During my mindless Netflix flipping to decompress I took a chance with the new DiCaprio/Lawrence film ‘Don’t Look Up’. At surface level, it wasn’t that good, but after sleeping on it, the deeper messaging is quite profound – my suspicion is that this take home was the very intent, and actually mirrors the theme of the film itself very well… that is it’s fairly easy to get caught up in the superficial layers of the day to day, but underneath it all there is a major systemic breakdown that can and does impact each and every one of us – and could very well bring on the collapse of humanity as we know it.
The film takes us on a rather unemotional ride through attempting to inform humanity that doomsday is just six months away, and the world is just too distracted to let that sink in. Sounds about right, and captures the reality of our very shortsightedness and limited attention spans. To cut right to it – humans screw up the one opportunity to save themselves, and Earth is destroyed. The film ends with a Garden of Eden paradox where Earth’s few evacuees make it to some other place to transplant the human race and start all over.
If for no other reason than to consider just how screwed up humanity truly is, watch the movie – it captures this sad truth extremely well, and this should bother each and every one of us enough to try and be just a little more focused on what really matters in life…i.e. that includes not rotting my brain watching Netflix at night.
We are capable of so much more, and so much better. I always reflect on ancient history and keep in perspective a few undisputable facts, where; 1) the human race is not invincible or immune to natural selection or the laws of physics, 2) “advanced” civilization has come and gone multiple times throughout humanity, and 3) Planet Earth doesn’t owe us anything. So, as we trek forward every day, we should look up. Don’t allow yourself to get stuck in the rut that modern society has dug for us all. Each and every one us has a voice, and can be a voice for positive forward movement. Natural selection has a way of taking care of the rest.