The most haunting movie I've ever seen was an Austrian film named The Wall.
Based on the 1963 novel Die Wand by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer and adapted for the screen by Julian Pölsler, the film is about a woman who visits with friends at their hunting lodge in the Austrian Alps. Left alone while her friends walk to a nearby village, the woman soon discovers she is cut off from all human contact by a mysterious invisible wall. With her friends' loyal dog Lynx as her companion, she lives the next three years in isolation.
For three years now I've been living (or dying, so to speak) behind this invisible wall.
I cannot detect the origination, the parameters, the density, the nature, the conditions, the longevity, nor the perpetuity of the wall.
There is no greater hell than isolation.
"We are all sentenced to solitude within our own skins, for life." --Tennessee Williams
The movie "Joy" is a biographical story of Joy Mangano, who broke through the wall.
Her inner child spoke to her in a dream.
"17 years. Think about it, we've been hiding for 17 years. 17 years. We used to make things. 17 years ago. Then that all stopped. What happened? When you're hiding, you're safe because people can't see you. But funny thing about hiding, you're even hidden from yourself."
In a moment of true grit, she kicked her father and her ex-husband out of her home and began manufacturing the Miracle Mop. Subsequently she sold more than 18,000 mops on her first hour-long QVC infomercial.
What I love about this story is that Joy Mangano brings her family with her. She doesn't leave her family behind in the trenches, but she leads them beyond the wall.
Learned Helplessness
In 1965, Martin Seligman and his colleagues were doing research on classical conditioning, or the process by which an animal or human associates one thing with another. In the case of Seligman's experiment, he would ring a bell and then give a light shock to a dog. After a number of times, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened: as soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he'd already been shocked.
But, then something unexpected happened. Seligman put each dog into a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence if necessary. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman put the dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence.
Instead, the dogs laid down. It was as though they'd learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, so they gave up in the second part of the experiment.
Dogs who had previously been shocked did not try to escape the shocks in a subsequent experiment.
Seligman described their condition as learned helplessness, or not trying to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught you that you are helpless.
Similarly an elephant will believe that it is actually stuck when tied to a thread of dental floss. The absurdity of our self-imposed solitary confinement seems like it would be enough to break the grip of the insanity, but many people would rather remain in misery.
The Problem with Almost
The problem with almost getting the guy or girl, almost getting the job, almost finding a cure is that now that all of your energy is expended, you now have to start all over again--with still no guarantee of success but now you have accompanying apathy, lethargy, and fatigue.
If you are playing a game of chance with your heart, your money, and your health, why do you think you would fare any better another go-around?
What if life were like a game of Chutes and Ladders?
Sometimes you get lucky and you get the ladder all the way to the top--you get the lucky hand. Sometimes you can't seem to get anywhere because you keep hitting the chutes back down to the bottom.
"The world does not give you opportunity. The world destroys your opportunity and breaks your heart. I should have listened to my mother when I was ten years old. I should have spent the rest of my life watching t.v. and hiding the world like my mother." - Joy Mangano
Say there is no 'grand design' and that life is just one big crapshoot--one big fat farce. We fare according to the management of the creature and all leads to eventual failure.
Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and that all things are spinning out of order into chaos. In a meaningless world, the end of this kind of thinking truly can lead to the dismal fate of the nameless woman stuck behind the The Wall forever in solitary confinement and perpetual isolation.
Is there an alternative?
Faith and Falling
Attachment is the most powerful force in the universe and it is the very force of gravity itself.
Have you ever been on an amusement park ride that gives you a pit in your stomach but is simultaneously exhilarating?
How about falling in love? Isn't it the easiest thing you've ever done?
What about the sensation of it just being right?
"Follow your bliss."
That feeling you get when you're in nature.
Have you ever watched a dog play and wondered where he gets off being so carefree?
That something in our natures that desires to progress actually chooses the path of the most resistance. Our desire for growth trumps our desire for flow and ease.
This. is. The. Wall.
When we are ready, I mean really ready for success--for bliss--we will desire Flow and Ease more than resistance.
Gravity is the law by which all matter obeys. We can only resist gravity so long before it puts us in our graves.
The question is whether we will spend our days resisting our soul's journey down the river of life. It is the great decision of life whether we will turn our boats downstream and enjoy the ride, using our strength to steer ourselves through the grand rapids and majestic waterfalls or whether we'll try to paddle upstream and then go down backwards anyway.
It may just be that finding a little faith and falling into the abyss of what seems like hell is a hell of a lot easier than staying stuck in the box with the buzzer.
"If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?"
-Eminem
Learned Helplessness
In 1965, Martin Seligman and his colleagues were doing research on classical conditioning, or the process by which an animal or human associates one thing with another. In the case of Seligman's experiment, he would ring a bell and then give a light shock to a dog. After a number of times, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened: as soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he'd already been shocked.
But, then something unexpected happened. Seligman put each dog into a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence if necessary. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman put the dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence.
Instead, the dogs laid down. It was as though they'd learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, so they gave up in the second part of the experiment.
Dogs who had previously been shocked did not try to escape the shocks in a subsequent experiment.
Seligman described their condition as learned helplessness, or not trying to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught you that you are helpless.
Similarly an elephant will believe that it is actually stuck when tied to a thread of dental floss. The absurdity of our self-imposed solitary confinement seems like it would be enough to break the grip of the insanity, but many people would rather remain in misery.
The Problem with Almost
The problem with almost getting the guy or girl, almost getting the job, almost finding a cure is that now that all of your energy is expended, you now have to start all over again--with still no guarantee of success but now you have accompanying apathy, lethargy, and fatigue.
If you are playing a game of chance with your heart, your money, and your health, why do you think you would fare any better another go-around?
What if life were like a game of Chutes and Ladders?
Sometimes you get lucky and you get the ladder all the way to the top--you get the lucky hand. Sometimes you can't seem to get anywhere because you keep hitting the chutes back down to the bottom.
"The world does not give you opportunity. The world destroys your opportunity and breaks your heart. I should have listened to my mother when I was ten years old. I should have spent the rest of my life watching t.v. and hiding the world like my mother." - Joy Mangano
Say there is no 'grand design' and that life is just one big crapshoot--one big fat farce. We fare according to the management of the creature and all leads to eventual failure.
Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and that all things are spinning out of order into chaos. In a meaningless world, the end of this kind of thinking truly can lead to the dismal fate of the nameless woman stuck behind the The Wall forever in solitary confinement and perpetual isolation.
Is there an alternative?
Faith and Falling
Attachment is the most powerful force in the universe and it is the very force of gravity itself.
Have you ever been on an amusement park ride that gives you a pit in your stomach but is simultaneously exhilarating?
How about falling in love? Isn't it the easiest thing you've ever done?
What about the sensation of it just being right?
"Follow your bliss."
That feeling you get when you're in nature.
Have you ever watched a dog play and wondered where he gets off being so carefree?
That something in our natures that desires to progress actually chooses the path of the most resistance. Our desire for growth trumps our desire for flow and ease.
This. is. The. Wall.
When we are ready, I mean really ready for success--for bliss--we will desire Flow and Ease more than resistance.
Gravity is the law by which all matter obeys. We can only resist gravity so long before it puts us in our graves.
The question is whether we will spend our days resisting our soul's journey down the river of life. It is the great decision of life whether we will turn our boats downstream and enjoy the ride, using our strength to steer ourselves through the grand rapids and majestic waterfalls or whether we'll try to paddle upstream and then go down backwards anyway.
It may just be that finding a little faith and falling into the abyss of what seems like hell is a hell of a lot easier than staying stuck in the box with the buzzer.
"If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?"
-Eminem
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