The Loneliest Planet

I've recently had a string of good luck in which I've managed to watch movies whose themes are readily apparent only due to the circumstances under which I watched them.  A few examples: I first saw Miranda July's The Future when I was panicking about deciding what to study and the ways in which that would limit me.  I watched The Sweet Hereafter for the first time the day of the Sandy Hook Massacre and recognized the need to approach tragedy with empathy and humanism - the emotions of everyone involved must be not only understood, but felt.  I first saw Greenberg when I was at the very lowest point of depression and self-loathing, and identified how Roger's sensitivity and regret motivated his destructive behavior, his anger, etc.  The latest film I've watched, The Loneliest Planet, takes the cake for topicality.  But to tell that story, I have to tell this story.

Right now I'm back seeing a therapist, and today she was interested in why I'm so focused on putting the needs of others before my own, and I tried to explain as best I could but found myself struggling to think of an example that would best describe why I think the morality of selfishness operates on a very skewed scale.       My skewed morality scale works like this:  whether you are a good person has very little to do with the number of good things you do, or the ratio of good things you do to bad things to do.  (Of course, good actions and bad actions are subjective, but since morality is subjective your own view of what is good and bad is really all that matters in this case.)  It depends almost entirely on how successfully you've avoided doing something bad.  I'll use the film as an example to demonstrate what I mean by this, but be cautioned: SPOILERS ABOUND.

The film focuses on an engaged couple, Alex and Nica, very much in love, on a backpacking trip through the Caucasus Mountains.  The first hour of the film is essentially just this - not much really happens and there isn't much to be gathered about the characters other than your ability to empathize with them.  About halfway through the movie, though, they encounter a few men who are suspicious of them.  One of them suddenly draws a very large rifle and Alex instinctively hides behind his girlfriend for a split second before regaining his composure and pushing her behind him.

That split second is really the only event of major consequence in the film, but its effects on the viewer's perception of the film (that is, if they're anything like me) are devastating.  That event isn't even mentioned again for the second hour of the film, but its repercussions are huge.  That split second was ruinous.

It's not my intention to discuss the movie here, because I think it does a much better job speaking for itself than I ever could - but I think this is as close to the perfect example of skewed morality as it gets.  It's pretty evident that Alex is a great person simply based on the fact that Nica is so in love with him.  But we define him by that split second in which he fucked up anyway, because our bad actions carry more weight than the good.

The act of being born is like being handed paint and a single canvas and being told to go to town.  Naturally, we all want to create a masterpiece and be revered for our work, so we struggle to craft a work of art of beauty the likes of which mankind has never seen.  But if we aren't hyper-vigilant, we will make mistakes.  Imagine a cross-eyed God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or a hard edge from a drop of spilled paint on any one of Monet's Water Lilies.  Their value as works of art would plummet.  They would be considered the works of amateurs.  And the artist's capacity to correct or cover up those mistakes is limited - first of all, those mistakes must not be known to anyone but the artist, and if they are too severe no amount of cover-up will hide them.  And in either case, the artist is still painfully aware of the mistakes that he has made.  For example, in the film, Alex is the character most traumatized by his mistake.  He alternates between hanging his head in shame and half-heartedly attempting to repair his relationship with Nica.  But he can't forgive himself, not fully.  He knows that he will have to live with what he did in that split second for the rest of his life.  He knows he will be haunted forever.  He spilled red wine on the Mona Lisa.

I am terribly afraid that I will do the same.  I am terrified that in the split second when I am needed, I will do the wrong thing and it will utterly destroy everything I've worked for in the twenty years I've been alive and I will have to live with being a bad person - a bad artist - for the rest of them.  And the scariest part of all is that I know that this moment will come, but I don't know when.