23

I love it when I pick out a movie based on whether it would challenge me, and end up loving it too. That was '23' a movie with Jim Carrey who finds himself in a paranoid state searching for the significance behind the number 23, seeing it everywhere and in everything. I was happier than a pig in shit in my little bare gymnasium room, getting set up in English with Portuguese subtitles. I was struck by the passion of filmmakers, directors, actors and the whole gamut of people working in something they love, and how they will spend every waking moment thinking about how great they can make their work. This is a form of obsession, and although it can lead to divorce, general unhappiness, and 'saving the nose despite the face', it is generally accepted among today's society as a positive trait. "Hard Worker", "Devoted", "Committed", "Focussed", "Killer Instinct" and the list goes on. It may have it's lineage in our communities need to lift up the hero as they fight the mammoth or sabre-tooth tiger, saving us from certain death or starvation. But it doesn't have a place as much in our society today what with our grocery stores, tv's and air conditioned homes. Nothing can hurt us, nothing can eat us, and yet we still have this incessant need to fight for something against all odds. We have to get battered and bruised. Problems can occur when those injuries occur inside one's mind; a CFR rodeo cowboy gets a broken rib and recovers after 6 weeks, feeling 100% albeit a little scared of that horse for a bit. Someone trying to write a serious novel can go through spurts of agonizing mental and emotional upheaval as they try to create something that not only expresses their story but would be appreciated by others.

Can we not teach people about being human? Can we not have a part of our curriculum devoted to psychology, physiology and philosophy at an early age? "The most important things in life cannot be taught" Oscar Wilde.

Now, I'd like to look at the prison system, another passing observation as a result of the above movie. Let's say...... hmmm...... you murder someone. AND the police investigator finds you, AND you are sentenced by a judge and jury to life in prison. The idea of the prison system is to be a very large stick for punishing malcontents in a society, or people that do not follow the rules i.e. don't murder people!!!!. Now, obviously, you aren't going to be able to murder someone again unless you are out on parole in say, 20 - 25. But how effective is this system REALLY in stopping these kinds of behaviours in society? What if that person was triggered by something the other person said that made them so angry they lost all sense of control? A deep childhood repression? That's the job of the psychologist I guess. I don't feel like getting into this too much right now, but how about a system, after a judge and jury find the defendent guilty, that subjects the guilty to 1 month of unimaginable personal pain - torture, mental, and physical would not be necessary. But a system that plays on the person's deepest fears..... such that they never would ever want to risk doing this behaviour again. Currently, the prison system is one of the biggest money making businesses in the world, filled with minor misdemeanors........ keeping the general society in a veil of secrecy to satisfy their need for 'safety' and security i.e. "don't worry honey we put the bad people away." Fine, you as as society deem this is bad, this is good, let's punish the hell out of the bad, and see what happens.

I saw a photo of a bear taken down in Saddle Hills, Alberta. The two hunters were heros and their photo with the gargantuan bear (1300 lbs., 11 3/4' tall) has lit up the internet community around the world. Now, if we were a society run by bears, those two hunters would probably get a life, or even death sentence. Not only did they shoot and kill the bear, they posed with it after!!! Oh, the bear lawyers for the deceased bear's family would be up in arms! "How did you know the bear was going to attack you?" "How could you be certain that it was not a bluff charge?" "Would you have shot this bear if it was 1/2 the size?"

I think there's a need to keep our so called 'criminals' in perspective, and understand that not only are we animals, but that we sometimes do bad things...... how we 'punish' those bad things, and what we consider bad in the first place, has a very long lifespan in the overall health and happiness of our society.