Cinema and the Psychology behind

 

Do you remember the 17^th element in the periodic table? Unless you’re a chemist (or) a chemistry teacher (or) a professional who deals with periodic table, you wouldn’t know. But, you still remember the storyline of Titanic and the fact that Jack died saving Rose, assuming that you saw the film some ten, fifteen years ago. Why? Is it because Di Caprio and Winslet are attractive (or) celebrities (or) because they are your friends? No, it is more than that.

You felt the cohesion in the story, the emotions behind each character, and the somewhat related incidents in your life. One might ask, I can memorize the periodic table, study the science behind it and make perfect sense out of it, classifying the elements into noble gases, halogens, lathanides, actinides, and so on. You can, but you need to make some mental effort, less for some and more for others, nonetheless, you have to converge your undivided attention on the subject in a deliberate manner. Conversely, well written movies (or) songs for that matter, doesn’t demand deliberate attention from you. It just flows and take you with it, making you immerse in its intricacies and hidden nooks in its bed.

Why is the difference? What makes us move in a cinema hall and what makes us lose focus in a classroom? Well, the complete answer and a far more dedicated research lies in the book, ‘Thinking, fast and slow,’ penned by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman classifies the mode of thinking into two, System 1 and System 2. To put it in simple words, System 1 does the intuitive thinking while System 2 is responsible for the mental activities that demand attention, for example, complex computations, though not limited to mathematics.

System 1 and… System 2

Periodic table, Statistics, a new skill you are learning, etc., requires your attention and needs you to work deliberately, they are taken care of by your System 2. Seeing a movie, hearing a song, driving a car in a lonely highway, etc., doesn’t require much mental effort and are taken care of by System 1. System 1 is also responsible for the biased decisions we take without weighing the odds. Remember this, we will come back to this later. All being said, don’t think that System 1 and System 2 are different regions in your brain. Like the pseudo scientific theory that proclaims left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for analytical thinking and right hemisphere of brain is responsible for creative thinking. That is horseshit. Yeah. That’s what it is.

Finding the flow

Okay, so we have known what System 1 and System 2 are. Now, we should understand another concept. It is popularly known as ‘flow’ by the psychologists. Flow is a state of mind in which, we work more energetically, spontaneously, stay emotionally connected to our work on a whole other level. Artists, writers, sports persons, athletes, and researchers are some of the people who experience flow in a day-to-day basis. Everyone would have experienced flow in their life, it is just that, few occupations demand it more from an individual. To attain ‘flow’ the task at hand shouldn’t be too complex nor too simple. If it’s complex, you would try hard and get frustrated. If it’s too simple, you would get bored. So, a task should be interesting and familiar at the same time for you to get immersed in it.

A well written script checks all the boxes for above discussed things. It hooks you in the first 20 minutes with an exciting (or) stirring incidents, builds up suspense with intricate knots in the story, makes the characters interact to move the plot, keeps expanding upon the cornerstone (the one liner), and ends it all with a well fused climax, tying the loose ends. If a script is filled with niche it will lose your attention. Unless there is a major difference in the way of storytelling, System 1 won’t help you and System 2 won’t be stimulated at all. When a script demands enough attention and entice you with its emotional context, it wins your heart. You enter a state of flow, without even doing any work. Your System 1 notes minute changes in a character through noticing the looks, smiles, gestures, and reactions to the things happening around. Interestingly, all of this happens in the subconscious. That’s why rushed death of a character makes you frown, as in, Daenerys Targaryen from ‘Game of Thrones,’ even though her death is inevitable given her seeping madness. While, Jack’s death in ‘Titanic’ feels disturbing yet poetic.

Art as a medium of revolution

We discussed earlier that System 1 is also responsible for making biased decisions, right? Well, an artist can change a bias in the society by weaving a story or coloring the canvas, through expressing the untold. Creating a discussion with the subconscious through the medium of art. Michael Jackson did with his songs what Nelson Mandela wanted. Muhammad Ali became a symbol of revolution, representing the same ideas which Malcolm X possessed. Bruce Lee’s movies communicate his philosophies to a millennial kid born after his death. ‘The Pianist’ expresses the pain of Jews as much as the memoir of Anne Frank. ‘Joker’ breaks the mirage of dualism in movies and attempts to provide a realistic picture of the human psyche, succeeding in parts if not all.

One might think that discrimination is a work of System 2, but it ain’t that simple. System 1 comes into play. Avoiding biases needs the help of System 2. For a high class person to treat a low-class person with respect, it needs the help of System 2. For a White American - who was brought up in a discriminating environment - to respect an African-American, it needs the help of System 2. For a researcher to not tweak his findings on the basis of a single intuitive idea, it needs the help of System 2. For people to vote for an eligible candidate, it needs the help of System 2. Yet, everything isn’t lost for our species. Art can do the groundwork in the subconscious mind, for System 2 to recognize the glitch in the matrix. And cinema is an excellent contemporary medium of art.

கூரை

மேற்க்கூரை வேய்ந்திடினும்

மனசித்தி பெற்றோமில்லை

அண்டிப்பிழைக்கும் அன்னதானக்

கோமகனும் இன்புறுவானில்லை

ஆழியிலே உண்டோ

நுரைக்குமிழியிலே உண்டோ

வேள்வியிலே உண்டோ

கேள்வியிலே உண்டோ

சக்கரத்தில் உண்டோ

நின்று சுழலும் அச்சிலே உண்டோ

வான் நகையில் உண்டோ

மின்னும் மின் மினியிலே உண்டோ

கண்ணில் உண்டோ

வீழும் கண்ணீர்த் துளியிலே உண்டோ

ஆராய்ந்துக் களைப்புற்று 

கண்விழித்து பார்த்தனன்

நெற்றியின் உள்ளே நின்றொடும்

எம் மனக் குதிரை

Science, the elixir of 21st century

Fascinating ideas combined with hard hitting facts makes science a wonderful thing to learn. How does science works? Why religion is bullshit and the stories it tells? What are some of the contradictions in the Bible? Keep reading to find out more.

To understand how science works let's consider an allegory. Miss Science is a master chef who blends various recipes and flavours in her cooking. A new scientific theory is like the idea of new recipe she wants to cook. She tastes various recipes to understand what ingredient goes well with the other. Then she buys the ingredients, the ingredients represents the tools required. Once she got all the ingredients right, she starts cooking, in science this process is experimentation. If the recipe comes out great she notes down the process and serves the recipe to the entire world. And what more, she even might mix the previous recipe with a brand new recipe if it blends well. Here, taste stands for the observation of a theory and blending represents how scientific theories don't collide with each other. They stand true to their own aspect at the same time, they work well together.

Unlike science, religion and the things it preaches are filled with contradictions. For example, in Mahabharat according to the laws of war, it is wrong to hit someone under the hip. But Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu, advises Bheema to smash Duryodhana's thighs. In Bible, the punishments listed for homosexuals defies the second commandment of Jesus, love thy neighbor as thyself. If God created the earth just a few thousand years ago, how come fossils dated millions of years ago are in existence? How did so many people survived a year in Noah's Ark without any plants or without developing any diseases? Why is there no evidence for a Global flood? Why didn't the Holy books preach against slavery, casteism, racism, male chauvinism and other forthcoming evils? All of these points to one thing. Holy books are the words of willing people who wanted to wrote the stories they know with loads of fantasy and religious dogmas. These people wrote what they know with the knowledge available during that particular time period. For example, bat is listed as a bird in the Bible while scientists name it as a mammal.

Even if we leave the Holy books, religions are becoming a mass hysteria endorsed by the educated and uneducated alike. People are plotting against their own countrymen to establish a kingdom filled with slavery and violence against women. Why? Because their scriptures said so. Millions of people have died due to the imposition of religion, both willingly and unwillingly. Religion create an imaginary division within the minds of people. It makes you believe that for somewhat reason your God is better and truthful than the other God. The Vatican church doesn't gives account of how it spends the money and offerings it collects from the Roman Catholics. Intolerance has become the current trend in countries like USA and India. 

Religion has made you believe that your grandmother who gave birth to two stillborn children and suffered through a miscarriage led a happy life than you. It makes you blind to the things science has achieved within a short span of 100 years. Science has invented penicillin, reduced child mortality rate, increased the average lifespan of people, and it connects you and me through a network. In short, science has made our life easier and happier.

Inflation and other problems related to recession

This millennium has faced one of the worst global recession in 2008 and is likely to face another in the coming months. A search on recession would fetch us this, "recession is a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP (Gross domestic product) in two successive quarters." Some of you might wonder, "what are these things?" keep reading to know better.

A recession may happen for a number of reasons like improper management, high-level ethical breaches, a natural disaster, a disease, a war, et cetera. During a period of recession, the following things might happen: people losing jobs, inflation, deflation, and famine.

People work and get a salary or profit. This salary or profit is known as nominal income. But, the subtraction of money needed for essential goods from the nominal income results in the real income. This real income is the true measure of a country's prosperity and a stable economy.

The ability of the people to purchase goods with a single unit of currency is known as purchasing power. This purchasing power decides if there is inflation or deflation in the economy. For example, a kilogram of onion costs 35 rupees in March. But in December, a kilogram of onion costs 80 rupees. Here the purchasing power is reduced and has resulted in inflation. Inflation is a considerable increase in the prices of goods relative to the value of money. Deflation is the opposite where the purchasing power is increased and people can buy more than yesterday or last month with the same amount of money.

During a recession, governments may print more money in order to produce circulation and this might lead to inflation. That's why a central banking system controls the printing of money. In India, that system is the RBI (Reserve Bank of India). The world bank has certain terms and conditions to control the printing of money.

A recession affects people psychologically more than economically. Stock prices fall drastically and hopes fly away in the air. To know more about the stock market, wait until tomorrow.