Basically I am not a fatalist. But I can’t honestly say that I believe fully in free will either. I don’t think our future is pre-ordained. But I don’t think we are fully in control.

Kind of a philosophical dissonance, isn’t it?

I guess I think that some things are pre-determined (life, death, taxes, sexuality, etc.) and others are personal choice (where you live, what you do, etc.). Probably the truer statement is that much of what happens in life is a combination of that which is ‘built-in’ (genes, culture, era, society) and much of it is how we deal with all of that (action, reaction, thought, change, etc.).

Sorry about that preamble. It is just that it dawned on me the other day that some movies have influenced me in that way and they fall into both categories – 1. pre-determined/other source – and 2. I had to choose to watch them, choose to think about them and choose to be influenced.

Hmmmmmmm?

I mean, of course, movies influence you. All stories do. But some have more influence than others and, in hindsight, I am quite surprised how influential a few have been.

Frontier House (PBS, 2003) and The Matrix are amongst the most influential in choosing this somewhat-unusual-for-me-given-my-history, new, remote, off-the-grid lifestyle. Weird, eh?

Frontier House is a documentary about three families living in Montana in the conditions settlers faced in the late 1800’s. I’ve never forgotten it. In fact, I have seen it three times. It is not so much ‘inspiring’ as it is ‘real’ and ‘human’. It influenced me greatly even at the time. But, if you had asked me how, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you at the time. Still can’t. Not really.

The Matrix, on the other hand, was seen as just another cool sci-fi story that had universal, big-theme elements including Jesus, technology, enslavement, freedom, faith and a whole bunch of entertaining ideas. No biggie. Just fun. I didn’t think, at the time, that it had any influence on me whatsoever.

But shortly after it, I quit watching TV. Shortly after it, I began to seriously plan on ‘getting out’ of the ‘system’ and getting ‘off-the-grid’. The ‘grid’ and the ‘Matrix’ are disturbingly similar concepts – in my head, anyway. Now I think the movie had a great influence. If it didn’t, it was quite coincidentally parallel to my life and state of mind at the time.

Am I just a pudgy Keannu Reeves?

Well, I am kidding, of course. But those movies had an influence on me. I can’t deny that. So did Mother Earth News user forums (a whole other blog).

And so did fate, in a way. Sal and I bought this property 35 years ago. Unthinkingly, really. Well, we thought about it but, in retrospect, we acted first and thought afterwards. So, that critical element of the ‘plan’ was almost ‘accidental’. Fate? Luck?

Just musing, I guess. Here we are, doing what we want to do and being happy and it occurred to me that very little of the fundamentals, the foundation steps were planned or even consciously taken.

Weird, eh?