I want to try something new with this post. Lately I’ve been exploring how concepts like control, leadership, direction and sense of purpose, relate to empowerment and the creative impulse itself. With this in mind I’ve kept this post intentionally brief to open up space for your responses.
I’ve had this idea rattling around in my head for what I think might be a film, a film called simply - Peace. Throughout
my involvement in the peace & justice movement I have met a number
of organizers/activists who view the movement as one long ceaseless
struggle. I have great respect for my sisters and brothers, for their
passion and resolve, but I find myself wondering what happens after the struggle?
I
have recently come across two strategies for realizing our creative
potential. One focuses on removing obstacles that get in the way of being your true self, the creative
spirit effortlessly emerging with the restriction
removed. The other focuses on visualizing where you are headed, seeing
yourself already there; obstacles fall away, replaced by this new
focus of your attention. I like both of these approaches. I conceive of the Peace “film,” as a
kind of visionary reference point, a common shared experience
that might make it easier for us to recognize moments of peace wherever
they exist (whenever they happen) in our lives and in our world.
As weapons dealer to the world and our own best customer, is it any wonder that American cultural promotion of war is second to none? Images of war (of violence and cruelty), those depicting the harsh reality of war and those meant to hide it from us, easily come to mind. But what of peace? Does peace appear more elusive simply because
we haven’t taken the time, made the effort, to develop a peace
vocabulary to speak of it?
Why a film? Primarily because of the grand scope of the medium; its ability to
deliver powerful, meaningful, moving images; and its ease of replication and
distribution. But also because, though films usually have a director,
the scope of the medium generally requires a collaborative approach. That said, there is no set medium for this project. Indeed, an exploration of the very concept of medium might be one facet in the evolution of this idea...
Please accept my invitation to dialogue, to share your visions of peace with myself and other readers in the comments below. Feel free to approach this from any direction, any perspective, addressing any aspect of the idea that resonates with you. I am excited to hear your thoughts and I thank you for sharing them.
Jumping off the subway I throw my book, my writing, my whatever into my bag and grab at the zipper only to have it snag. Time and time again this happens, and each time I have the same response in the heat of the moment, yank on it back and forth trying to get it free and closed. A minor hassle sure, but one that has the power to charge my mood in an instant. Today it was different, I was different. I took my time closing the bag, sliding the zipper effortlessly. It occurred to me that my difficulty had been in my anticipation of the problem. I was over compensating and creating the resistance that I wanted to avoid, but was certain would occur. With the bag easily closed, I took a breath and left the subway. As I walked down the street the sense of calm continued. My eyes were wide, open to all that I usually miss in the rush to my destination. Each new detail brought a smile to my face. The bunnies in the pet store window, the man reading the paper outside the deli, the fantastic animal sculpture in the vacant lot, the warmth of the morning sun on my face. I felt grateful that I had made this small discovery, that going forward I could feel this way rather than suffer through the agitation that I had been creating for myself. Zipper Peace.
ReplyDeleteI love your ideas. been thinking a lot lately about the same issues.
ReplyDeleteI think leadership issues are important and I love the idea of non-hierarchical movements. Since natural leaders emerge, in order not to create a power vacuum at the top (the inevitable corruptness of power!) perhaps a skill sharing approach to leadership skills is in order.
By sharing skills all the way through, positions of power could be rotated so no single person has an inordinate influence on any movement. For example, social media admins, etc., should be rotated among all who are interested in such a position. Those people who don't know how to use it to its full potential could learn how in skill sharing.
Perhaps a skill share approach within the production of the film (or whatever this evolves into) - nice. Rotating directors, writers, camera, etc. Great stuff - thank you for your input!
DeleteOn a purely practical level, to create a feature length film, with feature level distribution, complete with legal and financial considerations is nearly impossible to do from a non-hierarchical approach.
DeleteIf one is aiming for "ease of replication and distribution" I would suggest non-traditional approaches: crowd funded, crowd-created (open source) crowd-distribution (viral). Then the project can take on a global scale.
thanks for your good energy. Answer is drink more water and eat more greens.
ReplyDeletealso, boycott fresh direct!
google it
thanks!
And thank you! As a member/owner at the Park Slope Food Coop it’s no problem for me to boycott fresh direct (am I really “boycotting” if I was never a customer?), I will look into the campaign. I don’t think there is any shortage of greens at my house, but I could always drink more water :)
DeleteAppreciate Thomas' approach here. I just returned from Sunday night rehearsal of the Stop Shopping Choir. We performed a little shout-out by myself and neighborhood small shops defense song, a song with some militancy, called "Push Back!" and sent it off to the community of Brixton in UK. They're trying to defend their neighborhood grocery store as Brixton becomes gentrified and rents boom. The choir was in good spirits. There was some tension in the rehearsal, though, among the musicians. The words of the songs are so anti-patriarchy, resisting corporations and fundamentalist gods... I think the tension is only a temporary thing, it will resolve and make us even closer in our collaboration. But control and excellence - such a moveable feast! If you have composed a song but the conductor interprets it and then the musician interprets again.. Even if its a Peace song, you can nonetheless enter that struggle TG talks of. It's good to remember our peaceful intention in the first place -- let that intention radiate through the struggle. so that we can dissolve the tension of fear/control... and music, humor, physical touch... a good choral group doesn't have to go far to get the good stuff. Hope Brixton likes the anthem of joyous struggle we sang for them.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your words Bill! Reading them I am reminded that struggle is not necessarily separate from peace and joy, that they coexist. I have seen first hand how tension can be transformed into an opportunity for greater understanding and learning when, as you wrote, we remember our peaceful intention in the first place. Trust seems to be an important aspect of this process as well - trusting one another enough to allow for expression and emotion, to allow the time and space to reveal our intention, to allow each other to be who we truly are. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” he likens a human being to a television set with a million channels, “If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on, we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.” We are not our ideas, nor our identities, we are much more than just this. When we keep this in mind our conflicts can become less stark, our connectedness can begin to emerge.
DeleteI will never forget my canonization as a saint of peace - thank you my friend for all you do! Peace-a-lujah!
Good idea. I like the idea of trying to find and enhance the sense of "peace" through film language. It would be interesting - if it hasn't already been done - to do what Paul Schrader did in his Transcendental Style in Film (http://www.paulschrader.org/articles/pdf/1972-TransFilmSeriesNotes.pdf); find and examine how a sense of peace emerges from some films - in Schrader's book he examines the manifestation of the transcendental in the films of Tarkovsky, Bresson and Ozu. Perhaps you don't have to make a new film but rather find and compile the experience of peace from existing films and, in doing so, make us more attuned to the expression of peace and better able to appreciate it when it appears.
ReplyDeleteThis is great Dewey - I read the piece you linked to and it reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s books “The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell,” which I was actually thinking about when I wrote the post. Huxley spends much of the book(s) addressing the common features of Visionary Experience. This quote from “The Doors of Perception” was particularly interesting to me:
Delete“I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the future preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic theologians call "a gratuitous grace," not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.”
When I originally read the book I reframed this idea to mean that while the experience might not actually be enlightenment, it could provide a sort of visionary analog so that we might be more capable of recognizing/realizing enlightenment. To be, as you wrote, better able to appreciate it when it appears. There is obviously much common vocabulary in the language of transcendence and the language of peace. I have not seen any of the films that are mentioned in the Transcendental Style in Film notes. Reading about them I realized that many of my own favorite films share these transcendental qualities, Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” immediately comes to mind. I am looking forward to checking them out and experiencing them for myself :)
Thanks Thomas for inviting me to contribute to the conversation.
ReplyDeleteFor at least a couple thousand years we've been talking about peace, brotherhood and goodwill. We've experienced a war to "end all wars", we have leaders and communities espousing non-violence, many have died for the sake of peace and justice, we sing about peace on earth once a year, and yet peace remains an ideal--why?
Many would point to conspiratorial economic cabals as the single immovable obstacle between humanity and the possibility of peace. There is relative truth to that, but I understand there to be a greater obstacle.
It is our tragic misunderstanding of the interconnectedness of all life itself. The Golden Rule illuminates this so simply: do to others as you would have them do to you. And yet, even those of us who espouse peace often violently demonize those who are different from us, preventing us from seeing that we all share the same simple aspirations of the heart.
My aspiration is that I live long enough to see humanity abolish all war. I think it is possible. We would end all war tomorrow (even those of us who profit from it) if we fully understood the extraordinary possibilities that exist when all war ceases. We WILL end all war when we collectively understand that sharing and cooperation is the true expression of life, while competition and division are inimical to it.
I think many in the world sense that these times are extraordinary, that a new energy pervades our minds and hearts. Some of us embrace this energy while others of us resist it. James Quilligan embraces this new energy thru his articulation of a Global Commons-- a practical structure of local-to-global possibilities for humanity. http://www.onthecommons.org/new-multilateralism-global-commons
Beyond practical applications, it is purposeful to note that the spirit of peace resides in our hearts whether we recognize it or not. That spirit tells us there are greater interconnections of life that extend beyond the laws of the known. Films that awaken that spirit would certainly, I think, clear the way for a level of peace unlike anything we've ever known.
I'm not sure that I believe in Peace -- as a separate thing than Love, that is. Somehow I think that the active Peacemaking we do between warring "enemies" is mostly reminding them that they should (and do) love each other as human beings. And the passive Peace, the feeling of well-being, centeredness and calm, is mostly about feeling Love from the universe, from our families, from all of humanity, and most especially from ourselves. Peace is about taking and being taken care of-- finding and understanding that in our lives.
ReplyDelete