"...in the world today, you can't live in a castle far away."

As one may have realized reading this blog, it serves as a way for me to air my opinion ... many times in response to an event or conversation. So it'll come as no surprise that this post is in response to an interesting conversation I had the other day. While it was generally mindless at the time, I think I internalized it a little and have been dwelling on it since. The conversation was about movies , and I suppose, one's particular taste in movies. A note about my personal choice in movies ... I generally don't watch Bollywood films, unless I hear that they are either particularly well made, or have some sort of social significance/plot. Hence, movies like Parineeta and Sarkar that I watched last summer fell into the first category of well made films, and films like Rang de Basanti and Water are more of the socially relevant variety. As for Hollywood, I'm more likely to watch romantic comedies over mindless comedies (such as Nacho Libre, etc) and above all, would go for the Constant Gardener or Hotel Rwanda. For some, movies are a way to escape reality ... for me, film brings me back.

I realized early on that I tend to examine random things a little more closely than perhaps I should. I subscribe to the real life parallels of the X-men and Matrix series, and dwell on them incessantly. I tend to lose focus very easily ... some say ADD, maybe I'm just lazy. But film holds my attention (ooh moving objects) and often is the way I get back to focus on whats important to me. I maintain that most of my life has been spent in a bubble ... and I sometimes feel that I still live in one. Perhaps I don't really have a grasp on reality ... maybe I don't know what reality is. I live through film because it shows me, regardless of how cushioned it might be, what the issues are out there. I don't have the emotional stomach to go out and look for it myself ... chicken I suppose ... so I need my dose of reality with the sugar coating of a theatre or television to digest it.

Since I've moved back to DC, I've been thrown into a world that is somewhat alien to me. The world of real activists. I've been hiding behind a facade for a while now ... I was a business major, worked in a corporate law firm, went to a law school that had more of a corporate/general focus ... and now I am in an environment where in order to succeed I must take a bite at reality in a way that I'm not quite used to. Kinda intimidating ... but bitter pills must be swallowed. I hope that the brilliant people around me don't mind guiding me through the bitterness ...