Suspend Your Disbelief

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallable god. - Jorge Luis Borges

It is irrelevant to the universe what we do overall, but it is of the utmost relevance for us. Religion and laws and the concepts of right and wrong are completely constructed by our human mentalities, but they have been improved with time to better suit our small tightly packed part of the galaxy. - Gene

Most people don't ever see anyone die. It used to be if you grew up in a family you saw everybody die. They died in their bed at home with everyone gathered around. Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us. It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd. - Cormac McCarthy

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Clearly, I play people who are smarter and braver than I am. But the truth is, when I watch movies, I look and see how I wished I'd behaved in a critical situation. That's why westerns are so special to me. Back then, people didn't have anybody to arbitrate their problems - you got by on your wit, wisdom and toughness. Movies have always been that for me - a learning experience. - Kevin Costner

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I have always been plagued with a sense that life is meaningless. Of course, growing up as a kid in the midwest no one ever said to me, "You know, MJ, great philosophers throughout the ages have wrestled with the issues with which you struggle. Here. Read these books." No. Dolly would wring her hands, recede, tell me to cheer up. Stop being so philosophical. Go out with your friends! So, with legions of other teenage alcoholics, I would head out for days and nights of debauchery, searches for meaning, forming of tribes, a quest for connections.

Without realizing it, Dolly was teaching me to suspend my disbelief, just like we do when we watch movies. No questioning allowed, no critique of the industry or how it promoted the status quo, no talk of camera angles, who held the camera, who told the story, how different characters (race, class, gender) were represented, no analyzing. Because that would ruin the story.

But what about life? What if you can't suspend your disbelief about life? What if you realize that there is someone directing the story and the character you are playing is called "Useful"?

Useful does not think about whether or not life is meaningful. Useful is unselfish but always makes sure she is needed. Useful, in fact, is always looking for ways to make herself more useful. She knows the script. She knows the story. If she is old, she may be thrown away. If she is weak, her life is in danger. If she has a lapse, a break of character, she may be "let go".

After all, didn't Kevin Costner recently get himself a new young wife? Who else? Thousands of older men. And thousands of new young wives are thrilled with their new acting job of trophy wife. It pays well. (Now is where, in the storyline, I must reveal, subtly and artfully, that I sometimes hate men.) And actresses who were once desired are now useless. Replaced with those who can still suspend their disbelief, who produce eggs, who copy the poses of supermodels in magazines who teach them to mimic sexual positions, to create bedroom eyes with Maybelline, to attract men. Men who have things. Isn't it all biology after all? I remember being horrified in fifth grade watching a film of determined sperm, hundreds of them, swimming like salmon upstream. That is life.

I have realized, in the past couple of days, that if I were living in another time, in a nomadic tribe, that I quite possibly would be dead by now. I am having trouble walking and am lying low. I wait to see if this sickness will pass, and face the realization that perhaps I am no longer useful to my tribe. I search my video collection for movies that may teach me how to play this scene realistically.