Remembering The Day

Today, nine years after 9/11, the shock and disbelief still overwhelms me. The pain and ache of all those lives and the tragedy which took them from us still bores a hollow into my soul. Even now the struggle to find meaning and understanding comes up empty. As a world population, our future is alight with the potential cruelty of man upon his neighbor. Given our human capacity for evil, this should not surprise us. Still that day caught us off guard. Everything happening since has been a scramble to regain what we lost—our sense of stability. We are unsure of what will happen or who will leap out at us next. Fear creeps into our lives a little more easily than it did on 9/10.

Recently, I spoke with a concerned individual regarding all the events happening in these times. He was troubled by what was occurring and his inability to exact change. While our perspectives differed on various issues, we both agreed that the best one can do to change the world is to help our local communities. Taking care of and looking after our neighbor with genuine love and compassion is the best cure for hatred and poverty. To heal the world around us, we must first heal each other. Our community may be our neighborhood, our work or our school. It may be our family, our synagogue, our temple, our mosque, or our church. Also, it could be an orphanage in Russia or flood victims in Pakistan. It may even be the women and children of Afghanistan.

Loving our neighbor as our self is a tough pill to swallow. Loving our enemy is an even tougher pill. Yet, understanding the true need at the heart of a tragedy, albeit difficult, is our duty as humans. We transcend the very nature of darkness by finding the light. We are often put off by the affliction such events inflict on our fellow man, but we must step back and see ourselves as God sees us. We are all hurting, afraid and in need of love. For those of us who feel useless in the efforts to help, look only to the person beside you. Start there. Show as much love as you can. Feed, cloth and lend a hand when possible. We become most like God when we face evil and act out of love.

To all the families and friends who lost loved ones on 9/11, and to all families and friends who have lost loved ones to terrorism, our hearts beat with yours. We hold you close and offer you our love and support. May their memories live on in our hearts. May you gain new strength each day. May God bless you deeply.

Grace, Peace and Love,

The Acacia Tree

Wittgenstein at the Movies

Once I heard Wittgenstein (LW) liked to go to the movies and sit on the front row so the movie would wash over him. This activity assisted in his escape from the perplexities of his philosophical investigations (perhaps)—as it were. Or, conceivably, it allowed him immersion into the perceived public culture. Did it ease his internal conflict? Was it a place for chance meetings? Did the content of the movie matter to him? Does it matter to us? If we form our opinions based on the Tractatus, then we might say the content only matters if we have thought of it previously. Does that mean we cannot change our mind or learn a thing from nothing? No not really. I say it more to say, we have already had many of the thoughts of others—if only subconsciously. The difference, say, between your similar thoughts and mine are how we say/think them. My thought/idea might be a mere feeling, which I cannot verbalize. Yours, conversely, might be a well thoughtout discourse on the meaning of life-history-and-the-universe. To which LW says, "What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." This is not exactly what he meant, but it is how we act at times. We feel we cannot speak of something so we do not. By not doing so, we deny ourselves the ability to learn, to engage and, most importantly, to express the fullness of what we feel and know intuitively.

For some unspeakable reason, I have always found LW's love of the movies unique. Is this because such an analytical bloke would seem to disparage such a subjective and emotive activity as the movies? Maybe. Maybe not. Could it represent the dichotomy of our twospirits or the ethereal nature of our souls? Clearly we could come at this question from many angles, but would any one be right or would they all be correct. It is much like the discussion of what music you like, and why music affects us as it does. Do we throw up our hands and talk about the weather or do we change the direction of the content discussed. Based upon our inability to understand LW's attraction and attendance of movies, we cannot determine what kind of movies he would like. Likewise, we cannot infer if he would like First Blood, Lord of the Rings, or Slumdog Millionaire.

Setting aside for a moment the leisure activities of our philosopher, let us look at our own love of the movies. Danny Boyle and Slumdog, as you may know, won an award or two including "Best Motion Picture of the Year". Was it really? Who knows? Any movie aficionado knows much of this award comes from the publicity and campaign. Arguably it is one of the best and I have no alternative. Could that be the real reason? Unforgiven won "Best Picture". Was it? No way to know. Because it did win, though, it became the best picture. Not by merit, per se, but by exposure. You could offer the suggestion that what is best depends upon how the film is crafted and the state of our culture at the time. "Hey, I like that!" Let's go back to Slumdog. If it was "BP", then is it Danny Boyle's best film?

My viewing of SM came after the awards and all the talk had settled. I usually watch movies outside the hype (and reviews) lest it inflates/aggravates my opinion of it. Fortunately, I was able to watch SM with a mostly unadulterated perspective. While I will not review it hear, I will say it was well defined and envisioned. Surely it deserves high marks as movies go. Some moments I even found to be quite brilliant. Still it was predictable in its being good. It was a good film—which I enjoyed—but it failed to ask something of me. While he won, and we all rejoice, how far did it go to question our involvement into alleviating discrimination in our communities? This, obviously, is not completely true only close. Masking the good-ness or bad-ness of an artistic piece is prevalent in all aesthetic creations. With motion pictures, the masking comes from talking it into our consciousness. The more common a film might be the more it is publicized and drilled into our brains from every bus we ride to each cup o'joe we lift to our lips. So let me ask this again, "Is Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle's best picture?"

(Part 1 of 2)