Monday, September 17, 2007

Paranoia 23

I never used to like Jim Carrey. I still don't like his comedy work. But he was the leading actor in 2 of my all-time fav movies - The Truman Show and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Well this weekend I saw him in another of my all-time fav movies - The Number 23. The movie has received mixed reviews in mainstream media, but if you've ever suffered psychotic level paranoia, then this movie will resonate with you like no other.

Carey is haunted by all sorts of weird and terrifying "coincidences" revolving around the number 23. Although there is clearly major paranoia involved on his part ( he wasn't in a psychiatric hospital for notheing), the movie weaves huge doses of plausibility into the "coincidences" which creates the movies suspense and intrigue.

Having been followed around my whole life by a strange, dare I say curse, of incredible coincidences, this movie was right up my street. In my case the recurrent talisman is the letter Y rather than the number 23, but otherwise it is all pretty much the same. In fact I posted about this synchronicity that has plagued my life just the other day.

So you can imagine that when I see a movie of this nature it gives my mind an instant rev. It is incredibly re-assuring to know that you are not alone. I stayed up for hours after the movie, my mind racing with links between the number 23 and the letter Y. Yes, I even found a few pretty profound ones.

But the next day, thankfully, I saw that some of the "unexplained links" in the movie had been manufactured more by Carey's mind, than were statistically significant in any way. In fact some of the deductions were really, really stretched. I mean every number is linked to every other number one way or another. If you've got full discretion as to when you decide to add numbers together, when subtract, when reverse, when multiply - you can reduce everything to 23. ( Hey, I even convinced Mrs M yesterday that 23 x 3 = 69 ;)

So it was kind of illuminating. Maybe some of my own observed links between the letter Y and events in my own life are grossly stretched?

Yeah, there might some. But I remain unconvinced that they are all insignificant. So I've yet to find out where my own story leads...

10 comments:

  1. this is not to be offensive..... but I had a sponser that called that "mental masturbation". I found it really good description of what the manic mind does. Its bored so it amuses itself with what ifs and such LOL. "mental masturbation" I wonder just how much of a difference it would really make in your life if you decide there are links rather than it being psychosis or if you decide its all psychosis. What will actually change? Will you live your life differently? Make decisions differently? I'm not being sarcastic here, I really am curious.

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  2. if you're one of those peeps who thinks there's something wrong with masturbation...

    anyway, 23 was kinda sucky, i mean it was okay, but coulda been much better.

    may i suggest STAY as a dvd for you tonight?

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  3. I can't stress enough the need for those of us with number, coincidence & other kinds of synchronicity issues to do a bit of investigation into how the human mind as meaning-making-machine is hard-wired to find such connections everywhere and in everything.

    Most people shift through such phenomena without paying much attention to them or giving them anysignificance. We can't.
    But there's nothing magical or even unique about it, no matter how special it sometimes makes us feel (when we're not otherwise occupied feeling bad).

    For anyone interested, here's a link to a piece on religion and biology that (with some extrapolation) connects up with this issue:
    http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2003/april/index.php?ft=sapolsky

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  4. Oh God. This does sound a little too close for comfort. It is amazing how you start pulling things out of the magic hat of mania and depression. What gets me is when I think about something and then later that day, in an unrelated context, someone mentions the word or the concept. If I am out of it, it freaks me out!

    Got to find this movie. I bet most of the critics just don't know what it is like on the inside, how real these things can seem.

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  5. Oh raine, as the song from Hair says "Masturbation can be fun"

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  6. LMAO- I never said I had anything "against" masturbation LOL

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  7. Sorry- i cant quit laughing. I suffer from ummm hypersexuality? I am SOOOO not against masturbation of any kind ROFLMAO

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  8. Maybe raine you rubbed BPG up the wrong way!

    I have been mixing with a few full-on Christians recently. They speak to God and God speaks to them. Everyday they find coincidences that are signs that God is talking to them.

    Now, maybe I wrong but are the God squad suffering from psychosis too??

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  9. That is so funny BP Guy: I actually walked out of 'The Truman Show' because I could not stand the psychoticness of it. It bothered me so much. I don't consider it 'making me feel less alone' - it's a movie for the entertainment of normies who have never experienced ANYthing close to real psychosis. It's not entertaining for me, its uncomfortable and makes me feel like more of a freak because the obvious psychotic aspects of these movies are barely hitting the normie brain. Or they have to make it so over the top, so they get it.

    My favorite Jim Carrey's are the dumb ones: Pet Detective 1 & 2, and Lier, Lier is a work of pure comic & physical comedy genius. Jerry Lewis couldn't have done better (in his heyday). I love to laugh and forget my problems (I've got a movie collection and the majority are comedies). Not only do I not want to revisit the nasty I don't want to add to it for God forbid: a future one.
    That's just me. I'm glad Jim's getting sales. But he needs to returns to his roots. Before his rubbery face freezes that way.:)

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  10. 3j3ChK Hello! Great blog you have! My greetings!

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