The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Monday, December 04, 2006

Monday and Deja Vu

I don’t know exactly why, (well, maybe I do, but I’m not ready to admit it yet) but I was motivated to write the following poem this weekend: 


I have walked in circles.
From black to white to black
From love to fear to love
From joy to struggle to joy.

I have fled from the responsibility of being who I am
I have blamed my father for not nurturing me
I have blamed my culture for not supporting me
I have looked everywhere outside myself for answers
All the while knowing this was the Great Lie.

I commit now.  I am ready.
The truth, the love, the strength, the joy I seek is within me.

Each day I will seek not “answers” but “truth.”
I will never ask of others the love and understanding I fail to nurture within  myself.

The door before me is open
Can I be honest and strong enough to walk through it,
Although it means the death of me?

Either I go to death,
Or death comes to me.

I choose to go. 
And in that choice, there is all the life, and love, and joy

I have sought for so long,
At such price.
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Hmmmm. 
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Saw "Deja Vu" a week and a half ago.  I really, really enjoyed it--Denzel gave his usual intense performance, even if he was being a :"star" rather than an "actor" here. 
The story deals with an ATF agent caught up in a terrorism investigation, who becomes aware of a secret government surveillance program.  This leads to all kinda twisty plot stuff, including a fairly standard time-travel story.  "Fairly standard."  Hah!  Having written this kind of project, I can tell you that there is nothing standard about it, and that no matter what you do, it won't quite make sense.  Why?  Because all of our logic patterns evolved within a linear time-stream.  If and when time travel is ever accomplished, IF you can go back into the past and, say, kill your own grandparents, I promise you that the result will be startling.  Either such changes aren't possible (my guess) or if they are, it will create an effect we haven't anticipated.  More to the point, it will create an effect which, if placed in a theatrical film or book or television show, will seem stupid and improbable and "illogical."  People, there will be nothing logical about it, until the entire reality map expands.  One must remember that logic is not reality--it is a set of representations to help us navigate reality, not "the thing" itself.  Anyway, I liked it, and give it a solid "B"
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