See Films Differently
For years now people, as a whole, have gotten more and more status quo. We stop thinking for ourselves; worry too much about the opinions of others; act in ways that would be appeasing to others. How rarely now we actually do things because WE think it's cool.
Every time you hear someone to act/think "outside the box" [ phrases.org.uk ] you are hearing societies admittance that as a society we are too often not ... too often acting/being/thinking along the status quo. Let us not forget the catch-22 here, however, act too much your own person and we get comments like "why can't you act like..." or "that's how it's always been done" [ jeff bridges ].
Tell me you don't remember television trying to make us all (or your kids all)want to be "like Mike" [ adverblog.com ]?
I should say, before I go any further, I love these sayings. It's taken me quite a long time to become my own person, as much as I can that is. As great an upbringing I have had, and as many opportunities as my parents gave me, there are two people in particular that I look at and say "they helped me realize to be myself": my cousin James and my college photo professor Sarud-din Shah ("Shah"). James taught this by example, often to the extreme, but I've never forgotten that example. Shah had a saying, I'm sure others have used it before him, "Do you"; he said it constantly, always with a warm, kind tone. It truely helped changehow I think and act now and to this day I use it myself.
Back to the reason for today's blog inspiration ... Volkswagen would like us to See Films Differently. Yes, the car manufacturer ... wants us to see Films differently. Over the random connection? Actually it makes quite a bit of sense: they support independent films and filmmakers (6 years running); independent films, albeit becoming the "in" thing over the past decade or so, are not status quo; Volkswagen gets people like me to think of their name when thinking of not status quo because of their support of the "not" status quo. It's rather convoluted and if I had a flow chart it would wrap back and forth again and again ... but you get the picture.
Check out the videos, they are fantastic and, while they aren't necessarily how I feel about these movies, they give us reason to think ...
Allow me to onclude by placing my opinion on the broader topic: BE YOURSELF, DO YOU, THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, DON'T BE A LEMMING! Whatever phrase you prefer ... Just Do It! [ CFAR ]