Ideas

I walked to work today, which takes me 30-35 minutes depending (today it depended on the WIND! took me 10 minutes just to go the last 3 blocks the wind was so strong!)

anyway that's a lot of time to think, and for some reason today I was thinking about some of my favorite movies. I realized that 3 of my all time favorite movies have a very strong common theme. The movies are (in no particular order) V For Vendetta, The Dancer Upstairs, and Stranger Than Fiction. The common theme is this: Ideas can be more powerful than even the people who thought them. This is a desire for my life- to have ideas that are bigger than me. Here are the ways this theme plays out in each of these movies (in case for some reason you GASP! haven't seen them!!)

V for Vendetta- The Ideas V lives and dies for are powerful ones, so much so that people put on the mask and overthrow the government, even though V is dead by that point. V also talks quite eloquently about the power of ideas.

The Dancer Upstairs- One man's ideas about government turn into a grass-roots revolution to which he is only very loosely connected. He has an alias ("Ezekiel") but most people have no idea who "Ezekiel" is, saying things like "he is the wind in the trees" "he is every tick of every clock" or something like that. In the end... well, I won't give away the end. GO RENT IT! I can let you borrow it if you want (might not find it at blockbuster...)

Stranger Than Fiction- Karen Eiffel is an author, and her ideas have power over the life of Harold Crick. The theme is much more of a metaphor in this movie, whereas the other two are more overt (talking about revolution and power) but it's there, and it's great.