I'll start with the superficial stuff. I love AVATAR because of its wonderful special effects. I mean, just the colors sent me into an artistic ecstasy! O MEHN! The forest, their world, Pandora---it was just magnificent! The natives and their tattooed blue skin, the creatures, the plants, flowers and trees--everything was just full of life and color. AHHHHHHHH. A feast for the eyes. That's probably what made it a candidate for nomination for best picture too.
If it were a book, I'd say it was a very well-written and well-plotted one. It was just superb--enough for me to compare it with a book! It's story, characters and the world it dared to create had the depth of those that can be found in books.
And for its message...Avatar's message was what I wanted to reveal to the whole world through a book I would have loved to have written too. (I had planned to write a story with a similar message but a different plot to open the eyes of my "readers".)
Our world is dying. And why? Because of us. Because of our selfishness: greed, lust and gluttony. We just love to hoard and take and take and take---even those that were never ours to begin with. In Avatar, the natives were practiced a religion similar to paganism and Buddhism/Hinduism--even our very own, Catholicism. They believed in the beauty of all life. They respected it--which we still fail to do even now.
Their forest was one full of life and creatures. It was a vibrant, thriving, vast living thing. Notice the singular verb? Yes, they believed that everything was joined together too--much like
(I know it's a game card...or whatever you call it. But it was the only picture I can find with the swamp! :) )
the swamp in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Their message was about the interconnectedness of everything. We are all one. (Just like in the book,
The 5 people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom) This is a philosophy I truly believe in too. I believe that selflessness is the humility of and joy in finally realizing that we are all just one. I breathe and live for you. I am the tree, the flower, the ant, the sun, I AM THE DAY. I am you and you are me. "Love others as you love yourself."
And it kills me how we still continue on living as if this lesson isn't true. Is not the message of God and other religions enough---AND NOW EVEN SCIENCE--to stop people from destroying our very own home, planet Earth? Why do we waste so much on things we don;t need and buy happiness with material things when the only true happiness, peace and joy comes from nothing but unity with all that is OURS AND NOT OURS, with GOD and mother Earth.
True happiness is selflessness. True joy is finally realizing I am one with the soil I step on now.
Sometimes I just feel so hopeless because I look at the city we live in and think about the amount of trees killed just to erect these cold, hard buildings. I wonder how many lives were lost because of me. I consume so much too. These clothes I'm wearing were from trees, albeit in a very altered and impure form. This computer I'm using is using up energy through electricity produced by fossil fuels which might never be replaced again. PEOPLE, HUMANITY use up too much things that are not even vital for our survival. We don't need He-knows-how-many brands of candy and chocolate and clothes and whatever to survive.
Why have capitalism and consumerism taken root over everything? Why is it now a part of every human culture--though, admittedly, some still aren't subject to its evil...
This is sometimes just too much to bear. It is overwhelming. I feel as though through the mere occupation of living I am destroying the world which allowed me to live in the first place. Why must this be so?
This is something I would very much like to ask Bo Sanchez as well. What is his stand in regards to the environment (and our Filipino government)?
I just love Aang and Avatar (the Nickelodeon series) :D
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