This is a continual thread discussing the topics listed below which are inspired largely by the text All That Is Solid Melts Into Air by Marshall Berman and which deminstrate themselves in certain medias.

metropical: combination of metropolis and tropical discussing the juxtaposition of nature to the city in relationship to the experience of modernisme
futurismo: examples of past generations who have created an idea and aesthetic of the future.

WARNING: A BIT OF A SPOILER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE

this post deals with the metropical elements

Tuesday night I went to see INTO THE WILD with a friend – finally. I had been very excited to see this new film by Sean Penn – the amazing actor that he is. Fate played a good role in this because I don’t think the movie would have had such a profound impact on me if I had seen it before I began reading Berman’s book.

This movie touches on THE topic which Berman speaks of: MONDERNISM or as the book’s subtitle dictates: The experience of Modernity. Experience is a key function in both the book and the movie, but first let me give you a brief set up of what we’re about to get into.

IMDB: Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

OKay, that last sentence is tricky. Chris is the one who shapes the lives of the people he encounters in the movie, but he’s too focused on his goal and in the moment to realize this. It’s at the end of the movie that he finally realizes “happiness is nothing if not SHARED”. It’s a moving moment, and I hope I’m not spoiling this for you.

Berman writes:
There is a mode of vital experience – experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life’s possibilities and perils – that is shared by men and women all over the world today. I will call this body of experience “modernity.” To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are. Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: in this sense, modernity can be said to unite all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom (a restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs) of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, “all that is solid melts into air.”

here are some links that I’ve made:

henry david thoreau and the transcendetal struggle of nature and modern society.

wikipedia: HDT was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, sage writer and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

The author of the book, Jon Krakauer is an American writer and mountaineer and first touched on Chris’ story in a short essay entitled Death of an Innocent. There are other similar stories of young people (mostly boys) deciding to head back into the wilderness. This decision NOT to go forward and be a “yes man” to society just because it gives us something sort of safety. It’s the action of returning to our natural states of being LONG before we began using our gift of creativity as a distraction instead of a tool.

J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye:

“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like -”

“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”

“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”…

Anyway, I keep picturing these little kids playing some game in this big field or rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and no body’s around – nobody big, I mean, except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”

The cliff is the metaphorical “fall” into adulthood. This concept of “adulthood” being a place where you have a job, a family, and you adhear to the constructs of society. No more playing in the rye. Chris, from the movie, represents this to me. The one that refuses to jump off the cliff. I think there are many of us who constantly struggle to maintain our playful safe place of creativity while walking amongst those who have decided to “… became a man,  and stopped those childish ways.”

Adolescence is a pivotal point in our life careers. It’s become much more than a passage of rights. In fact that idea is heroic in terms of the dilemma we face today. As Berman states – we are caught in this maelstrom and now the process of “maturing” has little to do with your character and more to do with your accomplishments. The period of adolescence is also shorter than I believe it really is. It’s typically 12 – 17 and at 18 all of a sudden you are an adult. It’s more like 30. Your entire 20’s is an extension of the transition which begins at 12.

I mention adolescence because I’m gaining a new perspective on in. It makes sense to me now all these films and books about it. It’s the only period in our lives where we are culturally “allowed” to be in the grey.

These are just thoughts running through my head, if you would like to challenge them, agree with them, or don’t understand them, leave a comment and I’ll respond.