I thought that the agenda for e-portfolio 3 was a rather interesting one. For once, we were allowed to go to SELF and review on an article or film that we liked. This comes as a rather pleasant suprise, since it breaks the monotony of mathematics and engineering-related topics we had been ploughing through for the past 3 months. There ought to be a sort of balance between work and rest, we often say- just as there ought to be a balance between the sciences, the arts, and our ethics.
Balance- How is it possible to balance contradictory doctrines to life and yet retain our integrity along the way? On one hand we are encouraged to be designers, innovators and entrepernuers for the improvement of humanity; on the other hand lies the risk of us getting carried away and losing our humanity in the process. After all, as we distinguish work from play, and personal identity from social norms, just as how we have divided physics from sociology, we find that it becomes increasingly difficult to re-unite them together into one coherent intuition called life.
Incidentally, there was a movie I had watched that speaks about the same lines. The movie was titled 'Equilibrium', and from the title we already roughly know where the director is coming from, and going to. Basically, Equilibrium speaks of a post apocalyptic civilization determined not to follow the footsteps of its predecessing civilizations. Realizing that the human emotion was responsible for man's inhumanity to man, that civilization decrees a doctrine of emotional ban and suppression.
In the movie we get to follow the journey of the protagonist, raised by 'logic', and slowly learning about the truth, beauty and goodness about human emotions via his frequent contact with the rebels. During the acquisition process he gets too emotional momentarily, and was depicted to be 'weak' and 'illogical'. However, what captured my attention was that towards the end of the movie, the protagonist finally manages to integrate both factual logic and intuitive emotions into a being far superior than both the government (of the civilization) and the rebels.
For me, the take-away for the day was the concept of 'integration'. Balance does not mean proportioning contrasting subjects into equal proportions and subsequently trying to live them all together at once. It does not constitute an hour of soulless studying, then another hour of mindless gaming immediately after-- such a lifestyle would be one of utter madness, no different from one of bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia. Rather, I believe that just as the movie had interpreted, and the agenda of 'e-portfolio 3' had implied: to 'integrate' both relaxation and work, just as logic and emotions, or even the self and the community, together as one.
...A possible integration such that this blog review itself does not merely become another English homework, but also as a form of personal expression and relaxation.
Of course, as what the title of this post states, such interpretations are no more than subjective whims. But in my opinion, and hopefully the opinion of the director of the movie 'Equilibrium', we can see that life is more than a singular goal-orientated drive to a certain success in a certain domain. But a rather a harmonious blend of what we conventionally call 'the opposites'. After all, it's a fact that beauty actually arises from unity and moderation, rather than from complexity and division.
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Equilibrium is a seriously underrated movie. I am aware that the plot was not the most original in the world of movies, but it really was the underlying themes that drew me to this work of genius.
ReplyDeleteI liked how the movie showed both the upside and downside of pure logic and emotions. Pure logic lets us evaluate situations objectively and determine the most efficient course of action without any emotional hampering. Then again, logical choices may be right choices but not “good” choices. For example, if it became the only logical course of action to sentence one’s wife to execution due to her criminal activities. Emotions too have their good and bad. Our feelings motivate us, they make us empathize and they allow us a deeper bond with out fellow humans. On the flipside, negative emotions like anger, fear, hate and sorrow all tend to have a physiological as well as psychological effect that would hamper our judgment and perception of situations. How often do we let our emotions get the better of us? Flaring emotions about racial differences led to race riots and cruel prejudice. How often to we justify some wrong action by saying “I felt it was right.”?
Now, I know that the film’s portrayal of the “good guy” rebels winning against the nazi-like “bad guy” ruling party might trick some people into believing that the film is trying to promote emotions over logic. This is not true as we are clearly shown the downside of depending too much on emotion. The rebels are depicted as a highly disorganized bunch, constantly squabbling amongst themselves. Preston himself started to hesitate in his work and in his fighting ability known as Gun Kata (which, by the way, is deeply rooted in the objective evaluation of a combat situation and calculating the most efficient method of dispatching all opponents through the use of firearms in the shortest time with minimal collateral damage.).
I believe that is the moral of the story is a full integration of both. It is only in embracing the good points of logical thinking and emotional awareness that we may truly excel. Like a seesaw, we can tip either way into logic or emotion but thanks to a firm fulcrum, we can always tip back the other way, back into equilibrium.
Dear Jelemsei Dejengski and Xamuel
ReplyDeleteIt's most refreshing to read your post and your comment, respectively. I am glad that you can reflect on integration and life through the prism of the film, Equilibrium. I hope this conscious process of reflection and evaluation will help you to realise your full potential as human beings and not just engineers or designers, whatever label you will wear in the future. FYS 16 Nov 09