One goes from where you are to happiness, laughter, and joy. The other heads toward misery, sadness, and self debasement. But you have to use that same bridge to get to either place. If you repeatedly use that bridge to go to misery and stay there for too long, then using the bridge to try and go over to the other happy place, slowly gets harder and harder. It gets rusty and won’t move over there as easily. In fact, if you stay in the bad place for too long, each time you try to get to the other “good” place, it gets harder and harder until the bridge deteriorates altogether and you rarely can find your way to that place at all.
So we stay in depression and misery because it’s what we know and it’s comfortable and we’re used to it. Getting to “good” feels foreign after too long.
Granted, some things are deal breakers. Chronic pain, bad luck, and other life afflictions might propel us cannonball style across that bad bridge, whether we like it or not. Yet, for many, there’s a near addiction-like reward system that goes into the whole “woe is me” mentality.
Some people get “addicted” to the pity they think they’re receiving via this feedback system that happens in the brain. An endorphin rush comes anytime someone says, “Oh, poor you… YES the whole world is against you; it’s a conspiracy,” or “Oh my gosh, Bob cheating on you was way worse than my husband’s death. Here let me comfort you.”
In some cases, something called behavioral modification (with the help of professionals) can help turn all this around and help re-train our brains into being well balanced humans again. It’s not traditional shrink crap (Hah…say that fast and it sounds like “shrink wrap”). Anyway, it’s just a way of getting your brain to build back those bridges toward positivity.
Suffering physically as I do, and knowing that I’m in a dangerous position of letting my brain start to build bad bridges indefinitely, I try to spend my downtime doing things that at least simulate positive reactions. Funny movies. Drawing. Music. Whatever cardio I can tolerate to release endorphins. “Faking it until I make it” is something that I’ve always tried to do, and I’m convinced that if my back and sciatic nerve pain wasn’t constantly jerking me back to pain and all the depressing feelings that accompany it, it would be a perfectly fitting means to burn that bad bridge for a while.
WHAT IS GOD?
This was the mind-blower that changed my life.
Oh my quantum-mechanics-entity-that-lives-inside me… I mean, if we know that our thoughts control us, and that we can be the answer to changing who we are, what we do, and how we receive our experiences, then nothing makes more sense than that “God” – whatever it is- resides inside us; not on some carved out action figure sitting in a cold building with colorful windows.
Yet, even that amazingly popular piece of literature that is quite informative and wise (albeit fictional), indicates that “God” helps those who help themselves. So, whether you believe what I do or what your indoctrinated cult faith taught you, at the end of the day, the answer remains the same: Praying, hoping, or asking some external, untouchable “God” to answer your prayers (if you’re not even trying to help yourself in tandem with these efforts), is like hoping you win the lotto without even buying a lottery ticket.
Not a sermon; sermons are for priests. This is just from my inner God to yours.
xoxo
<3~A