No, not Clerks. Let's just get that out of the way. I mean yes, it was deeply and profoundly inspiring that he put his entire life and future on the line to make a movie, and yes that absolutely affected how I look at pursuing passions, but that's not what this is about.This is about Dogma (1999).I'm not sure if I'll be able to successfully describe why, but it changed me on a fundamental level. I'm a different person because of this movie.Check out this random 1 minute exposition clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efTwYSuqIgoSee, up until this point I was a hardcore Christian. The Bible was an incontrovertible document sent down from God. This was the Truth, this was the Way. There was absolutely no option of seeing the world in any other light. All other choices were temptations to damnation.We must spend every waking moment contemplating the big questions, monitoring and guarding every thought, every action, aligning it all with what we know to be true. Do not waste time with small talk. Do not waste time with frivolity. Dedicate yourself wholeheartedly to divinity or risk eternal pain and sorrow.But something about Dogma got me thinking in a new way.Chris Rock casually says here:He likes to listen to people talk. Christ loves to sit around the fire and listen to me and the other guys. You know whenever we were going on about unimportant shit he always had a smile on his face.And a bell went off in me, a kind of ringing that said: "Hey stupid, listen up! When people do trivial things that make them happy, that's good! Happiness is good!"It had never occurred to me that happiness might be... you know... important. The proposition here was that people just being people was okay.This was a total revelation at the time.Because at the time I was convinced that we were all awful, wretched things, and anything that came naturally was either evil or a distraction from God. That's what Christianity had taught me. If we could do whatever we wanted, we'd want evil. Because that's what we are.But maybe that's not true. Maybe God doesn't mind if we bullshit about nothing over a few beers. Maybe God gets a kick out of it. All of it; all the dumb and random things we do.Maybe I don't have to feel bad about feeling good.And then later in this clip:Mankind got it all wrong by taking a good idea and building a belief structure on it.You're saying having beliefs is a bad thing?I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. People die for them. People kill for them.I didn't realize it at the time, but over the next 10 years this idea would grow and grow in me.Gradually I started to appreciate that maybe fanatical devotion wasn't exactly a divine act. Maybe God made us naturally yearn for what God wants us to do. Or maybe it's all an accident and nobody's to blame, and there's no judgement waiting for us either way. Or maybe... maybe God itself is just an idea...Maybe it's impossible to really know.So maybe I should cut people a little slack when they say or do things I don't agree with.Uh oh. Maybe I've been a real asshole when I vehemently tell people the right way to do things.And maybe I can stop hating myself. Maybe I'm not a horrible animal cursed with "original sin" who needs to constantly beg forgiveness for every stupid little thing. Maybe it's all okay.Maybe I'm okay. Holy shit. Holy shit. Maybe I'm okay.Maybe I was just born to be human. Whatever that ends up meaning.That took a lot to accept. It took work.I'm at a stage in my life where I've found a pretty deep peace, and can see that peace growing much further in the years to come. But when I look back, honestly, I cannot remember a bigger catalyst to finding my inner peace than Dogma.That's what movies can do. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3337592
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