Observing entropy - #23 Waking Life "Paradox"
Source An example of Entropy: (Light Waves through a Prism)
Either I'm moving fast, or time is.
Never both simultaneously.
It's such a strange paradox.
I'm closer to the end of my life
than I've ever been...
...but I feel more than ever that
I have all the time in the world.
When I was younger,
there was a need for...
...certainty. I had to get
to the end of the path.
I remember thinking:
Someday, in my mid-30s maybe...
...everything's going to somehow
gel and settle.
- Mm-hm.
- Just end.
It was like there was a plateau...
...waiting for me. I was climbing up.
When I got to the top...
...all growth and change would stop.
- Even exhilaration.
- Oh.
But it hasn't happened,
thank goodness.
In our youth, we don't take into
account our curiosity.
That's what's great about being human.
Yeah. You know what Benedict Anderson
says about identity?
- No.
- He talks about, say, a baby picture.
You pick up this two-dimensional image
and say, "That's me."
To connect this baby in this weird
image with yourself in the present...
...you have to make up a story.
"This is me when I was a year old.
Later, I had long hair...
...and then we moved to Riverdale,
and here I am."
So it takes a story
that's actually a fiction...
...to make you and the baby identical.
- To create your identity.
- The funny thing is...
...our cells completely
regenerate every seven years.
We've been several different people.
And yet, we always remain
quintessentially ourselves.
Our critique began as all critiques
begin, with doubt.
Doubt became our narrative.
Ours was a quest for
a new story, our own.
We grasped for this new history,
driven by suspicion...
...that ordinary language
couldn't tell it.
Our past appeared frozen in the
distance, and our every gesture...
...signified negation of the old
world and the reach for a new one.
How we lived created a new situation
of exuberance and friendship.
A subversive micro-society
in the heart of an ignoring society.
Art was not the goal, but the occasion
and method for locating our rhythm...
...and buried possibilities
of our time.
It was about the true discovery of
communication. Or the quest for such.
Finding and losing it.
We, the unappeased,
continued looking...
...filling silences with
wishes, fears, fantasies.
Driven on by the fact that no matter
how empty the world seemed...
...no matter how
degraded and used-up...
...anything was possible.
Given the right circumstances...
...a new world was just
as likely as an old one.