Behind the excesses is an excess
Behind the excesses is an excess. If I am a bit less conscious with how this entry will go, I will commit the error of having an excess with the way I speak and the volume of words I encode. The world would not plunge to the imminent economic turmoil and down-spin to the rock bottom it is heading to if it put a bit of restraint and held back its excesses. Both I and the world at large is a victim of some form of excess. Another case in point, should I have held myself from a couple or so stacks of rice then I would not have suffered from this bulging tummy I have been carrying with my weakening knees over the past years. You are guilty of having some excess. I am certain there was something you took in an amount a tat too much for you. Perhaps it was the last spending spree in the mall using that swiping card of yours. Perhaps it was the word you should have not said, leaving all the doubt in the world as you left that person after a heated argument. Perhaps it was the amount of tan on your skin that would have eventually led to skin cancer. Perhaps it was the volume of your ipod that eventually deals you an impaired ear. Your dealt a hand, you take the hand and the other one too.
Such is the waste for a person who lives in the world of excess. A moment too soon becomes a moment too much. An impulse becomes a compulsion. A seemingly warranted motive becomes a habit in need of no forcing. When one could have just said “no” and lived better the next day, one says “yes” and dies the other. I came across a movie the other night that celebrates the world of excess. That movie was and is Tropic Thunder featuring Downey Jr., Black and ofcourse Stiller. It gave me a few seconds of good laughs, a lot of chuckles and a ton of fancy thoughts crossing my mind. The acting was superb and the message was dead on despite long monologues on culture and on a life on the shallow lane. I like the switching of references to icons and to modern thinking. I like the dash of morality and righteousness if forcefully injects despite being on a sea of profanity already. It could have done more overall but it was as it is — a satire, a comic one at that. It was a satire of Hollywood movie-making and when the word satirical crosses your mind, you know an excess of sorts is about to happen or maybe has happened. But I am not about to toast to the excess of a satire, I am here for the excess the movie deals with — the excess of the self. Robert Downey Jr. is a method actor here who goes over the top and gets skin pigmentation procedure to make himself brown enough for his black role. The diction, the moves, the cultural references all point to a convincing Vietnam War soldier. According to his character, Lazarus, he does not drop character until the DVD commentaries are over. Over the top indeed! Black here is a heroine-sniffing comedian known for his loud farts. He is the white Eddie Murphy minus whatever versatility he has gained over the years. And Stiller is a falling star whose action movies and recent attempts at drama have been failing. Here, he is a bit desperate and again, a bit over the top. So are the dimensional characters in play. Truly a joy and tragedy!
We have been beating around several examples already of how we can think so much of the me, myself and I and forget about everybody else. Most of the time it’s just us and our conscience doing the battles. But every decision resonates in eternity as the proud warrior would say. I do believe even the smallest ones have that effect. We know of the damages that a mind bent on excess self-service can do. Just look at the economic plunging of our times and you’d wish you had bashed the home-buyers, home-sellers, stock brokers and lenders who were as Chuck Norris and company would say — greedy. Have it your way, the fundamental problem with this downturn and crisis that is about to get worse is not some mathematical imbalance in the equilibrium. I dare ask, does it ever head that way in the first place? We can have the facts, lay down the figures and master the devices of prose and policy and still fall short of finding the answers. When you put a headstrong and self-serving society gone beyond and overturning its convictions and principles and add a dash of temptation to blow up spending, you get a disaster. Excess has that effect. Better have more of anything than less. Better be in advance and have more time than be late. Noble as it is an objective, it is still a celebration of what excess does. We love excess. We save it in our banks. We chew it from our plates. We take it to the market and brandish it in front of our peers.
So how do we fix it? Don’t ask me. All I know is that it is a fundamental human problem from a basic human error — pride and selfishness. All I know is that it is catalyzed by the effect of one word: “love” or the love of it. I am sure a lot of the readers here have already had their fair share of beating even before taking caution. But then, I leave a caution and some hope. We are in search of a solution. But we have to first be sure of the problem and the cause. Diagnosis works this way. Healing works this way. If we are to put some patch of resolution and redemption to our daily causes, if we are to absolve ourselves from our worries and troubles then address the issue. Simple as that. And here, the issue is excess. Intellect alone is useless. Wealth alone is useless. Youth alone is useless, as a good teacher once said. Put them together and they amount to nothing. I strive for something beyond my tangible world of excess. It has done me little good other than giving me a passing joy. But I am in search of happiness. So is the world. Therefore I break free from the chain of excess and the love of it. I say that I also have to break free from the very source of this —myself.
Absolved.
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