Gamle tankeeksperimenter: The Cinema

Før jeg begyndte at skrive for Gamereactor, skrev jeg på alle mulige faconer. På engelsk, på dansk, om spil og alle mulige dybsindigheder, ja i virkeligheden alt hvad der faldt mig ind. Nogen gange interviewede jeg en ven, andre gange var jeg ked af det, og ønskede at beskrive det jeg følte. Det skrevne ord har altid være en udvej, og nu hvor jeg har haft chancen for at kigge dem lidt igennem, er der mange der giver et ret dybdegående indblik i hvem jeg er. Derfor vil jeg gerne dele det.

Her er The Cinema. Et tankeeksperiment jeg skrev for ét års tid siden, og det er på engelsk.

The Cinema
I often feel a bit too smart for my own good. Not politically smart, or anything of the sort. No, I feel like the general tempo that my mind runs at is too fast, and that often leads to some kind of derailment. I loose control, and i do so because they're out of hand. I can't participate in a intellectual, political debate where I have smart empirical evidence just sitting and waiting to be utilised. No, what I do have though is a wide and rich array of thought and emotions, but I often don't have the power to control them.

To illustrate my point.. well, to myself more than anything. Imagine a movie theatre. That movie theatre is your mind. Now, even though thoughts and ideas can manifest themselves simultaneously, for the most part only one can be shown on the big screen at a time. Most of the time what passes through is quite trivial, and never strays further from the here and now more than, "I wonder how I can solve this problem at work the best" or "man i feel a little busy these days". Sometimes for us all, or a lot of times for me, the thoughts on the big screen is something quite different. It can be a concept of my relationship not lasting as long as I want it to, or my father and/or mother being unhappy and me being helpless about it. These concepts can, for the sake of the metaphor, be understood as movies. I can, just by going about my daily business, be struck by these kinds of concepts, and then the movie starts playing on the screen. Now, in stead of taking it off the screen, which translates to dismissing the concept as mere conjecture, I somehow let the movie roll for a longer period of time, which amounts to hours or even days.

The next part of the metaphor, is the collective power ones mind. That means how many mental ressources can be allocated to thinking, worrying about a specific concept or thought process. For example, worrying about what to cook for dinner, contra to worrying wether your loved one is having an affaire are wildly different in terms of the mental ressources allocated to thinking about it. This can be referred to as the audience.

What happens to me specifically, cause i am going somewhere with this, is that when I for example sit down to work, the concept pops in to my head, it starts playing in my theatre. The more it plays, the more room I give it, the more audience goes to see it. In stead of dismissing that particular movie as insignificant, the movie keeps on rolling, and the direct result of that is the removal of all other movies on the program. All showings are cancelled, and is replaced by what the audience watches.

At this point I loose control over the program, I loose control over the thought process itself. Now ironically enough, the more audience goes to see the movie, the more the movie "earns", and the more significance or credence is added to that specific movie. Through this elaborate system, something trivial like "she looked at my different today" can quickly turn into "what secrets does she keep from me", because the movies starts rolling, the audience flocks in the theatre, and from there the cycle keeps repeating itself, and grows in strength.

Some of the movies are quickly taken off the screen, as they simply don't have enough staying power, but there are some, and they're mostly to do with the lack of self-confidence, or the fear that the fundamental values you've chosen to invest in simply won't last long enough to be worth it, these almost always stay for an extended period.

What most people do, cause i choose to assume that many consider their minds to be a movie theatre, is simply not letting the audience in to see the movies you don't want them watch. After all, it's your theatre, so you get to make the rules. If you don't allocate mental ressources to an ill thought concept, it'll dissipate, that's the oldest trick in the book. If you choose not think of something, it's power will vanish.

I never received that tool though, and where as many would simply deny showing the audience these movies, or bar the doors to keep them out, I have no control over neither what's on screen nor how many people attend the premiere.