Posted by Morpork at September 23rd, 2007

Almost a Saturday night ritual, I watch tv for interesting movies and when I am lucky, I catch a movie that I missed watching years ago. And then there is the ‘odd’ movie.

I remember watching one such movie about a guy who was born on a ship and was a genius at playing the piano. Eventually, the ship was to be put out of service by scuttling it off the coast and the protagonist died with the ship, never ever stepping foot out of it.

The movie was heavy on philosophy and people. I thought that Anything Else was a bit like that movie in that there was no grand scheme of things and there was an Eccentric in it.

There was a lot of talking-at-the-same-time moments in the movie and it really gave me a headache. The Eccentric in the movie talks a lot about what to do and approaches to life situations but in the end, I cannot help but feel that philosophy in the end is just:

Life = Life + 1 - 1

or

Life = Life / 1

or

Life = Life * (x+y) / (x+y)

As intelligent as I imagine you are, you can definitely deduce that the equation gets more and more complex but the conclusion is not too interesting and you get a bit down and perhaps lose your sense of direction a bit.

Principles are like legislation. You make them as you go; You try to use them to guide future actions; You usually find yourself going against them; You will make new ones up to prevent yourself from making the same mistakes.

In the end, if you were in the same situation again, you’d probably do the same thing.