I’m feeling slightly blue this week. Not a lot within the emotional sense, although—I’m simply actually pleased to be speaking about Avatar with you all.
We’re going to have a good time discussing this movie, and I’ll get this out of the best way now: Should you’re respiratory, you’ve most likely already seen Avatar. However when you haven’t, it is best to know we’re not worrying an excessive amount of about spoilers for this episode. It is a nice reminder to go forward and see the film when you haven’t already, particularly as a result of Avatar 2 is popping out in December.
Should you’re questioning about that headline up high, right here’s what you should know: Avatar tells us methods to incorporate the shamanic into our lives, and shamanic flight is all about private development
Welcome again to SUCCESS Film Rewind—the film podcast the place the intro hook could also be imprecise, however the classes you allow with may have you personally creating such as you by no means have earlier than. With that, let’s soar in.
Mere survival is a self-defeating worth.
I gained’t depart you hanging on the which means of “shamanic flight” for any longer. Shamanic journeying is a psychological strategy of taking a symbolic journey to a different world utilizing nothing however your thoughts, typically with the steerage of a therapist or shaman. It’s a manner of going someplace and experiencing one thing that can change you, deepen your understanding or offer you readability.
Sound slightly bit just like the journey of Avatar’s fundamental character? Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully has traveled to Pandora within the place of his deceased brother, the place he’ll management an avatar that appears like one of many Na’vi, who’re native to the planet.
Every time Jake places on the headset and controls his avatar, he goes on a shamanic flight and learns one thing new about Pandora. Fairly cool stuff.
However that’s not our first takeaway, precisely. Our first takeaway begins when Jake and the opposite people who’ve come to the planet are being briefed by their commander (Stephen Lang). He’s a rough-around-the-edges drill teacher form of man, and he’s laying out the strict guidelines for survival on this new planet.
To boil down what’s stated on this scene, the human guests to Pandora have been instructed to deal with this world as an “different” with a purpose to survive. Worry of the unknown instantly leaves them feeling like they’re in hostile territory with few choices in the event that they hope to make it house.
As we see later, the primary human character to interrupt the foundations the navy commander lays out is the one human character to seek out his true self. That’s why I say mere survival is a self-defeating worth.
No matter your “hostile” planet is, no matter your model of a security briefing instructed you to do, you should do not forget that when you’re solely attempting to outlive, you’re not going to actualize your true self. Your entrepreneurial objectives aren’t about survival; they’re about wanting—and discovering and attaining—one thing extra. To try this, you’re going to want to embrace some threat.
You’ve bought to be to see.
You knew today was coming. I’ve not one, however two rhyming takeaways for you. It needed to occur.
Right here’s the primary one: You’ve bought to be to see. You’ve bought to be nonetheless, be within the second, be quiet, be one with the universe—no matter model of that you’ve got in your most meditative moments, you’ve bought to embrace it if you wish to see past the exterior world and the place you are actually.
How does that come from Avatar? It occurs when Jake (in avatar type) has to spend the evening within the wilderness, and he’s rescued by his eventual love curiosity, Ney’tiri. She mainly calls him ignorant and says he can’t “see.” When Jake asks her to show him to see, she says, “Nobody can educate you to see.”
She’s proper—nobody can educate you to see. Solely you are able to do that, and you need to be to be taught to see. Jake does that by being one with the breathtaking nature of Pandora, being quiet and studying about an unbelievable new world.
For you, that can contain so much much less glow-in-the-dark flora and much more aligning your exterior actions and wishes along with your inner self. To know your interior life, you need to look inward in the course of the quiet moments. Solely then will you see what you actually need out of your life.
You’ve bought to die earlier than you’ll be able to fly.
Right here’s the second rhyming takeaway from Avatar: You’ve bought to die earlier than you’ll be able to fly. I need to be clear about one thing right here: I don’t imply literal demise. I imply one thing extra like ego demise. I imply you need to let go of sure facets of your self which might be getting in your personal manner earlier than you’ll be able to take shamanic flight and actually be taught or obtain.
The way in which you construct one thing larger than your self is by letting these guidelines about security and self-preservation you’ve discovered die. In Avatar, we see the colonel character do the precise reverse of that and—spoiler alert—it’s why he fails.
He fails to see that the power of Na’vi amassing for the ultimate battle could possibly be addressed with one thing aside from a violent preemptive assault. He fails to let his defenses down and doesn’t see the higher, extra enlightening, various strategy. Our protagonist, Jake, does see it although, and that’s why he’s the story’s hero.
In your private {and professional} life, you most likely have extra ritualized habits and round patterns constructed to guard you from what you understand as hurt than you notice. And whilst you might not notice it proper now, they might be holding you again from the subsequent section—the one the place you obtain a long-term objective, construct a enterprise or launch a podcast—no matter your objective, it applies.
Earlier than you may get there, you’ve bought to let your outdated self die. You must be reborn, after which you’ll be able to actually fly.
Subsequent week: An episode 65 million years within the making
That’s it for Avatar, of us. There’s much more to be taught from this film, however these are the non-public growth classes your neighborhood shaman would need you to be taught.
Subsequent week, we’re sticking with the theme of blockbuster, big-budget, sci-fi motion pictures. It’s an episode of SUCCESS Film Rewind that’s 65 million years within the making—it’s the one the place we speak about Jurassic Park, in fact. See you there.
Alex Stevens invented motivational media criticism and reinvents the style each week on SUCCESS Film Rewind. Alex can be a lawyer, artistic guide, and artist, generally abruptly. Alex lives along with his household in Dallas, Texas.
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