"The only difference between us and these robots is, we desperately look for meaning in everything that happens to us, because many of us are too afraid to submit to the possibility that we are nothing more than just another variable in a reality that we will never fully understand." -Omar from the article "Everything Happens for a Reason"
This is the essence of postmodern thought right here: What if everything that happens is mere coincidence, or lacks the meaning we so seek to place on it? Things have meaning because and only because humans who live and breathe attribute meaning to them.
Words and paper and chairs and color are not in and of themselves, in their very essences meaningful-it is the outside source or user that brings some sort of meaning to them. I'm not a nihilist, I promise; I'm just explaining.
This idea is conceptualized in the television show Lost. The writers interconnected characters, named characters after famous philosophers, created paradoxes within the story, and caused insane coincidences to occur throughout. Each viewer wanted this show to mean something higher than themselves; they wanted a grander picture. Yet in the end it was simply about the characters themselves, living and coming to their ultimate, inevitable death. Their experiences with each other and love for one another was all that, in the end, really mattered. Most of the plot lines resolved to mean, really, nothing.
I really appreciated the article "Everything Happens for a Reason", by Omar. It makes me realize even more what a postmodern thinker I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment