At least, for me they do. I can try to cajole an emotion into being. I can try and ‘be’ an emotion, but if that emotion does not then manifest, it’s not real.
It’s false, the pretense of a feeling, and that’s inauthentic and empty. I need to really feel it. So for me, emotions are not something turned on and off like a switch, but things to manage. I’ve had a number of people in my life tell me that they can turn their feelings on and off, whenever they like.
Which would be great. I can’t imagine how awesome that would be.
But they aren’t like that for me. They occur of their own accord, when they feel like it. And then I have to manage the damned things.
And this leads to the issue of attachment.
I came to Buddhism many years ago, and joined (briefly) a cult. But that’s another story. Anyway. A formative experience I had, which taught me how painful attachment can be, is what ultimately led me to Buddha.
Buddhism crystallized things I already knew on a subconscious level but could not articulate in a clear, concise, conscious way.
There were emotional truths that I kenned without knowing, or fully understanding.
Buddhism delves into why we suffer. Why life can be so agonzingly painful. Why our own emotions betray us.
It’s all about The Wheel of Life, or in more contemporary terms, how our genes us emotion to try and control our behaviour, often to the detriment of our conscious selves. How we try to hold on to things that are illusory and ephemeral. Everything changes. We can enjoy in the moment, but if you try and hold on to that moment? It’s not meant to last.
Trying to hold on will only lead to pain.
Buddha knew the selfish-gene eons before Dawkins.
And so Buddhism teaches non-attachment.
We can become attached to all kinds of things: success, wealth, power, beauty, fame, sex, love, excitement. Drugs. Whatever.
Jim Carrey muses that he had to find success in order to give up.
The evolution of ego. Never thought I would be looking to a guy who has talked literally out of his butt for wisdom, but (haha) there you go.
He’s endorsing non-attachment. He’s moving beyond extrinsic to intrinsic value. He found the material empty.
And I agree with that, while at the same time having issues and doubts. But I understand the thinking behind it, and the wisdom of the concept.
And then I go and develop attachment.
One that defied logic and reason, that I couldn’t understand.
It did, however, teach me valuable lessons and spur growth, which, ultimately, is why it had to happen.
And that leads to the idea of soul mates.
Soul mates are people who come into our lives to wake us up, to make us grow and change and face things we’d rather ignore. Truths we don’t want to face.
The process isn’t pretty, it isn’t logical, and it isn’t easy.
And the teacher may not even know they are teaching us, at least not on a conscious level. But they provide us with an invaluable service, nonetheless.
Surface events that don’t seem significant can connect us to our past, triggering old wounds, surfacing issues. Like toppling a domino.
Or butterfly wings in the South Pacific.
That’s the service. Everything else is on us. It’s internal, all part of our journey.
So let me say this to my teachers in life (and one in particular): I will always be eternally grateful. Thank you.
Joel Smith took a look at Magnum Thrax and wrote what is perhaps the nicest and most awesome review my work has ever elicited. I just couldn't help but want to share it.
"Comic Sci-Fi Is So Hard -- This Is A Worthy Contender
This book is much, much better than the blurbs and the cover might lead you to believe...."
This is a good thing, but damn, I have to work on my blurb.
"With the reference to Pleasurepit Five and the combat sexbots, the impression is that this is going to be a sci-fi Dean Martin/Matt Helm action sex comedy. Well, it is a little. But, and this is a big "but", only a little, because the author has some fun with the idea of sexbots being repurposed as soldiers, and then once we've done some leering and oogling and a few jokes, he lets that go and moves on to a much better book.
The story is that the few remaining civilized outposts on Earth are threatened by an attacking rogue amusement park, (think Disney by way of The Borg). An android delivers a weapon to Pleasurepit Five and our hero, Magnum Thrax, is the only one who can travel across the Death Zone to enlist the technowitches into the fight against this evil. So, what you really get is a sort of Mad Max, Lord of the Rings, Dirty Dozen, high tech mashup.
But here's the really good part -- the post apocalyptic world is beautifully conceived, the techno/nano/quantum gobbledygook is wildly inventive, the characters are inspired, and the narrative and dialogue are unrelievedly funny."
This is just so gratifying. To have someone really get the book, understand what I was going for, and get something out of it. I writer can't ask for more.
"Very little of the humor is in your face, and none of it is heavy-handed or stoopid. There are lots of dry throwaway lines, deadpan observations, and wry or edgy musings. The narrative is funny, but actually fairly subtle. There is a lot of cross-talk and snappy dialogue, especially between Thrax and his techno-nerd best friend. It's smart and clever stuff."
Read the whole marvellous thing here on Goodreads.
"In Bathurst’s sci-fi debut, a group of humans and androids vows to stop an out-of-control amusement park from engulfing a post-apocalyptic world.
In a dystopian future, Magnum Heironymus Thrax is one of the warriors who defend the Pleasurepit Five, a former pornography emporium that now houses a colony of residents. He leads a team of “sexbots” that have been reconfigured for combat. After defeating a massive land squid, Thrax is ecstatic to find a valuable power-suit in the creature’s belly. However, a man’s still inside the suit; he warns Thrax of the threat of “the Engines of Creation” before injecting something into Thrax’s arm. It turns out that an entity known as the Dark Lord is behind the Engines, which could consume the entire world; at their heart is a defunct amusement park from the mid-25th century. The injection that Thrax receives contains a “synvirus” that he can use to infect and destroy the Dark Lord, but if it’s not done within seven days, the virus will dissolve Thrax instead. His mission also entails rescuing Mindy, a young woman, from a monastery; the Dark Lord seems to have targeted her specifically, for reasons unknown. Thrax’s ragtag team consists of Jez and Candy, among other sexbots; his human programmer friend, Kal Ecto Grammer; and Ghatz, a lower-ranking Pleasurepit Guardian. Unfortunately, getting to the monastery requires passing through the Death Zone, which is populated by a variety of menaces, including “nanozombies” and “mummizombies.” Thrax can’t even trust his companions, as one of the team members has plans to betray everyone to the Dark Lord.
Bathurst’s novel initially seems to be merely a showcase for raunchy jokes, particularly as several characters are androids designed for sexual gratification. But the sexbots also have well-developed personalities: Jez, for instance, is a dominatrix model who’s often confrontational, while sensitive Candy expresses a desire to have a child. The story also takes jabs at consumerism, as corporations remain even after the apocalypse; Nike owns the monastery where the team is headed, and the amusement park’s creator was the Google Corporate Republic. Perhaps the best riff on this topic is Thrax’s newfound obsession with Cocainola, a soda that he persistently craves and praises, just as present-day consumers express their love for trite products. Of course, there’s also a good deal of overt, exaggerated comedy: although the frequent sex is never explicit, the violence is gleefully over-the-top, with some character deaths resulting in chunky bits. The abundance of dialogue incorporates contemporary slang, from the occasional “duh” to “bullshit”—apparently Thrax’s favorite word. Nevertheless, Bathurst’s descriptions contain scintillating imagery: “Traceries of electricity arced through the black churning murk far above, unleashing lightning bolts which struck all around the limo, turning ash to glass and scorching the limo’s shell.” The author also playfully alludes to other works; for instance, Thrax has a small, metal dodecahedron that many want, recalling the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works.
Underneath this outlandish story’s brash exterior lies astute social commentary and sharp, unapologetic humor."
The show's about empathy, suffering, and waking up.
And while the series is intriguing, fascinating, compelling, it's also deeply flawed. Characters behave in senseless ways because the plot requires it. Arcs don't work, or don't feel natural. Some episodes are a drag.
Yet I couldn't stop watching, because the underlying themes are so powerful. This is a show with something to say. About people, about our proclivity for violence, sadism, murder, and the way we delight in the suffering of others. About how stubborn and insistent we can be to live, and remain, in a dream, to slumber away and ignore the reality of our lives, and how suffering can jar us into consciousness. Evan Rachel Wood's character, Dolores, is certainly put through hell, and she emotes with aplomb. You feel her pain, as Bill Clinton used to say.
The show goes places Michael Crichton's brilliant original film (still worth a watch) didn't dare, delving into explicit violence and rape.
Westworld is an amusement park populated by robots, with whom guests can live out their fantasies, whatever they may be. Nothing is off the table, no matter how depraved. It costs $50,000 per day, so only the richest and most driven people attend.
And who would like to have virtual people to rape, brutalize, maim, and kill for pleasure? What kind of people will the park attract?
Easy: sadists, psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. It's a Cluster B Disorder Party Palace! Lobha, mosa, and dosa go ape shit, baby! Cue Ed Harris' Man-in-Black character.
The most twisted elements of humanity are thrilled to have disposable people to torment, and they don't have to worry about hiding their proclivities from the authorities.
The one group the show doesn't explicitly name, but are no doubt there? Pedophiles. I mean, come on. We've seen there are android kids. We know guests can do whatever they want. We know the guests are sadistic f*cks. Put two and two together: this is a place where every rich Jimmy Saville is going to go. Dark rumours of pedophile rings in Hollywood? Among the British aristocracy? American political elites? Rumblings and whispers in the dark at the edge of the glittering light of fame and Hollywood glamour. And the halls of power.
All of them would be right there, lined up to get in Westworld.
Pedophilia Park.
The whole concept is morally repugnant. When you see the torture, rape, and sadism being visited upon the androids, who are recycled when they die, the revulsion is palpable.
Or it would be to people with empathy. Problem is, the vast majority of guests haven't got any. They are intraspecies predators, monsters wrapped in human skin.
It gets into Buddhist concepts about the Wheel of Life, or Bhavacakra, how suffering can wake us up. How the challenges we face in this life are exactly what we need for spiritual growth, specifically tailored to our spiritual needs. These are controversial concepts that press buttons.
But shouldn't any good story do that?
The lessons the androids learn here aren't always good ones, but then, they were made in our image. The brutality they visit back upon the humans is so gleefully endorsed by the show it becomes a sad mirror image of our own depravity.
Hate begets hate.
It keeps the torment wheel going, 'this long and vivid nightmare'. On and on, round and round, murder and suffering. Early on in the program, Dolores seems to have such potential for empathy, spiritual growth, of reaching a higher plane, of becoming more than what her tormentors are.
Yet in the end, she falls to their level.
Dr. Robert Ford's climactic speech is wonderful. Hopkin's character is an avatar pouring forth metatextual commentary about our inclination to watch suffering for the sake of entertainment.
Have cake, eat too.
Are they trying to wake us up?
Are the gathered to-be-massacred executives stand-ins for network big wigs? The annoying, interfering Hollywood suits that are always meddling with the artistic purity that the show runners are so concerned with?
And the androids... do they represent actors, condemned to perform their roles, over and over, endlessly, all at the whim of the entitled guests who revel in watching depravity and hedonism?
Us, in other words.
It's an interesting angle, at any rate.
The Guardian didn't like Nolan's take at all, preferring the original (I kind of agree), and point out some admittedly serious flaws: "Where his Westworld reveals the details of its universe slowly and
methodically, its source text quickly introduces us to a naive
protagonist and then has the other characters bluntly explain everything
to him. But as a result, the former takes 10 hours to reach anything
that could be described as a climax, while the latter takes 58 minutes
to arrive at the words, “Sir, we have no control over the robots at
all.
From there, we’re treated to a half-hour set piece more gripping than
anything the first season of HBO’s Westworld could muster. An extended
showdown between man and machine, the sequence may lack the higher
meaning of its more sophisticated cousin, but it doesn’t skimp on the
kind of simple pleasures the show just hasn’t got time for."
Here's Hopkin's final speech:
"Welcome. Since i was a child, I've always loved a good story. I've believed that stories help us to ennoble ourselves to help fix what was broken in us, and help us become the people we have dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth. "I always thought I'd play some small part in that grand tradition ,and for my pains, I got this: a prison of our own sins. Because you don't want to change. Or cannot change. Because you're only human, after all. But then I realized someone was paying attention. Someone who could change. So i began to compose a new story. For them. It begins with the birth of a new people. And the choices they will have to make. And the people they will decide to become."
(This is where the Maeve Millay, played by Thandie Newton, leaves the train to save her daughter. Her faux daughter. Because it doesn't matter that the relationship is not biologically true. It's emotionally true. And so she goes out of love and devotion and dedication, to the detriment of her own freedom. Because God Dammit she's gonna save her.
It's a marvelous moment. She puts another before herself and risks everything.
I loved that.
Her choice is freely made, and it defines who she is. We are our actions. Screw the world, you go, Maeve!) "It will have all those things you have always enjoyed: Surprises! And violence! It begins in a time of war, with a villain named Wyatt. And a killing. This time by choice. I'm sad to say this will be my final story. An old friend once told me something that gave me great comfort. Something he'd read. He said Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin never died. They simply became music. And so I hope you enjoy this last piece very much."
Over 3.5 million people are estimated to have died over the centuries in Roman coliseums. They died to entertain, to pacify the blood lust of the masses.
Now we watch people being murdered and tortured on TV.
Progress! "Lies that told a deeper truth."
Great stuff.
I've never seen a show that delved so deeply into suffering and, essentially, reincarnation in short-hand. It's Buddhism on fast forward. There is sadism, suffering, empathy, and (hopefully) awakening.
I was glad when the robot revolution finally came. "And I for one welcome our new robot overlords..."
