The Hunger Games

I have a lot of thoughts I want to try to put into coherent sentences here, so bear with me if it gets jumbled...

I, along with most of the rest of the world saw "The Hunger Games" movie this weekend. I also read the books a while ago, and while this is not intended to be a movie review, I will say that for good or ill, the movie was very true to the book. I imagine that the only people I know who have not read the book or seen the movie, will likely be comprised of the majority of the people who read this blog. I don't want to give plot synopsis or anything, so if you don't know what the Hunger Games is, read the plot summary online somewhere, and come back and finish this post.

First off: I do not recommend this movie, or the books to most people, mostly due to the intensely graphic and disturbing nature of them. However, I have spent quite a bit of time pondering what the author was trying to accomplish by writing them, (as I believe that every author or director has a message they want to get across, in addition to the entertainment value itself) and I definitely think the underlying philosophies of the book/movie deserve some attention.

The first of these several commentaries on society is extremely well-integrated and somewhat ironic. The people in the book who enjoy watching the hunger games are the vain, selfish, prideful, disconnected, over-indulgent, ignorant, thoughtless, idle members of "The Capitol." The bad guys are the ones who really like the hunger games for their entertainment. I think that Suzanne Collins thought it necessary to have the gladiator figures in her book be children. Just like Lord of the Flies, I think it was a way to kind of give people a shock to their system, because we are already used to watching adults kill each other, we would not give that a second thought. But when it is kids, just maybe some people will stop and think: "This is bad, this is a problem that we enjoy reading these so much." The fact that the books and movie are so successful begs the question: "Is our society so similar to that of the Capitol, that we enjoy watching people kill each other for entertainment?" That is the irony, the books entertain by describing horrific events, and in the books, the ones entertained by them are the bad guys. When the author was asked what she hoped readers would come away with after reading the books were questions about how elements of the book might be relevant in their own lives, and if they're disturbing, what they might do about them. There are many elements that might be relevant to life, but I pose this question to you: "Did you, as I did, consider the books and/or movie to be entertaining?" If so, you might want to think about why you were not more disturbed by it. My wife left the theater upset, surprised that so many people enjoyed it so much. As one who enjoyed it, her comment made me realize that I am too quick to desensitize myself to portrayals of death and suffering. I was saddened that I did not share her disgust right off the bat. After all, if we are not disgusted at children brutally killing one another, what are we disgusted by?

I will try to not get to political in this next section, but there is another similar theme that Collins pointed out as a catalyst for the hunger games. She explains the Greek themes of the story, Katniss as a modern day Theseus, and the Roman themes of the Capitol and the gladiators, and how her knowledge of those stories shaped the idea, but she said that it "was channel surfing between reality TV programming and actual war coverage when Katniss’s story came to [her]. One night [she's] sitting there flipping around and on one channel there’s a group of young people competing for, I don’t know, money maybe? And on the next, there’s a group of young people fighting an actual war. And [she] was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way, and [she] thought of this story."

Thought provoking, no? How has reality TV and movies shaped our view of the actual world? I think that many people have a much more difficult time discerning between reality and fantasy when both come from the same source (tv). We see people die and suffer so often that we have to desensitize ourselves or else we'd have a mental breakdown. The problem is, when we see actual people dying, we have already become disconnected mentally, and then it just seems less real. Over a hundred thousand people have died as a result of the Iraq "war" and many of those people are no older than the kids in the hunger games. A line from the movie stood out to me, I think it was Gale, who was pointing out the depravity of the games and said something along the lines of how sick it is that people watch it and cheer for their favorites when they kill someone, and cry when their favorites die. I really think this is more similar to what is going on overseas than most people would like to think. When a US soldier dies, many people express remorse, and rightly so. But when you find out an Iraqi dies, or even a hundred Iraqis, people probably take another bite of cereal and keep waiting until the weather comes on.

I fear that it has become too easy for us to dismiss these atrocities. To say "well, that's sad, but there are causalities to every war." I have heard that statement several times recently while trying to explain to people why we should bring the troops home, but now I am getting political and I apologize. I better wrap this up before I start preaching about Ron Paul...

Final thoughts. If you had to identify with someone in the hunger games who would it be and why? Are you like anyone from district 12? Starving, oppressed, downtrodden, and impoverished, powerless to do anything about it or stand up to those in charge? Are you like someone from District 1? Affluent, and you aspire to the spotlight, to be the champion of the games and train hard for it so that you can be better than everyone else and gain riches, fame and glory? [Side note: It is worth noting that the winners are often worse off than the losers, typified by Haymitch who survives but lives a miserable life as an alcoholic haunted by visions of the past. Even the Katniss and Peeta, whose physical wounds are mostly (and quickly) healed, never fully recover from the emotional/mental scarring that took place during the books.]Or maybe a Capitol citizen? You enjoy the voyeuristic thrill of watching people being humiliated, or brought to tears, or suffering physically, but only from a distance, fostering a "fascination of the abomination" and relishing so much in tragedy and drama that when the real thing is presented to you it lacks appropriate impact?

These are hard questions, and I think overlooking them robs the series of its real power. Think what you want, but I choose to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that rather than perpetuating the problem of desensitization to violence, poverty, and oppression, Suzzanne Collins is trying to wake us up to those very issues. I think she uses kids on purpose because that is the only way she could speak the message loud enough. I hope that we are not all too deaf to hear it. Hopefully we can all think of these books as a wake up call, rather than "kind of disturbing, but really entertaining if you don't think too much about it." (A typical comment that I have heard in regards to the books/movie, btw)

My final words on the matter: Think about it.

Marianne

Of all of the attributes and traits that one can posses or develop, I don't think there are many that would argue that love/charity reigns supreme. When you get more, all other positive attributes increase concurrently, and we know that even though all things will pass away, charity will not, nor will it ever fail. So, for many years now, I have been trying to have more charity. I imagine that this is a goal that is ambiguity enough and common enough that many people have and do share this goal, along with the feeling that it is difficult to make much progress with it. I could be wrong.

How do you love people more? It is hard to find an answer that fits for many people. And no, I am not talking about people you already love, or people you serve regularly, etc. I mean people in general. All of them, everywhere. Those are the ones I don't know how to love. And it was not until a few months ago that I made progress in understanding how to accomplish my goal of love and charity for everyone. And it may surprise you that the answer was not just praying to be filled with it. I have done that for years, and I still don't feel any more loving. The thought occurred to me that I could not love someone I didn't know, or more precisely, people whom I didn't know anything about.

Whether or not this was the case, it opened up my mind to a new solution. I remember sitting in the steam room (or was it the sauna?) when the other guy in the room with me started making friendly conversation. I like conversation, so I chimed in and after a couple minutes we parted ways. But something changed in just hose two minutes. He was not just "some guy" he was a student, close to graduation and not sure what he is going to do afterwards. He has certain interests, worries, a name, and a personality. After even the shallowest of conversations, I felt like I knew enough about this person to see him as an individual that I could sympathize with, and relate to on certain levels. In a way, I could now have charity for him, whereas before he was just a body in a room with me.

This started a trend that day, I began striking up conversation with random strangers. I was turning bodies into people all over the place. When I learned about another guys family, and some of his worries and anxieties about his kids, and his relationship with his wife, I felt like I could appreciate him more as a person. With the millions of people all around all the time, I think in order to save ourselves the mental energy we just categorize them into two files: "people we know" (which is subsequently divided up into family, friends, acquaintances, etc.) and "other." Some people may be able to have charity for the people in the "other" file. I know I can't, and I wonder if maybe the Savior can love everyone so fully, at least in part, because He knows everyone so fully.

So what does this all mean? And who the heck is "Marianne?" I'll tell you. I believe that getting to know as much as you can about the people around you (even if it is a thirty second conversation) will make that person get moved from "other" to "known" from the "known" file they can then be loved. It is exhausting to do all the time, because of the sheer number of people around us, but the day I discovered this principle I was on a high, talking to people all over the place like crazy. The final victim of the evening was a cashier at WinCo named Marianne. We had lots of groceries so we talked to her for a while. We built rapport up quick and were friends before the groceries were all bagged. Katie probably thought I was tormenting this poor woman talking her ear off, but it was fun. Every time we have gone to WinCo after 9 since that night, we look for Marianne. Sometimes we'll see her and I will shout hello to her from across the store. She just laughs and waves back. She probably did think I was crazy the first couple of times, but now it is so fun to see her. We will wait in the longer line if it is hers, and the other night we went and she noticed us standing in line and she opened up her register just to check us out then closed it again. I know, its weird, friends with a middle-aged night shift cashier, but it is fun, and brightens both of our days, especially when we don't have to wait to check out. Charity has its perks.

Finally, for those of you seeking a second witness just skip forward to 7:15 on this clip, and you will see that getting to know people can soften even the most hardened dictator.

I Can Only Imagine...

After a really hard day, or during a really unpleasant time during the day, what do you do to keep your sanity? Or with what thoughts do you fill your mind during discouraging times? I ask these questions rhetorically, because obviously I am just leading into the part where I give my own answers. And as you may have guessed from the title of this post, I have been using my imagination to get me through tough times more and more lately.

I share this with the internet world at the risk of sounding like I am turning into a certain red-haired Canadian orphan, but so be it. Besides, I think Anne may have been on to something after all. However, I do differ with Miss Shirley in that I tend to visualize the future, rather than using my imagination to alter my perception of the present. And I have found it incredibly effective at distracting me from present anxieties. I have also found that it can be effective with couples as well as individuals. If Katie and I both had hard days, we may be driving together, sitting on the couch, or lying in bed and we will begin to imagine our future together. This can be anything from planning an elaborate and exciting trip to an exotic destination, to discussing the design of our future multimillion dollar dream house. A great deal of frustration has been assuaged as of late, just by mentally designing our dream bathroom.

Now I am not sure if we will ever have a home full of secret passages, a cave shower that rains from the ceiling, an indoor rock wall/foam pit room, and a giant library with rolling ladders and bay windows just like in Beauty and the Beast, or whether we will ever spend weeks living in a small town in Italy, or navigating the misty mountains of China... Whether we do or not, the practice of imagining it all makes us smile and escape from a less-pleasant reality for a while, and when we return to that reality, it somehow does not seem quite so dismal. I have also thought of quite a few other advantages of this coping mechanism over some popular others.

1. This is a 100% diet friendly practice. Rather than eating a pint of ice cream (or frozen cookie dough) to distract me, I get to do something that will not contribute to me having to go out in search of bigger pants.

2. Imagining the future is both fun and enjoyable while you are doing it, and afterwards. I can think of many things that bring pleasure during or after, but for me there are few things that help me feel better during and after the activity. For example, I feel good after I run, but not while I am running, or I am distracted while I am on Facebook, but feel lousy after.

3. It provides an excellent opportunity to slow down a little bit and not be so rushed. I feel like we need to do this more often. It helps to lower our blood pressure and imagining also opens up our mind to the practice of thinking, and pondering in an enjoyable way, and things can come together that we are not even thinking actively about, if only we will turn off the electronics and give our minds a little workout.

4. It prevents Alzheimer's Disease. Okay, I am actually not so sure about this one, but I would not be surprised one bit. People get Alzheimer's because the don't use their brain enough, so they do crosswords or Sudoku to keep sharp, but I think my way is better.

5. It fosters creativity. I could spend hours online looking at neat, original, creative, and clever things that other people have come up with. But in a way I feel like doing this does not help my own creative juices to flow at all, it just makes me wish I could be as talented as the other people who post such neat ideas and original room designs, or whatever. Instead of being an admirer, I feel like using your imagination will make you into a contributor. And it is more fun to think of something yourself.

So there you have it, a somewhat comprehensive argument in favor of using your imagination. Go ahead, give it a try right now. Turn off your monitor and take a few moments to design the kitchen or bathroom you would create if you had Bill Gates' budget. Don't worry too much about what is possible, just unleash your inner "carrots" and enjoy the ride...