The Billion Dollar Man

Avatar has crossed the billion dollar mark, worldwide, making it the 4th highest grossing worldwide film of all time, and #17 domestically. Yes, Cameron is King of the World.

I saw it again yesterday, in 2-D, and actually liked it better the second time. The images "pop" amazingly, and make me wonder if the familiarity of the story isn't part of the point. Does anyone think that it would be making MORE money if the story was startlingly original and the beats weren't telegraphed? I mean, this story has been done countless times...but as I said, that may be part of the point. The images Cameron wanted to create were so remarkable, that it is possible he wanted a very simple, direct, racial-memory kind of story (One of Us becomes one of Them. Within the "Civilized" man is the nobel savage. Etc.) so that we would be overwhelmed by the immersive experience. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but I'm not sure.

One thing fascinating is the way it has been criticized by both Left and Right based on their prejudices about the opposite end of the political spectrum. After all, it both criticizes Corporations (Left!) and is a typical White Male Can Do Anything (Right!) story. Ah, hang it up, folks. It's a story. Damn near the exact same story could have been told in any era of human history (and probably has) and people would complain: You're criticizing the Emperor! You're talking about the British East India Company! You're referencing the Vietnam War...etc.

It is quite funny to listen to people whose cinematic or cultural education goes back twenty whole years swearing it is "Dances With Wolves." Sorry, Charlie...these memes have been around a very, very long time. The point of all art is NOT originality of story. It is also presentation. And at that, Avatar does some things better than anyone, ever. Some of those images are so startlingly clear in 2-D that 3-D just ain't necessary. And hey! Cameron actually had a black male character who didn't die. So far as we know. I'll take it.

##

My favorite Christmas present this year was one I gave to Jason: a gel ant farm. This uses a jello-like blue substance instead of sand. The neat thing is that the ants not only tunnel through it and live in it, but actually eat it and get their water from it. Developed by NASA to test the influence of microgravity on insects. It is far more stable than sand, and therefore could survive take-offs. It is uber-cool to watch the Carpenter ants tunnel--looks surreal. Little buggers are SMART! Every time I tried to open the top to remove ant carcasses (several arrived dead) they knew and swarmed up to the top, trying to escape. So I put it in the refrigerator for fifteen minutes to gentle 'em down. Worked pretty well. They get all groggy and stoned, and only one got out. I corralled him and dropped him back in. Swear I heard him cursing at me, but somehow "May two of your six legs swell until they are as fat as twigs!" just doesn't have much zing.

##

Day Four of the 101 program (sign up at WWW.LIFEWRITE.COM) deals with the difference between stress and strain. People try to avoid stress. They should not. Life itself is a succession of stress tests, and you are rewarded in direct proportion to your ability to handle stress without folding. The secret is that stress refers to the AMOUNT of pressure you are under. But when that stress begins to deform your structure, it is called "strain." It is strain that is "bad" for you, not stress. The name of the game is to learn how to handle higher and higher levels of stress. "It ain't how hard you can hit" Stallone says in "Rocky Balboa," "It's how hard you can GET HIT and keep going forward."

Well, it's also how good you are at slipping punches, of course. But the point is that at times, life is a storm--better bring your raincoat. The 101 approach to this is to connect everything through your breathing. Once you learn the "Be Breathed" technique (exhaling on active compression, passive inhalation) you practice it five times a day for sixty seconds per session. Then you integrate this breathing into the Five Tibetans, and later into other movements. By pausing five times a day, you will begin to interrupt negative breathing patterns before they become pathological, or spiral you down into a self-reinforcing loop of recriminations, negative results, and depression. You "interrupt the pattern" with sixty seconds of positive breathing. And the breathing is the "canary in the coal mine"--you literally cannot be depressed without breathing in a non-resourceful manner. And you cannot breathe in a resourceful, positive fashion without feeling better.

Because the breath is the link between the conscious and unconscious mind (the only process which is both voluntary and autonomic) it is the key to control of the deep self, and every culture in the world has known this. If you can control this, stress will never become strain. And if stress does NOT become strain, the only way your mind and body can react to pressure is by becoming stronger. It's how we're built. And if you set goals in all three major areas, and manage your breathing as you move forward toward them day by day...every demon in your unconscious will arise to confront you. It is fascinating to watch clients go through this "a meteor will hit your dog" syndrome. I swear it looks psychic or metaphysical the way coincidence will collaborate against you.

This is the path to growth. Nurture your relationships, your community obligations, your body, your relationship with the divine within and without. Walk the thousand mile road, one breath at a time. And from the corner of your eye, you will begin to glimpse your true self.

And what an unbelievably beautiful sight it is. You are. We are, every one of us. If we just learn to drop our fear and limitation.