If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal"
-- Dr. Carl Sagan
I once read a book by Victor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning - the really 'cliff notes for dummies' version of it goes something like this:
a man gets stuck in a concentration camp, he sees family and friends kidnapped and killed for no reason. Death is as constant as the sun's rays. While looking at this as a hopeless situation, he realizes that every man has the capacity in him to be able to adapt to any situation and survive, have a will to live by just thinking and believing these thoughts, through which a whole new existence emerges. Quoting Frankl who quotes Nietzsche - 'He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.'
I have been looking forward to this journey to NYC for a long time. Many years in fact. I am both nervous and excited. I also know that this trip will be a leap of faith in many ways - and I will be asked to take a leap as well. I can feel it in my bones.
I returned to one of my favorite books by Andrei Tarkovsky - Sculpting in Time. I happened to stumble upon this site through a link from Tarkovsky's links page. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is the greatest modern Russian director of all time. When I first saw his film the Mirror, it changed my life. Cinema was no longer images of people talking and walking through a formulaic plot, Tarkovsky's cinema was art in its purest form. I can go on for pages, gushing about how I love his films, how he has influenced me in my films, photos and writing, but I will just give you a link and discover about him yourselves; you wont be sorry you did.
Tarkovsky was a firm believer that creativity - the true essence of the word, was something that is inherent in all of us, but some are just more receptive to this gift, and some know how to use it, but must learn to use it well.
Now perhaps it might seem that I am being really presumptuous to say this, but ever since I was a kid, I felt something stirring inside of me - a sense of purpose. It was not until I went to college did I realize that I was skilled in telling stories both through the written word and images. I once joked to a friend and said: you know, I think I am here on this earth for a reason. I feel like I have some sort of great purpose that is driving me, but I am not sure how to go about it. I feel full with this sense of wonder and magnificence. Maybe I am destined to be great, but it is a selfless greatness. She smiled and said I know you are, it shows...
I am wondering if she saw, back then, that I would now be heading on the path that I want to take, building the road to be able to travel on where I can spread my vision to others. There is nothing I would want more than to be able to just make movies - not your ordinary Hollywood fare, no Titanics, no Aliens, but movies that move, touch and haunt you long after the credits disappear. That is how I felt after I read Sculpting in Time.
aeons ago, I received another book from my bfriend as a gift. It was being mailed from Italy and was to be delayed indefinitely. But low and behold, it showed up the same day - my birthday. I was so moved by this beautiful sentiment - Luce Istantanea (Spontaneous Illumination) - a book of polaroids and poems by Tarkovsky in Italian (back when I was able to speak it) I ripped open the packaging, opened the first page, and there was a coincidence that completely moved me to tears. The book was an ode to a friend - a fond farewell. Inside - a dedication:
The winged figure of an angel comes to rest, luminous in the surrounding darkness, like a visible presence of heaven on earth: a presence hidden by a veil, a presence that cannot be described except by the gestured showing another invisible presence to our watching gaze. On the set of the film Mirror, Andrei Tarkovsky put himself in a shot lying in a hospital bed, holding a tiny bird in his right hand. And this is what happened to him at the end of his life: in his sickroom in Paris, the room where he died, a little bird would fly every morning through the open window and come to light on him.
That book came in the mail on April 4th - my 30th birthday.
Andrei Tarkovsky was born on April 4, 1932.
I was born April 4,th 1968.
It was during the last year of his life when he managed to finish the book Sculpting in Time.
He died in exile in Paris on December 29, 1986.
It was that a few days before New Year's eve - 1986 that I remember nights of extreme panic, suffocating fear, hopeless desperation and catastrophic impending doom. And during those few days before January 1st,1987 , I went to my first of so many visits to the hospital, so many nights and days lost in a world of catatonic confusion before I was diagnosed as manic-depressive.
Well, you may have read in this blog and come to know me as someone who is a big lover of synchronous moments. In my defense I say this:
We are all made of molecules and atoms which are sensitive to vibrations because energy is in constant motion. There is a gravitational pull on this planet which keeps the earth from whirling out into space.
There is order.
We are alive.
But sometimes, somewhere, there is a star that dies - implode in on itself and disappears; and sometimes there is another star in the process of being born. Perhaps, just maybe, on a subatomic level, we can feel that distant explosion, and that gravitational push or pull might just tug ever so slightly at the fabric of time so synchronous moments can occur. I know it's a quasi romantic Carl Sagan* - esque type of theory, but there are some things in the universe that just can't be explained, that baffle even the most intelligent physicists in the world, some thing just happen - we watch and marvel at the wonder of it all.
Having written my first cryptic word at the age of 2, I would find out only 33 years later that this word - "okhtohie' meant 'purpose' in Japanese. Having veered off in several different directions throughout my life, I believe that my existence here is for a 'purpose' - to write and share my outrageous yet true stories with the masses (along with adding some biting commentary for comic relief, and pretty visuals for cerebral stimulation). I am am imagination specialist and do other Joe jobs to make a living and hopefully have enough money one day to actually do what I really love for the rest of my silly Sienfeldesque life.
Funny thing, time - when I come back from New York city, this blog will be just shy of 5 days of the date one year ago when I started it.
*(cue the funky space music and put Carl in front of a screen of lots of stars, some universe CGI..)
"And there have been a beellionz stars that have come through her path - stars in various states of birth and death, and with each came a discovery - a begining to some, and end to others, and oh how brightly the heavens have shone. Well, time is a stretchy lycra-like fabric onto itself, and once stretched to its limit, it has a built in memory, and returns to its perfect state. And so this next 365 days will be filled with beellionz and beellionz of more stars and planets. Oh what a delightful celestial show we have to look forward to, it's a terrifically exciting thing..."
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources."
-- Carl Sagan.
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