11:11 in a meaningless world

If you've seen my short 35mm film, 11:11, perhaps you suspect I believe we live in a meaningless universe. Although I sense and often experience the extraordinary magic of the universe, I don't believe that flawed homo sapiens hold any special place or worth along the spiritual food chain of existence. The Hobbesian view of life as nasty, brutish and short, has been the norm for most creatures, human or otherwise, during our rather short evolutionary history on planet Earth. No matter how evolved some people may become, there will always be enough backwards, spiritually sick, greedy and horrible individuals happy to make other people's lives a living hell through neglect, antipathy or malice. Someday, perhaps we can repair the human heart and create a world of plenty where all maladies are cured. But for now, here we are, making up stories about God, miracles, angels and the devil, because all we have are our own insecurities, fears and ghoulish nightmares. We come up with all sorts of ridiculous belief systems. We pray for order and sense. We want answers but life only presents us with more questions, more uncertainty, more disease, more death. We make up as many reassuring bedtime stories as we can swallow to assuage the horrible knawing fear that we are all dying and nothing really matters in the end. Well, yes, at bottom, life is meaningless but that doesn't mean your life has to be meaningless.

For a lot of people 11:11 has some sort of personal or spiritual meaning. Of course, even though there is much in new age philosophy that I find completely ridiculous, I pass no judgment on people of faith. Who knows what dimensions or realities lurk beneath our commonplace awareness. I know back in the 90's some sort of 11:11 portal was supposed to open up and something big was supposed to happen. Don't think it did. Don't think it ever will. But that's me. I chose 11:11 as a title partly to lampoon that new age phenomenon of signs and predictions and partly just because it's a palindrome. So don't expect 11:11 to be a new agey film. It's biting satire. It's sexy and silly and fun.

For Otto, 11:11 is 'lucky time' but any meaning he finds is illusory and self-manufactured.

I believe human beings create meaning from what is otherwise a meaningless universe. But meaning itself must be grounded in authentic connection between yourself and members of your community or family. Everything else is make believe or worse, delusion. Find connection, not based on what someone can do for you, but grounded on selfless action. Then, somehow, you will be counted along the continuum of consciousness that binds us all together as creatures of light and purpose. Remain a narcissist and face depression, meaninglessness, and the void. Just ask Woody Allen. Hell, if you're only here to serve yourself, you may as well be going backwards. At least, that could be what I might be implying. Of course I love Woody's early films, and his latest, Vicky Christina Barcelona. But I digress...

If you end up reading more posts (and you'd be the only one on the planet ; ), you'll find more about the technical aspects of our film and less of my moralizing, because, when it comes down to it, I hate moralizing more than anything. Especially when government or church officials are doing it. 'Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury.' Who gives a damn what I say about this film, after all, it's up to you whether you groove with it or not, or as I like to say, our next movie will be even better.