sorry planet fitness...

I was chatting to a friend a few months ago and he theorised that in our lifetime we would see a lot of our close friends, family and acquaintances be diagnosed with mild to heavy mental illnesses such as anxiety, stress induced panic attacks, sleep dept, etc. Up until recently I was not sure if I would agree with this statement but it has become so evident to me that may well be the case. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anyone I know to be diagnosed with anything but the pressures we receive from society in this modern age are forcing us in that direction.

The world does not have the ‘distractions’, horrors and issues it once did such as world war, depression etc and we are intelligent enough to know that we are better off without these things but it means that especially for young people there is a constant pressure and expectation to be a superhero. How are 18, 19 and 2o year olds expected to move out of home, hold a job, pay the rent, maintain healthy relationships, exercise, eat well, get 9 hours of sleep, attend full time university or TAFE, have social fun times and some downtime without going just a little, just a little lint ball sized about of insane. I know I have, and that may not be saying much since people have always said that about me but you get the idea.

This image of the all-star superhero young person is not realistic in the slightest and society needs to recognise this. More specially job managers and teachers need to know this and not be adding more wood to the pressure fire when our youth just need to be cut some slack. Of course excessive use of drugs and alcohol are only going to quicken your demise but the average student who just wants to pass their classes, pay the rent and have some time to have fun these days is generally at risk of joker-like insanity.

For this reason it is important for todays youth to know that it is ok to fail, it is ok to learn a lesson and perhaps most importantly of all we need to learn that we can’t do it ALL. Give yourself a break if you can, enjoy the finer things in life, gather yourself and you mind and live the way that you want to.

Flash.

escape to new realities

Doesn’t everyone just love a good film? One often throws a movie on to relax, spend time with friends, to have a laugh or to have a cry. But is there something deeper to this idea of film, the moving image. Lets take the idea of going to the cinema. You purchase your ticket to an experience you can only know so much about, regardless of the reviews you have read, the friends you have spoken to. An official punches your ticket, you enter the portal into a dark room with many chairs for you and your fellow travellers and you take your seat and wait for the cinematic journey to begin. The room goes black, you are surrounded by other humans and speakers only. It is just you and the screen, no other distractions, no time, no even space, just the moving images on a screen.

Does it not sound like I am describing a dream, some portal to another world, or is it just my crazy Flash interpretation. Perhaps, or perhaps there is something more. I think that we watch movie, go to the cinema especially to experience something special, an escape to another place, to a world written by a team of geniuses so you can have a taste of what is within their minds.

“I Am Groot”

Take for example the film, Guardians Of The Galaxy which I saw last night, #cheaptuesdays4dddaaayyyyss. This is a great example of creating an entire universe for viewers, getting to know the new, interesting and creative characters, why they act the way they do and how they team up to take down a common enemy. People who have no idea about the Marvel Universe, or don’t even enjoy super hero movies liked this movie because it did all the basic movie principles correctly to create an amazing place to be as a viewer. It is this type of magic that continuously draws us back to the cinema week in week out. Those little kids you see exiting the film jumping around, shooting, kicking, and pretending to fly like the characters they just saw on screen all live inside of us, we just all have a different way of expressing that magic.

Flash.