Just an amethyst night

marchangela:

I remember last weekend, I promised myself that I would stay home as much as I can this week since I’ve pretty much gone out almost every day for the past two weeks.

LOL, I ate my words and they are yummy. :P

Saw this film today with my bestfriend.  We were planning to see this war film, Green Zone, but there were some technical difficulties going on.  So we just opted for this film instead.  We both thought it was going to be boring.  It had less action than we wanted/expected but the political philosophies behind it pretty much were satisfactory.

It was directed by the ever-controversial Roman Polanski.  And not surprisingly, the film pretty much put the UK-US government relationship in question.  It was really interesting.  It’s been awhile since I’ve watched a film like this.

What interested me the most, however, was the idea of writing inculcated throughout the film.  The title itself already brings up that this is a film about writing and writers.  The memoir, being the central image of the film, reminds me of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast.”  Both the film and Hemingway question the authenticity of written history.  How much of the “facts” stay as facts and how much details get edited.

My favourite parts of the film would be the times when the ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) would literally convert Adam Lang’s (Pierce Brosnan) boring words into a more romantic and impressive prose - which ends up in the mouths of the media and what the citizens hear.  Those moments are the ones that speak out to me the most.  It’s amazing - and somewhat disturbing - that the words that the citizens end up hearing are the words carefully edited by some hidden brilliant writer under the guise and face of a political leader.  When I was studying Hemingway, this “editing facts” did not really bother me as much since the memoir was only about one person.  How much harm could it impose?  BUT if the practice of editing and rewording facts is put into a bigger picture, say history, who then can we trust?  Which words should we take wholeheartedly and which ones should we be wary of accepting?

Which leads me back to a more personal level: It makes me think that whenever we - whoever keeps a public blog/page like this one - write something for the others to see and interpret and whatever they may want to do with it, how much of our thoughts get edited along the way?  Knowing that we are putting ourselves under the scrutiny of others (whether you have five or five hundred followers), do we consciously or unconsciously edit information that may otherwise make us look boring in a page or a computer screen?  I, myself, am guilty of proofreading and editing my words before I press “create post.”  It has become a habit.  Maybe some can argue that when people blog they choose information that they think people may want to know and find interesting.  It’s true.  We don’t blog 24/7 and we don’t share every single bit of information out here (hmm, maybe some bloggers do in which case I digress).  

I guess what I really want to conclude out of this blabber is that we have to keep in mind that whatever anyone, whether you’re a politician or a simple blogger, puts out there for public consumption is only a part of what they (or we) consider interesting about their lives and thoughts.  Sometimes we take this information for granted and judge the country, the political leader, the person based on what history has written about them.  We either completely fall into blind admiration or blind hatred towards that person.  I’m not saying that we start doubting every single thing that we read or hear.  But perhaps, we should just keep in mind that any person is much more than the words that they write or what was written about them.  We should take each person as he/she is.  Admire or doubt moderately.  They say that words are the probably the only thing that makes humans unique from every creature.  So enjoy what we read or hear keeping a reasonable distance - which will give yourself a good space to think for yourself and know that a person is not just all a prime minister, a musician, or a fan. The parts of ourselves we don’t normally share in public are also what make us complex and therefore genuinely interesting individuals.