Inception

[blackmirror]

I'm waxing philosophical today, and riding a tremendous wave; so please be warned – not so much regarding Inception spoilers, but the following post may contain spoilers that unleash the mysteries of the universe...

♪ A man has dreams of walking with giants
To carve his name in the edifice of time ♪

For the daunting, elaborate purpose of establishing this as Xixax's premiere thread of all things meta, while not abandoning the concepts fostered within Inception's realm, we shall proceed.  It is decade two of century 21, and everything of the past ten years shall now be forgone – utterly reverential – as we move forward along the space-time continuum that reclaims its elements, taking you away bit by bit.  And how I must rhapsodize how fast you folks catch on!  I read with wonderment as I happened upon pete's Scrooge McDuck post, followed by Mr. P's analysis (perhaps that ties into the lucid lyrics introducing this post).  Essentially this post is about storytelling, and the place our minds go to create the tales that entertain.  I'll demonstrate as I tap into a neuron tucked deep within my imagination (Imagination, imagination, imagination! It sustains, it alters, it redeems!):

You can see a spray of billions of stars across the heavens each night, and think nothing of their wonder.  You can sit on the beach before an ocean stretched out to the razor edge of the horizon, and be more concerned with the sand that has gotten between your ham on rye than with the majesty of the seas. It is human nature to take the most magical of worlds for granted, turning each one into black canvas passing upon the chance to paint the lives of those who would live there.

Now let's return to this thread, as we resume its evolution.  Indeed the illumination is transpiring.  In Saul Bellow's 1964 novel, Herzog, he proclaimed the main enterprise of the world, for splendor, is that every man should be open to ecstasy or a divine illumination.  And here we are 46 years later.  Something is catching up, or maybe beamed into our consciousness from afar.  Mr. Bellow tells us, "It may interest you to know that in the twentieth century random association is believed to yield up the deepest secret of the psyche."  Enter Stephen King.  Mr. King is one who believes that everything in this world, not just the people, but our books, stories, ideas, etc., are interconnected and cogent to a higher manifestation.  Everything imagined or created by the human mind exists, existed, or will exist somewhere in the universe. The point is that the story never ends and all stories are connected because they come from the same matter that makes up writing mechanisms. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, he called it the "star stuff" between our ears.  So did Mr. Nolan borrow from Mr. Rosa?  Until Mr. Nolan addresses it, we will never know – and I doubt we ever will.  However, the enlightenment gained from the striking comparisons soundly confirm the ideas of Mr. King and Mr. Sagan that our creativity originates within the confines of an ever-expanding dimension.  Even Mr. Bellow notes, "Think! Demographers estimate that at least half of all the human beings ever born are alive now, in this century.  What a moment for the human soul!" He explains that once upon a time that the earth and the planets were sucked from the sun by a passing star.  And in those worlds life appeared, and within that life such as we – souls.  Yet, right now is when living souls have been most abundant.  (Just imagine the amount of dreams produced from this populace!)  Mr. Bellow declares we live in a post-quixotic, post-Copernican world, where a mind freely poised in space might discover relationships utterly unsuspected by a 16^th century man (Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God) sealed in his smaller universe.  There lay man's 21^st century advantage.  Only in nine tenths of his existence he was exactly what others were before him. The other tenth is absolutely modern, with one foot into the future.  Our planet has billions of passengers on it, and those were preceded by infinite billions and there are vaster billions to come.  It's also worth noting that 20^th Century physicist and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, solidified Mr. Bellow's view in his book The Future of Man where the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of complexity and consciousness.  The maximum level of its transcendence is the Omega Point.

"The more complex a being is, so our Scale of Complexity tells us, the more it is centered upon itself and therefore the more aware does it become. In other words, the higher the degree of complexity in a living creature, the higher its consciousness; and vice versa. The two properties vary in parallel and simultaneously. If we depict them in diagrammatic form, they are equivalent and interchangeable."
 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, p. 111

I believe Mr. Nolan is constituting these ideas of complexity and progressive consciousness within Inception, yet in reverse, as his characters descend into subconsciousness kick after kick rather than transcend into autonomous space and time.  And so, I refer back to Mr. King whom ventures into the astral, endeavoring to bridge the gaps that allow our minds to jump time, and tap into the "star stuff", perhaps paving the way to the Omega Point.  He shares insightful glances into the realm of the subconscious in his book On Writing . . .

So let's assume that you're in your favorite receiving place just as I am in the place where I do my best transmitting. We'll have to perform our mentalist routine not just over distance but over time as well, yet that presents no real problem; if we can still read Dickens, Shakespeare, and (with the help of a footnote or two) Herodotus, I think we can manage the time gap. And here we go -- actual telepathy in action. You'll notice I have nothing up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, most likely, do yours.

Look -- here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.

Do we see the same thing? We'd have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth that is turkey red, some will see one that's scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To colorblind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome -- my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out.

The most interesting thing here isn't even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It's an eight. This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room...except we are together.

We're close.

We're having a meeting of the minds.

I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We've engaged in an act of telepathy. Not mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy. I'm not going to belabor the point, but before we go any further you have to understand that I'm not trying to be cute; there is a point to be made.

###

I would even challenge Mr. King's depiction between telepathy and writing as limited, and refer him to Upton Sinclair's personal research on the subject in his book Mental Radio that details his wife's documented psychic abilities.  It is a fascinating read, especially given Albert Einstein's recognition of the unthinkable's prevalence, as he writes in the preface of the book.  Nonetheless, Mr. King tells us there is a point to be made, and that point is that the stream always continues and connects us to a larger, shared, unseen existence.  Enter Christopher Nolan.  The magnitude of Inception captures the space and time our modern world spins.

And it captures the imagination. Quoting Mr. Bellow once more, "the career of our specie is evidence that one imagination after another grows literal. All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically: imagination.  It is a force of nature.  It is enough to make a person full of ecstasy."  I predict Mr. Nolan's film (along with the collection of his films this past decade) will bridge a general philosophical gap between the 20^th and 21^st Centuries regarding our present human condition of existence and its course into the future. If so, I believe Mssrs. Bellow and Teilhard de Chardin would applaud Mr. Nolan's talent of proving the human intellect as one of the great forces of the universe, as well as raising the modern collective consciousness.  Mr. Bellow claims that intellect cannot safely remain unused -- the boredom of so many human arrangements has the historical aim of freeing the intellect of newer generations, sending them into science.  But a terrible loneliness throughout life is simply the plankton on which the Leviathan feeds.  The soul requires intensity. Mr. Nolan does indeed passionately inject intense, thoughtful ideas into his films, eradicating boredom, and has shaped a post-modern trajectory into the new decade. With Inception, he takes it a step further and weaves our psyches into the telepathic territory of dreams – layer upon layer.  Most important is that his films represent a notion of the mystical¹, that all stories/characters/experiences are connected to the larger sphere, generating from that one true source -- the "star stuff".  This is how I account for the viral breakout calling attention to the overlaps and similarities of Inception to Shutter Island, The Matrix, Alice in Wonderland, the Edith Piaf soundtrack sample (as well as the real world within fantasy world fusion of Mal's Marion Cotillard's Academy Award winning performance as Ms. Piaf), and now Scrooge McDuck – which takes on a deeper context when considering Mr. Rosa's history reflected upon the character of Scrooge McDuck and his Inception-style capers.  This list will continue to grow authenticating the whim that the creative realm knows no bounds – it is infinite with endless possibilities taking on forms both curious and mysterious.  As I conclude, I realize not much was discussed regarding the plotline of Inception.  Rather, it was commentary to shed light on the greater realm of storytelling and Mr. Nolan's films' fit within a metaphysical plane.  I believe there is interconnection, in all its mysteriousness.  And I believe it is going to appear more frequent and rampant as this century progresses.  Call it déjà vu, telepathy, precognition, tapping the unknown, our transfiguration towards the Omega Point, whatever, I believe it exists, and Inception certainly qualifies as an example of this phenomenon.  My intent behind this post was to approach the discussion of this movie from another angle, which I hope I have achieved and have provided new meaning.  If not (I apologize) and if it fried your brain (I doubly apologize), as its nearly done to mine, you can join me for a drink (virtually, subconsciously, telepathically – whatever floats your boat) as I dwell on my selections for my next Xixax mixtape exchange submission which I am tentatively entitling "Cloud Cuckoo Land".

♪ and this all feels like spinning plates ♪

¹Not the "Mythy-Mountain shit" kind of mysticism that Mr. King alludes, but the kind which attests that within the labyrinth of our inner mind rests the answers to the universe.

[edison]

tl;dr

[Pubrick]

yes! finally i get to use this..

hey pubrick blackmirror george clooney, maybe stop posting your personal thoughts.

[Pas]

I hereby nominate blackmirror as newb of the year.

What a post!

[Pozer]

yes! finally i get to use this..

hey pubrick blackmirror george clooney, maybe stop posting your personal thoughts.

and now blackmirror shukes himself

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Let's not overlook how nicely presented the post is, though.

[blackmirror]

♪ Before the mortar of his zeal, has a chance to congeal
The cup is dashed from his lips
The flame is snuffed aborning
He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime ♪

[Stefen]

I love looking at blackmirrors posts!

[JG]

Saul Bellow would not like Inception.

[Pozer]

[Gamblour.]

Haha that is a pretty big plot hole.

[Stefen]

Mike Cane!

[polkablues]

Michael "Mondo" Cane, we used to call him back in Camberwell. What a tosser.

[Robyn]

[Stefen]

It's like the Shawshank Redemption when you wonder how he put the poster back up after he escaped.

EDIT: Next page? Seriously? Come on.