Saturday, June 04, 2005

Twelve Monkeys

In the movie Twelve Monkeys, the hero (Bruce Willis) faces a strange contortion of fate. He is sent from the future to investigate & prevent a deadly viral outbreak which killed a large part of the humanity. He comes back in time, and finds himself in a looney bin. Here, he shares with his lunatic genius fellow inmate (Brad Pitt) his secret: he is from the future. He is here to investigate the story of the twelve monkeys which were the source of a virus.

Brad Pitt hooks on to that idea. As the movie unrolls, Bruce Willis discovers that it was indeed this lunatic who went on to derive the virus from the monkeys and break it loose. The irony? He got that idea from Bruce Willis' character who traveled back in time.

Isn't this the irony of foreknowledge? Of preimagining? Of knowing things that will be?

Foreknowledge is troubling. Sometimes I feel like the writer who writes a detailed script in her head. It's strange to see that script being acted out in real life, as it often does, to a great degree of accuracy.

One, it gives a thick, black feeling of surging power. Second, it makes me weak in the face of my own knowledge. There must be a control. But where? Is this knowledge a picture that realizes itself? Or do we get images of what is bound to be?

Sometimes I am very afraid of saying things that I know will happen for the fear that I am the source for initiating that idea. It is one of those twisted enigmas of life that we all deal with at some level. It is better to remain on the safe side and share not the idea.

For it makes me afraid of its realization. I think.... ugh, I will not discuss what I just thought.

///Silence.