Our Bodies, Ourselves

So I’m reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and I got to thinking about the way the body can be regarded. You can see the body and its urges as natural and correct, go the “my body is a temple” route, and treat it with care and all that jazz. Alternatively, you can look at the body as something base and vile, something that must be fought and mastered.
The former idea makes logical sense. We’re here on Earth; we’ve only got one body so we should cherish it. In this way, we can hopefully live long and fulfilling — or, at the very least, pleasurable — lives. And since this way of thinking leads most to consider the body’s urges as natural, there is no shame attached to such things as sexual desire.
Now take the latter viewpoint, something Christianity has been largely based upon. The thought process here is that we are imperfect creatures who should strive for perfection, a higher order of being that is nonetheless shackled with animalistic desires that must be overcome.
Take the first idea to the extreme, and you get hedonism. You follow your body’s desires, your id. You eat what you want, when you want it. You fulfill your sexual desires with abandon and an utter lack of shame.
Take the second idea to the extreme, and you get asceticism. You deny your body’s urges because they distract you from your spiritual path. You eat little, or you eat bland foods. And you sure as hell don’t go to a rave, take a little ecstasy, and find yourself a one-night stand. That would be wrong.
I certainly understand the purpose of, and the desire for, a spiritual life. We should all strive to be better people, and having a god or spiritual/moral leader to emulate gives us something to shoot for. But human beings are inherently imperfect, so while I firmly believe that we should all try to be better today than we were yesterday, we should never try to be perfect. It’s an impossibility.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that we are spiritual beings and that the soul exists. If this is so, then why are we here in the physical world? Whether there is a Creator or not, surely our presence in the physical world means that we are meant to experience physical existence. Thus asceticism entirely misses the point. If there is a soul, then it lives on after death. This means we’ve got a bumload of time to experience a spiritual existence. So why not enjoy our body while we have it, rather than treating it like it’s something to be ashamed of, in some misguided attempt to reach a higher spiritual plane?
This does not, however, mean that we should eat, snort, and screw anything that comes within reach. If there is indeed an afterlife, then it is safe to assume that our actions in the physical world count for something. Rather than getting ourselves into eternal doo-doo, it seems smarter to enjoy our lives and our bodies, while at the same time conducting ourselves in a manner that is both responsible and considerate to others. So hedonism probably isn’t our best bet either.
This leads me to believe that, cliché as it sounds, the path of moderation is the wisest path. Sure, you can occasionally get trashed and have crazy monkey sex (preferably without the involvement of an actual monkey), just so long as you balance it with the knowledge that you should not devote your life to said activities. And by all means, go to Mass, Temple, or whatever it is you’re into, but keep in mind that, just like everybody else, you’re imperfect, and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Of course, you could always argue that we are not, in fact, spiritual beings, that we are purely physical and that once we die that’s it. You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir. Fair enough. If you take this view, then asceticism is the height of idiocy. Not much point in denying yourself pleasure if there’s no eternal pleasure to be rewarded with for doing so.
This might lead many to assume that hedonism is the way to go. I disagree. Atheism and morality are not mutually exclusive. The lack of an afterlife does not mean we should throw our morals to the wind; we should still strive to be good people. Thus, afterlife or not, devoting your life to snorting blow off a midget’s ass while screwing high-priced Dutch-Japanese hookers and eating handfuls of foie gras and powdered tiger wangs still means you’re a douche. You’re better than that, man.
So I guess that what I’m trying to say is this: our bodies and their urges are nothing to be ashamed of, and we do no harm by accommodating them at times. But spending too much time satisfying these urges is as much a folly as denying them.
Besides, you’ll go blind if you do it too much.

The Village

This was originally posted on September 12, 2008.

I just finished watching M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, and I've got to admit that I loved every second of it. I was struck by the implications of the plot twist, as well as by how horribly marketed it was.
Let's start with the latter point. I should probably start by mentioning the fact that, in general, I think the people in marketing and advertising fall somewhere in between prostitutes and Nazi soldiers in terms of moral fiber. They seem willing to do or say just about anything to get our money, and seem to feel no remorse when pulling a fast one on us. Not only that, but their apparent lack of humanity seems to make it hard to relate to actual humans.
This is especially true in movie advertising, where marketers seem to take special glee in revealing the best moments and surprises of a given film in the trailer. This is why I've stopped watching the trailers for movies I'm really looking forward to; they invariably ruin at least one special moment.
Amazingly enough, this was not the case with the trailers for The Village. Instead, those responsible for the trailers took another common route: completely misrepresenting the movie. I guess something about Shyamalan's movies just throws them off, because they did the same thing in the trailers for Lady of the Water. In both instances, the advertisers attempted to make each movie appear to be a horror movie. I guess they figured that since The Sixth Sense did so well, they'd try to fit these two square pegs into its round hole. As a result, people often left both movies disappointed, and why not? If you pay over $10 for a movie and it ends up being nothing like you expected, odds are you're going to be at least a little disappointed. Mediocre reviews and even worse box office earnings are the result.
At this point you're probably wondering what this has to do with anything. I suppose it is a bit tangential, but it irks me when a good movie (or anything else, for that matter) is underappreciated, at least in part, because the people in charge of marketing it didn't understand it. Then again, maybe I'm being too hard on these guys. For all I know, there's an IQ limit at marketing firms and they should actually be applauded for even being capable of using their computers for inter-office e-mails. Regardless, I encourage them to bone up on what they're advertising in order to represent it fairly.
And this movie definitely deserved to be represented correctly (and this is where you should stop reading if you care about spoilers; if you haven't seen the movie I highly suggest that you watch it first, because I'm about to ruin everything). Like all of Shyamalan's films, it has tremendous heart enveloped in a shroud of mystery and confusion. For much of the movie, you are constantly wondering, "What the heck is going on, exactly?" I love when a movie engages me in such a manner. I enjoy applying myself to what I've seen in the hopes of figuring out the mystery before the big reveal. Perhaps this stems from my childhood fascination with Scooby Doo, but I really couldn't say for sure.
Much like The Sixth Sense (and most of Shyamalan's other movies), The Village reveals its plot twist at the last possible moment. I wasn't even blown away by the fact that this little community was squirreled away in our modern world (I half expected it). What grabbed me were the ethical implications of starting a community cut off from the outside world.
As I'm sure you're all aware, this world of ours is a mess. It's probably not too hard to relate to these "Elders" who decided to forsake modernity for a simpler, more peaceful life. Hell, I've thought about it myself, and continue to do so on a fairly regular basis.
But instead of going Amish or moving to some secluded little town, these people created a community completely cut off from the rest of the world, even going so far, it seems, as to bribe someone to keep planes from flying overhead. Not only that, but the founders swore an oath to never return to the modern world, and created tales of horrible creatures who lived in the surrounding woods to discourage others from venturing too far.
And this is what truly fascinates me. Like I said before, I can relate to these people. The world can be a horrible place. But is it fair to deprive the ones you love of something so simple as choice in order to keep them safe? How far should we go to protect the ones we love?
There are surely people out there who will be able to answer these questions immediately. "Simple," they'll say. "It would certainly be wrong." And perhaps they're right. What these people have done, in a sense, is rob their children of their free will (or at least a large part of it). Perhaps their children should be educated about the outside world and be free to choose their own path.
But don't fool yourself into thinking that there's anything simple about the choice faced by the Elders. The funeral that begins the movie is proof of that. This man, played by Brendan Gleeson, believed so strongly in what they had created (and was so disillusioned by the outside world) that he refused to leave the village in order to obtain the medicine that may have saved his child's life.
Some may find the very concept monstrous, but there's also nobility in this choice. He put the needs of the community before those of himself and his family. This is practically an alien concept to those of us in the individualistic West, but I imagine that many Asians would understand.
Are the Elders wrong? Is it wrong to be so frightened by the state of our world that you'd risk the lives of those closest to you in order to avoid it? I honestly don't know. It is telling, however, that regardless of their isolation, they were unable to escape the demons of man. There will always be someone out there who is either immature or selfish enough to kill for what they want or believe that they deserve. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't expect or desire more from ourselves and others.