After the request of many of my friends, I finally saw the movie Waking Life. One word: WOW. It was a great movie. The sort of movies that I like — the type that make you actually think!
The movie is packed with tons of information that can spark all sorts of things in your mind, in your life. If you are the sort of person who likes to question the world and figure out what “reality” really is, then watch this movie.
The main character in the movie is essentially in a dream and he takes you on a journey with him as he speaks to many intellectual, spiritual, weird, funny, and thought-provoking people. It’s crazy because these people just pop-up out of nowhere, just as they would in a dream.
This movie really inspired me to finish Freud’s book that I started a while back, The Interpretation of Dreams. Because the focal point of this film is dreams and how each and every person creates their own reality. A dream is just as real as anything else.
One of my favorite sections of the movie is what I have dubbed the “Ant Scene.” In this scene the main character is walking down a flight of stairs and smiles and says hello to a girl. The girl responds and they both continue to walk past one another — a typical situation that most of us would also do.
Then after a brief thought, the girl comes back down the stairs and basically tells the kid that she “doesn’t want to be an ant” and just be polite, say hello, continue on with her day, and play it safe.
She goes on to talk about how human beings have become like ants in the respect that we are all a part of this colony and living by these certain set of instructions that we have trained ourselves — through social constructs — to adhere to and to follow.
It’s so true. We are losing real human interactions and to a degree, have become ants in this colony called life.
When we walk by people — if we do open our mouths — we say “hello” and walk right on by. If we see someone interesting that we’d like to get to know, we may smile and that’s it. If we are digging what someone has said, we may say “cool” and never go up to that person to chat further.
Why do we behave in this way? Why aren’t we seeking real human interaction? Why have we become ants in a colony following the same old sets of rules and instructions?
When you see someone interesting / interested in you, talk with them and get to know them. Just go for it. Learn from them. When you have a desire to do something, then do it. When you want to get something off your chest, then let it out.
As an entrepreneur, it should be engrained in you to want to seek real human interactions with people. Forget the “hellos” and fake smiles. You know what I’m talking about. Get down with real conversations talking about things that really matter to you. I think sometimes we forget to be humans. We lose our desires to really reach out to people and let them into our minds.
Don’t become that ant. Let the world know who you really are. The entrepreneur. The intellectual. The thinker. The lover. The person who stays up late reading about Buddhism. The hacker. The skateboarder. The person who likes to paint. The writer. The poet. The person. Open up and share who you are with the world. Strive for that everyday. Be a person.
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it’s protocol to say ‘hi’, to acknowlege someone you know – if you see them in person. otherwise it’s considered rude to just blow them off.
but we don’t usually stop to chit-chat because we have agendas we need to get done, and/or we’re not sure if the other person is interested in reciprocal conversation. and of course we don’t want to impose.
so bottom line: it’s normal.
I agree, it’s fine to say hello. That’s good. But what I was stresses was to take it “beyond” just a hello and try to actually get to know someone. Think about people in general and look at the ratio between just “hellos” and actually “hello. how are you? what’s your name”
That’s my point exactly… we don’t want to impose and we have agendas… what does that mean.. it means that we have turned into robots that discard social interactions beyond a simple hello.
No, it’s not normal. It’s what we have become.
I think that scene, like most scenes in Waking Life, is (or can be) a metaphor for more than just greeting passersby. To me that was one of the wonderful things about the movie, its ability to speak to life in general.