Every aspect in a person’s life can be controlled. We may be given certain advantages or disadvantages to start out, but if we learn to recognize our opportunities and to make decisions, then we can mold our lives the way we choose. In the film, the main character learns that waking life and the dream world are interchangeable. Everyone can make his or her own choices. All they have to do is recognize that that choice is given to them at all times. In the dream world, we can gain this awareness by checking the time or switching a light (as the man in the house of oneironauts said). In Victor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, he realized that even though he had been placed in very unusual circumstances, he could still control whether or not he would survive through several techniques that he managed to figure out. By reminding himself that he still had control, Frankl was able to find little things to motivate him. These motivations included his wife, his work, his home, and those around him. He realized that his life wasn’t just a film that he could sit back and watch; he had to make his own moves. At the beginning of the film, when the main character gets a ride from the man with the boat car, the driver says, “you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now, you may get the 8-pack, you may get the 16-pack. But it’s all in what you do with the crayons, the colors that you’re given”. Human beings have choices, no matter what situation they are put in. The message of the film is that it is just as easy to learn how to control one’s own life as it is to learn how to control one’s own dream. All it takes is some thought.
How and why does one search for meaning? This question was answered by the man leaving the gas station near the end of the film: “As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough”. The most interesting scene in the film regarding this question, however, is the scene with the disappearing boy on the rooftop. He describes how we begin to search for meaning when we feel the emptiness that comes when we repeat our selves infinitely. The boy says, “A thousand years is but an instant. There is nothing new, nothing different. Same pattern over and over. The same clouds, same music, the same as I felt an hour or an eternity ago. There’s nothing here for me now, nothing at all. Now I remember, this happened to me before, this is why I left”. As we go through life doing what everyone else has done and repeating ourselves endlessly, we find that to continue, we must either find a reason to continue what we are doing, or we must change. And the only way one can change is if he knows what he wants because it is the only way he can choose a new path or way of life. Therefore, we search for meaning the moment we realize that we are reiterating ourselves infinitely. The boy also states that to escape infinity, one must “exercise [his] mind as fully as possible knowing it is only an exercise Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, feel the joy and sorrow, the laughter, the empathy, compassion, and tuck the emotional memory in [his] travel bag”. Therefore, according to the boy, one finds meaning through creation, interaction, reaction, and so forth.
What is the function of art in life? Perhaps key interview would be with Kim Krizan, the blond woman who spoke about language and the origins of speech. She explains how human beings developed words out of necessity, “but when it gets really interesting is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing”. She asks how one can describe love, frustration, or anger. If we use these terms in conversation, how do we know the other person follows the same definition of the word as us? How do we even know that we truly understand its definition? These feelings cannot be described with words. They must be shown directly. Art primarily can achieve this. Through craftsmanship, music, literature, film, and others, we can get as close to sharing a feeling as humanly possible. Through a song, the artist can convey feelings of happiness, remorse, jealousy, or an infinite of other feelings to another person. It is essentially the only way to know that a person follows the same understanding of a feeling as everyone else. Therefore, art is the best way to achieve an understanding of something that one person has learned and would like to share with the world. Sharing knowledge and enlightenment is a necessary factor of life, because if we were unable to communicate and share knowledge, we would not survive. It is equally important that we use art to help each other understand the meaning or multiple meanings of life.
What are the challenges of living an ethical life? Society is the biggest road block. We let ourselves be run by society because it is built to excuse our mistakes. It makes us evil, yet it makes us believe that it has forgiven us of our sins. The burning man said, “Society has, just as man does, a vested interest in considerable losses, in catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods, and quakes meet well defined needs”. To live a completely ethical life, one must separate himself from society. He must completely rid himself of “the powers that be want us to be passive observers”. At this point in history, we are evil only by doing what society tells us to do. That is the easier task, but being a “puppet” makes you meaningless. It is far more difficult to act against society, but it makes us truly free. It is the only way to live righteously.
Searching for meaning through literature can be either boring or very rewarding. It all depends on the attitude of the reader. In the film, it was emphasized that awareness is the greatest necessity in life; awareness that the human mind has no boundaries and no fences to cage it in. It does not matter what the author intended the reader to catch or what message he or she tried to convey. A reader can take literature as deeply as he or she wishes. We cannot be “passive observers”. We must be interactive with the people around us. Although we search for meaning through literature, we also search within ourselves; because that is the only place we will ever have a chance of finding it. In your dreams, you often come up with plans, ideas, or even certain factual data that you had never thought of before. In our dreaming state, our minds are completely open and perceptive of everything. We are able to see deep inside of our own subconscious and see things we could not see during our waking life. Thus, the meaning that we are searching for is already in our brain. All we need is a switch enabling us to be aware.
