Community - Do We Find it on Pandora? 1-15-10

Planet Earth

James Cameron’s “Avatar” has in less than a month become the highest grossing film of all time, already clearing $1.3 billion. Part of what has made this film so popular, so utterly captivating, is the quality of the graphics that depict a sublimely beautiful alien world. Cameron has created a virtual world that leaves many viewers despairing when they take off their 3D glasses and return to their own reality - suddenly seen as gray and meaningless. The spectacular success of the film has led to a phenomenon that says much about our world outside the movie house.

“When I woke up this morning after watching “Avatar” for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning.” In a single forum, just one of many, more than one thousand viewers cited what is being called “Post Avatar Depression.” Movie goers are experiencing profound feelings of depression, sadness, meaninglessness, even suicidal ideations. Psychotherapists say the frequency of episodes of depression arising after viewing the film are sufficient to merit concern and to label this as a phenomenon.

For certain, Cameron is not the culprit here. He has brought cinematography to a new level of excellence. What he has unwittingly done is shine a strong light on the true substance of life here on Earth. By creating a believable world of stunning beauty and relational abundance, he has perhaps unintentionally reminded many viewers that they ‘need to get a life,’ here on earth.

We live in a technology-driven era in which true community is eroding. We live in our separate houses with out broadband access and remote-controlled garage door openers. So many of us hide in our forums, playing games with faceless individuals in virtual game rooms. We don’t even know the names of the people living in the houses next to us. Forty years ago the people living in this house set up tables every Sunday in the unfinished basement and the whole street showed up for Sunday dinner. Today the basement is finished, with a high tech theater and broadband access. I’ve never been able to pry loose the neighbors from their cyber-dens to have life outside of the theater or virtual game rooms, to come for Sunday dinner. For the most part, I don’t even know their names. The ones I once knew have passed on or moved on.

One does not have to be an astute observer to see that we have legions of the next generations that struggle with relational and affective skills, yet have a powerful command of technology. Wi-fi’ed they can compete on virtual battlefields with the best of them in virtual worlds of their own making. Cameron just had a whole lot more money and did it a whole lot better. When Cameron’s game is over, reality sets in a bit harder and for some it is very depressing.

“I just watched avatar a few weeks ago and I'm feeling depressed and sad. It's like I want to reach out and be in Pandora. I'd do anything to be in Pandora. I've tried so hard to dream about me being on Pandora but it hasn't worked.”

“Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it. I even contemplate suicide, thinking that if I do it, I will be re-birthed in a world similar to Pandora and then everything is the same as in 'Avatar.”

"Because, at this point, there isn't pretty much anything else that can be done. Until the release of DVD/BluRay. But even that won't take away all of the depression. Because you know you can never actually go to Pandora, as it exists only in our imagination."

For a very long time we have been collectively headed for an existential crisis of meaning. Some of us seem to be getting there sooner than others. Our secular materialism has left us in a vacuum, devoid of meaning or purpose. There seems little substance to life beyond the next release of our favorite virtual game and that substance lasts about as long as it takes to peel the shrink wrap off the disk. We have seen ever-increasing rates of suicide in those individuals who have the most options before them in terms of time, health, and opportunity.

Stacy Kaiser, a psychotherapist, suggests “people are forced to look at what is going on in their own lives. If it isn’t the euphoric dream they were hoping for, they end up depressed.” For several generations there has been an increasing preoccupation with self fulfillment and self-gratification. When we don’t get those things we want or are reminded of what we don’t have, we can get into a major, even dangerous funk. Kaiser also points out this phenomenon is not about the film. Follow up phone calls to a number of those in the forum found they were already living lonely, often disenfranchised lives.

One viewer was more balanced. Incredulous that a film could cause depression he said, “You need to go back and revaluate what is important in life to you, go back to the basics of family and other things.” This viewer offers the most helpful advice. Only by honest evaluation of our own lives, can we hope to chart a course that will lead us to a life that has great value and meaning, even here on planet earth.

There are people who never will make it to Pandora, yet are living huge authentic and fulfilling lives, here on Earth. There are eighty-year old ex-pat widows on the ground in Haiti making a difference in the midst of a vast national tragedy. There are single mothers here making it possible for their children to reach for their dreams. Under-paid teachers in American ghettoes find reward in showing children they can do anything they set their minds to. Single women are out there in the African bush doing surgery and improving hundreds of lives. A single woman is living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea with no other Caucasians within a hundred miles, single handedly translating the Bible.

Come on guys, perhaps it is time to power down the computer and get a life, here on earth.

“As a man thinketh, so is he.”