I’m not very fun at parties. By reading this blog you may have figured that out already, but there are certain things that once you learn, you cannot unlearn, and so can no longer relate to your social peers. This is part of the concept of the “red pill”, that once you have “taken” the red pill, you are in the world but no longer of it.
My musings on voting, for example, have taken me to a place where political dialogue is just meaningless. I overheard a conversation the other day that once upon a time I might have been interested in–about protecting children and schools and the rest–but I don’t look at schools the same way any more, and so cannot relate to the discussion about reforming schools.
Likewise with movies. Over the last few years I have severely curtailed my consumption of entertainment, and a consequence is that I don’t look at movies the same way. It’s hard for me to not see the actors as actors, their background as a green screen, or their struggle as fake. I didn’t really try to cultivate this perspective, but it happened.
And it’s Movies that serve as the fulcrum around which I will lever this post. The idea of Suspension of Disbelief comes from the idea that when you are consuming entertainment, your brain, in recognition of this fact, turns off the discerning and truth-seeking parts and allows you to experience the entertainment qua entertainment. You go into the movie as a perfectly rational human being, sit down and watch a man in a funny suit leap over buildings and shoot lasers out of his eyes, you cheer, you laugh, you cry, and then you leave the theater as a perfectly rational human being again.
The triggering thing for this suspension of disbelief is spectacle. You can suspend disbelief when watching a horrific tragedy happen–an extreme form of this might be shock. When I watched 9/11 happen on TV, as a 5th grader, I was disconnected from the events, I didn’t understand what was happening–I had suspended disbelief. It wasn’t until 2 years later that I was old enough to grasp what had happened and it became personal and human (and so tragic and horrifying).
This can also happen when you are part of a sufficiently large crowd: The mob instinct takes over and you suspend disbelief and become part of an entity larger than yourself. Afterwards, perhaps being interviewed by the police, you might say “I don’t know what came over me.”
Nothing happens in isolation, though. I forget what the triggered this thought about suspension of disbelief, because it’s been swimming around my brain for a few weeks now. The thought is this: What if, when you go into a movie as a perfectly rational human being, you sit down and watch a man in a funny suit leap over buildings and shoot lasers out of his eyes, and then you leave the theater as a changed person. You have not yet resumed disbelief.
If that is possible, it means the next thing you watch on TV, or sensational news you read, you will be primed to accept it, because you are still in the movie. You have not re-grounded yourself.
That would explain the phenomena of super-hero action movies. If every three months you go to a belief suspension chamber and you leave and go make rational decisions in the world and consume information, that information and those decisions will be colored by your suspension of disbelief. Then three months pass and you go back and re-up your suspension of disbelief.
Psychotropic recreational drugs accomplish the same thing, but with a different vehicle for suspension of disbelief.
I didn’t realize my suspension of disbelief was broken until a non-trivial amount of time had passed between my last entertainment and my next entertainment. I was able to enjoy the entertainment as an activity but again I couldn’t help but see the actors as people.
This is why it is important to be discerning about what foods you feed your mind. You need to feed your mind, but it is also healthy to fast before you feast. Silent prayer helps us to make sure we are grounded, make sure we can inventory the thoughts and movements in our minds.
AMDG
PS- For the first time in this blogs history, I have published an article at least once a day for seven straight days. I’m still going to read and comment but for the next week I’m going to give my brain a vacation. I’ll be back the following week. God bless you all!
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 