in a way, in our contemporary world view, its easy to think that science has come to take the place of god. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will: this problems been around for a long time, since before aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Agustine, St Thomas Aquinas; these guys all worried about how we can be free is god already knows in advance everything you’re gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental phisycal laws. And these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world.now, these laws, because they’re so trustworthy, they enable incredible technilogical achievements. but look at yourself: we’re just phisycal systems too, right? we’re just complex arrangements of carbnon molecules…we’re mostly water. and either isn’t going to be an exception to these phisycal laws. So it starts to look like wether its god setting things up in advance and knowing everything you’re gonna do, or wether its these basic phisycal laws governing everything…Theres not alot of room left for freedom.
A thousand years is but an instant. There’s nothing new, nothing different. Same pattern, over and over. The same clouds, the 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. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult, the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible, knowing that 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 these emotional memories in your travel bag. I remember where I came from, and how I became a human, why I hung around. And now, my final departure schedule: this way out, escaping velocity, not just eternity, but infinity…
Are we sleep-walking through our waking state, or wake-walking through our dreams?
As the pattern becomes more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough
As the pattern becomes more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough.
Chimp: Our critique began as all critiques begin, with doubt. Doubt became our narrative. Ours was a quest for a new story: our own. And we grasped towards this new history driven by the suspicion that ordinary language couldn’t tell it. Our past appeared frozen in the distance, and our every gesture and accent signified the negation of the Old World, and the reach for a new one. The way we lived created a new situation, one of exuberance and friendship; That of a subversive micro-society in the heart of a society which ignored it. Art was not the goal, but the occasion and the method for locating our specific rhythm and varied possibilities of our time. The discovery of a true communication was what it was about, or at least the quest for such a communication: the adventure of finding it and losing it. We, the unappeased, the unaccepting, continued looking, filling in the silences with our own wishes, fears, and fantasies, driven forward by the fact that no matter how empty the world seemed, no matter how degraded and used up the world appeared to us, we knew that anything was still possible, and, given the right circumstances, a new world was just as likely as an old one. [Here, the projector displays: To begin again….from the beginning]
Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration, and I think this is where language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival; like, ‘water’ or ‘sabre-tooth tiger right behind you’– we came up with a sound for that. But what I think is really interesting is how we use the same symbols to communicate the abstract, intangible things that we’re experiencing. Like, what is frustration? Or what is anger, or love? When I say ‘love’, the sound comes out of my mouth and hits the other person’s ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain, through their memories of love–or lack of love–and they register what I am saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead. And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive can not be expressed; it’s unspeakable. And yet, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we have connected and we think we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And I think that feeling might be transceived, but I think it’s what we live for.
Do you ever feel that you’re observing the world you live in instead of participating in it?
Don’t miss the boat.
Dream is destiny.
Hey! Are you a dreamer?
Don’t see too many of you around lately.
Things have been tough lately for dreamers.
They say dreaming’s dead and no one does it anymore.
Its not dead, its just its been forgotten; removed from out language.
Nobody teaches it so no one knows it exists.
The dreamer is banished to obscurity.
I’m trying to change all that and I hope you are too
by dreaming everyday.
Dreaming with our hands, dreaming with our minds.
Our planet is facing the greatest problems it’s ever faced – ever.
So whatever you do don’t be bored.
This is absolutely the most exciting time you could have possibly hoped to be alive
And things are just starting.
I feel like my transport should be an extension of my personality… voila. And this… this is like my little window to the world, and every minute’s a different show. I may not understand it; I may not even necessarily agree with it, but i’ll tell you what, I accept it, and just sorta… glide along. the idea is to remain in a constant state of departure while always arriving… it’s like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now, you may get the 8-pak, or you may get the 16-pak, but it’s all in what you do what the crayons–the colors– that you’re given. Now don’t worry about coloring inside the lines or outside the lines… I say, color outside the lines! Color right off the page! Don’t box me in.
It seems like everyone is sleep-walking through their waking state or wake-walking through their dreams.
Let my own lack of a voice be heard
Now philip k dick is right about time, but he’s wrong about it being 50 AD. actually, there’s only one instant, and it’s right now, and it’s eternity. and it’s an instant in which God is posing a question. and that question is basically, you know, do you wanna be one with eternity, do you wanna be in heaven. and we’re all saying…no thank you, not just yet. and so time is just this constant saying no to God’s invitation. i mean, that’s what time is. and it’s no more 50 AD then it is 2001. you know, i mean it’s just this one instant. and that’s what we’re always in. and this is the narrative of everyone’s life. and that behind the phenomenal differences, there is but one story. and that’s the story of moving from the no to the yes. all of life is like…no thank you no thank you no thank you and then ultimately its like yes, i give in, yes i accept. yes, i embrace. i mean, that’s the journey, i mean everyone gets to be yes in the end, right?
On really romantic evenings of self I go salsa dancing with my confusion
Should our freedom be a matter of probablities? Just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like its worse. I’d rather be some gear in a big deterministic physical machine.
Super-profundo in the early eve of your day!
The ongoing WOW is happening right now!
The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And, once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence.
The self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone, he’s an outsider to the human community. He thinks to himself, ‘I must be insane.’ What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does, invested interest in considerable losses – catastrophes. These wars, famines, quakes and floods meet well defined needs. Man wants chaos. In fact, he’s gotta have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder – all this dread – we’re almost irresistably drawn to this orgyastic state they created out of death and destruction. It’s in all of us. We revel in it.
The trick…is to combain your waking rational abilities, with the infinite possibilities of your dreams.
The worst mistake you can make is to think you’re alive, when you’re really just asleep in life’s waiting room.
There is only one instant, and it is right now, and it is eternity.
This is my window to the world, and every minute is a different show.
Well I don’t know either, but its somewhere, and its gonna determine the course of the rest of your life.
What is like to be a character in a dream?
Where there is fire, we will bring gasoline.
Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?
You can’t fight city hall. Death and taxes. Don’t talk about politics or religion. This is all the equivalent of enemy propaganda rolling across the picket line. Lay down G.I.! Lay down G.I.! We saw it all through the 20th century, and now, in the 21st century, it’s time to stand up and realize that we should not allow ourselves to be crammed into this rat maze. We should not submit to de-humanization. I don’t know about you, but I’m concerned with what’s happening in this world. I’m concerned with the structure. I’m concerned with the systems of control: those that control my life, and those that seek to control it even more. I want freedom, that’s what I want! And that’s what you should want! It’s up to each and every one of us to turn loose and just suck up the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control; Make us feel pathetic, small, so we’ll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have got to realize that we’re being conditioned on a mass scale. Start challenging this corporate slave-state. The 21st century is going to be a new century, not the century of slavery, not the century of lies and issues of no significance, and classism and statism, and all the rest of the modes of control. It’s going to be the age of humankind standing up for something pure, and something right. What a bunch of garbage: liberal, democrat, conservative, republican. It’s all there to control you! Two sides of the same coin. Two management teams bidding for control, the CEO job, of Slavery Inc.! The truth is out there in front of you, but they lay out this buffet of lies. I’m sick of it and I’m not going to take a bite out of it, do you got me?! Resistance is not futile, we’re gonna win this thing, humankind is too good, we’re not a bunch of under-achievers! We’re gonna stand up, and we’re gonna be human beings. We’re going to get fired up about the real things, the things that matter: creativity and the d
You haven’t met yourself yet, but the advantage of meeting others in the meantime is that one of them may present you to yourself.
Your dream is only real while you’re still asleep…
But then can’t we say the same about life?
[After bumping into eachother in a stairwell]
Girl: Hey, can we do that again? I know we haven’t met but… I don’t want to be an ant, you know? I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another continuously on ant auto-pilot with nothing really human required of us: ‘Go.’ ‘Walk here.’ ‘Drive there.’– Basically for survival; all communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. ‘Here’s your change…’ ‘Paper or plastic?’ ‘Credit or debit?’ ‘Want ketchup with that?’ I DON’T want a straw! I want real human moments… I want to see you– I want you to see me. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to be an ant, you know?
Page Topic: Movie Quotes from ‘Waking Life’: Quotes from the movie ‘Waking Life’
