Alien.
Yes, it’s one of my favourite movies, but I’m referring more to the xenophobic aspects, unrelated to anything political. I’m just referring to a girl that grew up with this feeling of not belonging to a place. Thinking about it doesn’t mean it’s worth talking about it. The past is nothing worth remembering, but it is the main reason for my struggle to believe in indeterminism. My whole existential ideal seems to be falling apart right now. I’d built it about 15 years ago, and it’s gone, just like that.
What has ever been my choice, anyway? Every choice I make, every action I take, results from past influences, and it’s beyond my control to act otherwise–without the influence. We are made in a way that we want to atone, untie knots and fix what’s broken. And our decision to fix it is ultimately the result of determinism.
How much can you really trust that gut feeling that is related to your instincts? Animals don’t question that; they’re unaware of how tormenting it is to ask questions to which there are no answers. And yet, we seem to be killing ourselves with these questions. (One exception: Refer to the suicide pig in Graham Greene’s “A Shocking Accident.”)
My entire picture of existentialism is crumbling away as if I’ve only just grown up to understand that my existential beliefs have only existed in fiction and nowhere else; not in reality and not in my dreams either, because my subconscious won’t let me. If my choices are pre-determined by actions and events beyond my control, then life is all about coming to terms with the law of nature. Yes, I am naming something that we can’t control. Control, in the greater sense, is just as illusory as free will. But in fiction…?
They are just lies that help us venture into new things to pursue. Otherwise, what else is there to do? In the absurdist’s perspective, suicide is ok; it’s ok to surrender, but why if you can decide what to live for? I have things to do, this much I know…
So, this alien child thought it had found a new belief, which was merely autosuggestion unconsciously employed to make sense of things. But if that’s the only way to make sense of things, then why not? Like Leonard, you close your eyes and continue driving. Everything will be the same. Maybe you will forget that you’re living a lie.
So almost fifteen years later, the alien child opens its eyes to the world again. And nothing has changed, except for its perception. That perception, however, sums up the whole process of growing older. Believing that you’re “doomed to be free” is no longer valid, not after being so responsible for this great number of decisions made until now and all the events that have influenced you without you being in control of them.
Existentialism.
You will be my inspiration and playmate in the white sea.
Always. That way, I can pretend I’m God while I’m only a spectator, a voyeur, a narrator. Unreliable. Selfish.
The alien kid no longer wants to belong.
