Musings

Last week, I watched the movie Avatar in 3D with a bunch of friends. The movies animation is really good. The story line was not bad. However, I would be cautious about the spirituality of the movie. But I'm not writing this to promote the movie. Like the title, it's about some lessons or things that I noticed throughout the movie, and so will a few more posts.

*Spoiler warnings. If you don't like spoilers, please watch the movie first before reading the following post(s)*

The first theme that I noticed pretty early on in the movie, is living double lives or being two faced. In the movie, the main character is someone who has double lives, one as a regular human, an ex marine, and the other one would be in his avatar, as one of the natives. And besides those two main lives, his human life is further complicated by being a double agent, working for both the research team, which is what he was assigned to, and the military and management.

Now later on the movie, we learn that the lead character faces an identity crisis. At the beginning, he is still able to tell who he is, what characters he's supposed to be playing out. But later as he continues to live the various lives that he has made or been made to live, he begins to lose who he really is. He's no longer sure if he's supposed to be human, or be one of the natives. Then there is the conflict on interest between the interests of the research team and the interests of the management, whereby the researchers want to learn about the natives, their culture, and the world that is known as Pandora, and the management who want to extract all the riches in Pandora (more about this in a later post). And when the secret of his double life got out, it just caused a lot of hurt to those whom he loved and cared for, especially those who had trusted him.

So lesson #1 that I've learnt, is the danger of living two lives. It can also be just another life at certain times, like masks that we wear. We all live with masks at some point in our lives. We put on another face for whatever reasons we may have. Sometimes it's insecurities, other times it's to hide some part or parts that we think or know are not good and cannot be reveal. We have secret lives, with all it's dirty secrets. And we live another, so called "clean" life when we're out in the open. Like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.

Continually living a double life can and will lead to a blur of our perception of reality. Live too long in another made up life and you will begin to forget which is actually you. Like the main character said after some time, the lines of realitity begin to blur. In his own words, "Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream." You slowly forget which is the real you until oneday, you just don't remember if you keep at it and if reality doesn't keep knocking at your door. At the end of the day, if someone where to ask you "Who are you?", can you answer truthfully?

Also like in the movie, the lies used to build that other life keeps deepening as you work to keep that other life alive. And it's just going to hurt you and those you care about. Not every story ends with a happy ending like in the movie. Sometimes the hurt can be so bad that relationships are severed totally. And there you lose those treasured relationships, gone forever because of what you have decided to do.

So, let's reflect in our own lives. Are we living double lives? Is there any part that we are trying to hide, whether out of shame, guilt, to look cool, or just to fit in? If there are skeletons in the closet, I'd suggest finding one or two people you can trust, and coming clean. It will take a huge load off your shoulders and free you to to face those challenges, with the added strength of accountability. If it is to fit in, maybe it's time people saw the real you. It's their choice on whether to accept you or not, but I'd say if they really do love and care for you as friend or family, they would care enough to accept the real you, maybe even glad to see the real you.

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