Included in the BOTTLE ROCKET DVD is a facsimile booklet of Dignan's (Owen Wilson's character) 75-year plan. The Wes Anderson-directed, Wilson and Anderson-scripted movie is part of the absurdist catalog from Anderson, Owen and Luke Wilson.
Some of Dignan's thoughts: through a constant Regimen of Activities We begin to Learn a Craft. (capitalizaton, etc., as it appears in the notebook)
It pretty much boils down to, for the initial five years, somehow getting together a team for heists, amassing some cash base, learning their target craft from professionals and making a name for themselves. (Didn't they see BONNIE AND CLYDE?)
At age 65, what would my 75-year plan look like?
Following his outline, I, too, would like to meet people from foreign countries and develop outside interests, including travel, art and science. It would be wise to establish good will within the community (The Robin Hood Principle.) Oh, yes. And go legit.
I am charmed by a character, fictional, in this case, with such optimism, such trust in his wits to take him where he wants to go, such as the beach, town, ranch and lake houses. I could be content with the beach and town options.
What could it hurt, having a plan that extends to 2085? Since I don't know what will happen tomorrow, it is just as easy to guess or imagine a time much nearer the end of this century. Some of my intentions would include:
-Anti-gravity devices, kiss arthritis goodbye.
-A manifesting mind, let me simply think incantations over my checkbook.
-Connections in high places so my loved ones and I will always have access to the best medical care in the cosmos, as well as asking favors on behalf of others.
-Sleep learning, become a specialist instead of a generalist. My thoughts on subjects related to my specialty will be in demand, captivating audiences, all via computer (or whatever comes next) from the (a) beach or (b) town house.
-Glitch-free teleportation. I am already too cranky for airports but I don't want parts of me going to Australia while other parts stay home.
-Reliable tutors. Sleep learning probably won't answer everything.
-An ease of benevolence, the ability to assist using all possible resources and the option of doing so anonymously.
-Greater inner peace, in which the previous items would certainly assist.
-Political influence. You think we're liberal NOW?
-Clean houses and exquisite meals, achieved through the newest technology.
-Remaining legit.
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26 comments:
Ok I like these, sig me up.
Laoch - Consider yourself part of the gang.
My list is not as well written as yours, but remarkably similar, except for two, may I?
1. Anti-gravity sounds like fun, although may present a future traffic control problem. I've got enough problems on the ground.
Unlocking gene-therapy to prevent ALL illnesses man-made or otherwise may be preferable.
2. Teleportation, always wanted it, I'd never be late again, teleport to vacation spots for the day and return to my bed in the evening, without jet lag.
Current theory has it that one would have to be disintegrated at point A,(aka dead) and a copy reassembled at point B (aka clone). Something about that just doesn't appeal to me.
Very high on my list: Immortality without physical aging, so I can continue to read, learn and watch all the new discoveries. It's the only way that I could be around long enough to experience a real interplanetary starship.
A "Replicator" (was that the name?) on Startrek. Best kitchen gadget ever. Reassembled atoms on order to provide tea in a mug.
The concept of IN as opposed to ANYWHERE BUT IN, was a concept a now retired coffee maker had particular difficulties with.
I.AM.SUCH.A.GEEK!
Marylinn, I just saw how long my comment is. Yikes! Sorry.
Ok, I put "Bottle Rocket" in my Netflix queue.
What I want to know are where all all those "personal helicopters" we were promised in those 1960 Popular Mechanics magazines. And I believe we were supposed to have highways under the ocean by 1974. I'm waiting, people!!
Marylinn,
Basking in your plan for 2085 makes 2010 more endurable right now.
I have had this notion lately that if we come to understand the world into which we came, we may perhaps be able to figure out where we came from, and what we're doing here, and even what it might have been like had we not shown up.
(Probably means nothing, but oh well.)
I particularly relished the part of your 75-year-plan that involves sleep learning, until I realized you did NOT mean learning to sleep.
(That's my own 15-minute plan, I guess.)
In any case, excuse all this, just a dithering way of saying: thanks for another great post.
Artist and Geek - I have no problem with the length of comments. My hope is that whatever drawbacks exist for teleportation in the near future, they will be remedied. No aging, no illness...I'll ponder that...it would require all those one cares about signing on as well...don't want to be the last one standing - you realize we're talking about all this as though it could happen. I may be geekier than I thought.
Robert - Highways under the ocean...remembering how the New York tunnels gave me the heebee jeebies, I can guess how well I'd do. Haven't traveled the Chunnel, as you can guess. Yes, where are those modern conveniences, like jet packs and personal helicopters. Clearly they don't have the moon team working on this issue.
I hope you enjoy BOTTLE ROCKET. It and all Wes Anderson pictures are absurdist - yet real - and I am very fond of them, especially RUSHMORE and THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS, if you haven't seen them. This will be a good test case.
Tom - No harm in leaving 2010, at least in our imaginations. Sleeping might be one of the few courses I could teach. It seemed that putting that time to further use, rather than actually having to study while awake, might be a modern notion. Thank you for joining in...so much of day-to-day living seems speculative, why not dream bigger? Didn't notice any dithering, not a bit.
And who says it won't? With so many brilliant minds working on the elusive "fountain of youth", it's a matter of time. Still mortal, but long living. Theoretically quite possible and some cells have been kept alive for quite a long time.
Teleportation is less probable, but research into it has been funded. They managed with an electron I think. Then there is CERN. Wow and Gulp in one.
Edison, Ford, Curie etc.etc.etc.
"You are doing what?"
Geek is good:)
ha...
someone in a movie once aid the only ones who use the words legit were the ones who weren't..
I just can't imagine you being UN legit.
(as opposed to ILL)
I had a one week plan starting yesterday but I already failed it.
xo
Artist and Geek - Some of my cells already feel as though they've been kept alive a long, long time. That's just today's response. I looked up CERN and now I know, at least, what it is, possibly what it is up to. And I do believe that we are well supplied with those who seek answers for the sake of...answers, and not profit. With or without funding, I believe the discoveries will come hurtling toward us faster than we can imagine. There are many reasons for optimism and excitement.
Denise - Hopelessly drawn to gangster (not gangsta) slang of other eras, I am pretty much legit and swear to use any newly-acquired powers for good (the ILL part escaped by an eyelash...oh, those WWII hurry-up weddings).xo
Rebecca - The VERY reason I decided I would do no worse with a 75-year plan. The one-day, let alone one-week, projections elude me. This gives me a long time to find out that I have not succeeded. (Add to list: -Edit dictionaries to redefine words such as "success").xo
Teleportation should have happened years ago - minus the bits in one place and the bits in another. Seriously, will someone get on that?! I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but the thought of "one minute being in one place, thinking about family, pressing a button and poof there I am" makes me all giggly inside.
I like your plan.
I saw on the news a month or so ago some kid made a plane/car. Not very practical of course, but thinking about streets in the sky is a strange concept.
I also like the old movies set in the future (2010) and seeing how far off they are. We should really all be wearing white Lycra moon suits by now, shouldn't we?
Hi Marylinn - the places you go. . . thanks for offering us a seat in your side car.
I could write screeds but will keep my response simple (1) I am conflicted about the whole bodily experience we're all having; on the one hand, I find the body cumbersome, like an oddly-put together 'vehicle' that needs constant servicing. There are days I'd quite like to be able to move around without it. On the other hand, I feel tenderly towards it and to its strengths and vulnerabilities and couldn't imagine not being 'in it' or having to minister to it in order to keep it going. I suspect I'd miss my physical self were it no longer there and I was 'free to roam' about without it (I don't think this is what you're suggesting; it's just where my mind is taking me in the moment).
The second thought (which might seem paradoxical given what I've just written) is this - that the internet allows us to 'teleport' in a way? How often do we - those of us in the blogging community - find that without realizing it or intending it, we're pondering the same landscape, exploring very similar questions or thought threads? Salvador Dali said 'when we are asleep in one world, we are awake in another' and I wonder what happens in this 'real/virtual' world is an expression or manifestation of this? Here, there's no time frame in some ways - not even a North or South. Perhaps, through the exchanges that 'occur' out here, we're creating and inhabiting an entirely new continent/space --- one where we're not encumbered by the usual boundaries, biases and limitations? One where respect and exchange are primary motivators.
Oops, this has turned into a tome. Sorry! I'm not sure where these ideas have come from; seems I'm a bit of a geek, too? ; )
Love to you - and hello to your other readers, whose musings I so enjoy.
Claire x
Claire,
In a way it is our spirits coming through - is it not. The only bodily thing I'm contributing here is my fingers pushing the keys. The blogging world does let us "leave" are physical bodies for a bit doesn't it? I only really exist here in spirit. I've only kind of seen pictures of a few people. It's kind of exhilarating to exist here without or bodies getting in the way.
I agree, Rachel - yes. This 'body-less/non-physical' space is liberating isn't it? It's so good to know you tuned in to the 'Intelligence of the Heart' talk, too. . . I listened to it last night when I got home from Marlborough. It makes such invigorating - and encouraging - good sense.
Marylinn, if you wouldn't mind, perhaps we could post the link to this talk here so others can make their way to it, too? x
Claire and Marylinn,
Welcome to Geekdom. Mission accomplished. ;) ;)
And I had to look up screed.
Claire I used to roll my eyes when I heard pseudospiritual references to the mind-body connection. Until I discovered that the GI tract produces more neurotransmitters than the brain itself. Who knew. I'm not sure if I digress.
Same reaction to the body, at times no more than a life-support system for my brain, that interrupts my thoughts and activities with constant need for maintenance.
Other times, what an incredible magnificent organic machine. The heart, the lungs etc. work 24/7 and unlike something mechanical, don't need to be turned off for self-repair. And thank goodness, it does that on its own.
2) Never thought of the internet as a teleportation device for the mind before. Who needs to take "being in cyberspace" literally? Thanks for that interesting thought.
I want to comment more, but A) body needs nourishment B) despite repeated assurances by the gracious host, I still feel like I'm eating too much at this dinner table.
Marylinn, thank you for the gift of your writing/post/blog and that you encourage discussion and so much more
Rachel - Lycra moon suits, nutrient pills instead of luscious meals, automatic everything. I think we are forming a loose sort of gang (as they tried in BOTTLE ROCKET), giving at least a nod of acceptance to parts of the 75-year plan. As I've said, we have nothing to lose. When our minds become all we need to travel from here to there, no pesky devices, then...then. It will indeed be a new world.
God, how I love eating grand meals though. I will be sad to see that go =)
Claire - First, there is always a seat reserved for you in the sidecar...it is surprisingly roomy and accommodates all who wish to join the ride. Second, I believe comments become what they need to be so please don't concern yourself with length.
And no, the 75-year plan has me inhabiting my body, though with fewer twinges and limitations, I can but hope. I do see - and agree with - your assessment that through our blogging and commenting, we have a form of teleportation, certainly a way of reaching beyond previous boundaries to connect in meaninful ways. As I don't believe in coincidences, I assume we end up meeting the people we need to encounter, having the conversations we need to assist in our mutual expansion. It is new territory and the like-mindedness I've encountered in the past several months exceedes anything I could have imagined, newly-found (I will call them) friends feeling more like home than long-time acquaintances. I love the notion of being asleep in one world, awake in another. That is how my dreams have felt of late...waking up is startling and I am disoriented for the other world was so immediate and real.
I feel so fortunate in the group which is building here, the musings we share. My life is much richer for it. Love to you.
Rachel and Claire - It is very much a meeting of the spirits. Sometimes at other blogs, I second-guess myself for the comments which spring to mind as I read their words, yet I believe the best I can do is be as honest, as authentic as possible. Our spirits will allow nothing less. And Claire, by all means, please leave the link for "Intelligence of the Heart," or I may have it as well. Can't hurt if we both post it. And any other information you feel applies to our discussions. xo
Artist and Geek - You have yet to overstay your welcome at this feast. I don't see that happening. And as we perhaps broaden the loose definition of geek to encompass spiritual connections as they relate to quantum science, we may all become at least junior members of the society. So many view and interpretation come from these exchanges, all of which open our minds and expand our possibilities.
Rachel - I don't see many of us willing to surrender the bliss of good food. The time we save with our mechanical helpers (not just robot vacuum cleaners) will leave us greater leisure to enjoy meals together. No, no, not part of my plan. xo
I agree. Marylinn, thank you for creating a cozy, honest place on your blog's home - full of pillows and natural light and food for thought.
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