In an article called The Amygdala Report from the New Yorker magazine, film director Michael Mann shares his experiences with movie making and describes the functions of a director. Mr. Mann states his job is to "manipulates by creating atmosphere, and he creates atmosphere by casting cities as characters." Mann sets the environment of a movie by picking out cities and characters. For instance, he describes a scene from his movie where manipulation was necessary to bring the movie together: "All of South Beach was occupied by old folks from New York in wheelchairs, and the whole city was beige. So we painted everything, creating heat with vibrating pastels and turning the landscape into a twilight zone. I'm attracted to twilight zones." As a director, his ideas are put in the movie, whatever he is attracted to and like, he puts every effort to include them in it.
The article made me thinking what if we are able to manipulate our lives like what a film director can, what if we can direct our own lives.
It seems like a tedious and mundane way to live. There will not be any excitement and fun since we expect and know what will happen. I do not see any reason on why we should be living since we are robots and dolls going about life with no goals in mind as all our steps are put out already. We do not need any goal since we know how the outcomes will turn out. Manipulation is an insecure way of dealing with life, when we attempt to manipulate something, we are uncertain if we can handle what is coming to us and as a result we do whatever it takes to control the outcome. Sure, we get a dose of landing ourselves in a bad situation now and then (think car accidents, bad days at work, conflicts, etc.) but when we are able to get through our circumstances, that's when we feel our self-worth and accomplishments coming together. Life should be full of surprises and that makes life special and worth living every second of the way.
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