Getting a dose of un-reality

Depressed over world hunger? The war? The economic downturn? Or closer to home – have you lost your job, is someone in your family suffering from a chronic or terminal disease? Never fear, now you can have something concrete and real to be depressed about! “Avatar”, yes the bloody movie.

If you, as a reasoning human being, can believe it, there are blogs, and web sites sprouting up, and a continuous thread on the movie site (that became so big they had to move it to its own site) about the people who are depressed that the fantasy world of Avatar isn’t real. The film clip on CNN gives a full description @ http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2010/01/11/pn.depressed.after.avatar.cnn?iref=allsearch

“Thoughts of suicide”… I don’t mean to be insensitive, but are you kidding me? It’s a movie! I was a little let down after “Sleeping Beauty”, but I thought I would just get my own career and have the Prince find me, and so he did.

I think this really speaks to the sad state of Western civilization and our indulgent culture that depression over a movie has reached the heights of a “phenomenon”. Depression is a clinically diagnosed imbalance of chemicals in the brain, people who have this disorder battle it daily to get through their lives and find the happiness that comes more easily to the rest of us. I have empathy and compassion for those people; I’m not at all sure what I feel for the depressed hoards leaving the movie theatres.

It’s a really good movie. I enjoyed it albeit I thought they left the guts of the story on the editing room floor but I knew it wasn’t real, and quite frankly I don’t want to live there – are you serious? No computers! I would like one of those flying creatures but I am going to go skydiving in a couple of months and I think that will take care of the desire to fly.

I was reminded by my daughter who is a runner and a hiker (I used to climb mountains) that most people don’t actually like the ‘outdoors’, but they like the idea of being outdoors. You know, in the movie world of Avatar they had to hunt and kill their meat, it did not come in a nice plastic wrap at the store – that means you get up every day and hunt it, kill it, skin it, and cook it. Oh a vegetarian you say – you still will be hunting dude, and that wild broccoli is a bitch to find. There are no juice bars, no oxygen bars, and no candy bars.

If I may offer up a few suggestions – I think those who are depressed after seeing this film should go visit the worst of Africa, or closer to home the homeless of America. Work in a food kitchen, volunteer to build homes with Jimmy Carter, send money to Heifer International or Doctors Without Borders. Or become a writer or filmmaker and create your own world every day. Just a thought…