relevintage: Why Hicks?

I hope that America voted Taylor its fifth American Idol because ‘America’ is interested in substance. [Taylor still has to show that the breadth of his career will be of substance…]
And what do I mean by substance? Think Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Duncan Sheik.
It’s no mystery that Top 40 radio is littered with urban sexual innuendo, sell-out emo, vanilla adult alternative, or schmaltzy pop. This music has no ability to stand the test of time. In my opinion, we will not be appreciating much of what is on radio right now in another fifty years.

Last Day in Vietnam by Will Eisner

God bless short Fridays! I spent my first one running errands, seeing a movie, and going shopping. My first short Friday movie (of many planned ones) this year was District B13. This is a French movie that takes place in Paris, 2010. The ghetto got bad, so the government built walls around it, and crime ran free within those walls. The walled off ghetto is called District B13.

So there's a drug lord, and a young guy named Leito who seems to be his nemesis. The plot eventually leads Leito to have to help a cop named Damien (who fights similarly to Leito) invade B13 because the drug lord has an activated clean bomb that will go off in 24 hours. With their two fighting styles combined, it's fun to watch.

Jonathan was already able to link to this clip on the bulletin boards. This is, to me, the best action sequence of the movie, which is a shame since it happens in the very beginning of the movie. Even so, the movie has plenty of cool moves. Our introduction to Damien's style of crimefighting is pretty cool. Plus I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing guys take on oncoming cars and simply jump up and run over them.

Scripted by Luc Besson, the movie is full of the usual plotlines and characters. I don't think he tried all that hard to be original, but it's still a lot of fun to watch because of the two lead characters. Do you have to see it on the big screen? Not necessarily - but seeing it on the big screen makes it easier to see everything that's going on. I would rate it somewhere along the lines of the first Transporter movie: it's got its cheesy moments, but the action elements make it worth your while.

Recently we watched the movie "Proof," which is about the daughter of a famous mathematician who does math and falls in love, each with extreme dysfunction. The father, who is certifiably crazy, pushes his daughter to stop being lazy and work on her math. He asks her how many days she has lost. By this he means, how far behind have you now fallen since you last worked on a proof?

This pretty accurately describes how I feel.

It's strange having a deeply ingrained belief that you were meant to do something important with your life. I see how this could be helpful, but at the same time I can tell you that it can be a hindrance. The problem is that if you are supposed to do something important, then you can't waste time with lesser endeavors. But since there's really no way to tell exactly what it is that you are supposed to do, you end up doing nothing--not even the lesser endeavors. If you don't know beforehand the path you are to take, then any path might be the wrong one.

I know I've written something exactly like this before, but since I don't remember where and can't find it, I am writing it again. Actually, this is a constant problem, so maybe that's why it seems so familiar.

The problem is that all the days you're not consciously working toward your calling are those lost days that add up for crazy dads to use in tormenting you. And the fear of lost days keeps you from picking a direction and running, which means you don't get anywhere until you find a burning bush. So far I have not--well, at least not one that talks to me, though I continue to set them ablaze in the hope that I may induce the experience.

As freedoms go, feeling like you could do anything can be the most debilitating.

My real quest is for meaning. I want my life to mean something, for me to mean something. I want to have substance and to be grounded; I want my life to matter. This is why I read Ecclesiastes, because apparently everything is meaningless. Here's a nice passage from the end of chapter six:

"Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there's no use arguing with God about your destiny."

Okay, so this is great news for me. I don't need to be the one to choose my destiny. I just need to let God decide it--or better yet, realize that I am on a course that is already marked out for me and I can just put on the autopilot and not worry anymore. There is comfort in knowing that I am hemmed in. After all, a hug can be constricting, but who doesn't want to be hugged?

"The more words you speak, the less they mean. So why overdo it?"

For someone who feels gifted to teach, write, and speak, this is not as encouraging. I don't think I'll be putting this quote above my computer to help with writer's block.

"In the few days of our empty lives, who knows how our days can best be spent? And who can tell what will happen in the future after we are gone?"

The whole "empty lives" part notwithstanding, I do actually like this verse very much. Part of standing here numb and motionless, transfixed by some vauge notions of meaning and significance, is a constant weighing of options. Which one will be the better option? Which is the faster track to meaning and finding my calling? Part of the curse of being educated is that you come to belive that knowledge matters, and that there is a solution to every problem, if only you have the ability and determination to find it. So I am Foghorn Leghorn's little nephew, who can do nothing before he sits down to sketch out trajectories and determine beforehand the best path to success.

The problem is that this doen't work at all. If you were paying attention in chapter one, you will have noticed this little gem: "To increase knowledge only increases sorrow." I don't remember that one being carved into the facade of any building on my college campus. If I had known about it earlier, I could have spun flunking out as some noble kind of prophetic dissent.

There is no calculation for determining significance. There is no way to guarantee that I will find it--that one most important thing I could possibly do with my life. But the risk of missing it is certainly aided by my inactivity--those days I've lost.

"Life's too short," you know, to dance with ugly dudes or date fat chicks or whatever those key chains say. Death is the great obstacle to meaning, says the teacher. Everything is meaningless because everyone dies--the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the oppressed.

In the back of my mind there's a steady, irreversible tick-tock reminding me that all at once my failure will spring upon me and then settle in forever. I think this might be part of the fear of death that the preacher speaks about in Hebrews 2. It's the voice of the Slanderer touting his trump card, from whom the dying Jesus wills to deliver us.

The teacher in Ecclesiastes shows us the meaninglessness of a life that ends in death, then Jesus comes to show us another way. Those who want to save their life will lose it, he affirms. But what about those who don't live a frenzied life in fear of death? Only the cruciform life, which begins at the cross and bursts out of the tomb, can escape from a world that by all accounts--from religious to scientific--is headed toward death.

If I lose my life for his sake, I will find it. If I die first, and not finally, then the possibility of finding meaning remains.