Moviejournal: The wind rises, Godzilla

The first thing that hits you about this beautiful period piece of this particular piece of Japanese history is how peaceful and harmonic the whole idyllic setting is. Miyazaki has done it again with beautiful and serene settings that is truly beyond my vocab, and considering I’m just watching a screen cam version it’s really a compliment. The protagonist is a shy, reserved and all round nerdy yet hugely dedicated Japanese engineer that Japan has an abundance of. The story follows his childhook dreams to fly with the big boys, firstly the Italian legendary plane designer, then later on the industrial might of the Germans. The fictional side of the story about his romantic encounter and love with his late wife was moving and believable, a real Asian way of expressing affection.

The fact that in real life he is survived by 5 kids probably is the opposite what happened in this film. Beautifully and idealistically told love story which is hauntingly appealing. The fact that this film is controversial shouldn’t really surprise anybody. The lifelong pursuit of this guy is a lean mean killing machine in its truest sense. Both the Americans and the wide Asian continent has been under the full wrath of the zero fighter’s menance during militant japan times. However I do feel that it is their right, indeed their duty, to tell a vivid and compelling and beautiful story of one of their national heroes. Any people would’ve done the same, whether it hurts the feelings of other nations or not. Just watch how Jews shot the eerily poignant film of schindler’s list, among many others. Miyazaki is probably in the stage of his artistic career where he can do an animation about any subject, a truly enviable position to be in which few creative people get to experience. I tip my occasionally worn hat to that. 

The de-militarised japan should also take this dude’s words to heart, how he stated early on in the war that japan are seeking certain death by engaging the united states in a war. Miyazaki has been doing his last film for several features now, lets hope he keep doing a few more of his “last” animations.

 Now Godzilla, or as the jap guy in it calls it, “gozhilaa”, is everything that’s wrong with our pop corn movie culture and probably everything that’s wrong with me that pushed me out of the target audience bracket. Surely a 2 hour wooden fight scene between 3 ugly creatures doesn’t warrant any entrance ticket price albeit however cheap it it?! The film sort of begins with great promises and that promise just vanished towards the end and you can hear the the proverbial “plomb” of the movie plot together with the plomb of the gozilla itself in the film. Such bland and tasteless servings! This actually protrudes to a wider realm of issues relates to the consumerism culture we found ourselves incapable of escape out of. We need to explore and seek joy and fulfilment in an inside-out and constant feedback style instead of getting locked-in in a duck-feeding cycle of following the latest internet craze. Easier said than done. Also what’s with all the cheapie restaurant food? Disgusting.

A watershed moment where from this point on I will not willingly sacrifice my time money energy and outing opportunities on mindless and soulless and outright cold hard commercialised flicks. A stay home movie would be so much nicer, with so much on offer these days that home content technology has evolved. Sigh.  

转贴：What to Do With Your Life

A Guide for Young People: What to Do With Your Life

By Leo Babauta

I had a 15-year-old write to me and ask about figuring out what do do with her life.

She writes:

‘As a high-school student I’m constantly being reminded to figure out what to do with my life, what career I would like to have and so on. I definitely feel huge amounts of pressure when my teachers and parents tell me to figure out something now. I’m young and I don’t want to make a mistake and ruin my future. I know what I like and what my interests are but when I read about a job related to those interests I always feel as if I wouldn’t enjoy it and I don’t know why.’

What an extremely tough thing to figure out: what to do with your future! Now, I can’t really tell this young woman what to do, as her parents might not like that very much, but I can share what I’ve learned looking back on my life, and what I would tell my kids (oldest is 21 and still figuring things out, but I also have 17- and 16-year-old boys and a 14-year-old girl).

Here’s what I’d say.

You can’t figure out the future. Even young people who have a plan (be a doctor, lawyer, research scientist, singer) don’t really know what will happen. If they have any certainty at all, they’re a bit deluded. Life doesn’t go according to plan, and while a few people might do exactly what they set out to do, you never know if you’re one of those. Other things come along to change you, to change your opportunities, to change the world. The jobs of working at Google, Amazon or Twitter, for example, didn’t exist when I was a teen-ager. Neither did the job of Zen Habits blogger.

So if you can’t figure out the future, what do you do? Don’t focus on the future. Focus on what you can do right now that will be good no matter what the future brings. Make stuff. Build stuff. Learn skills. Go on adventures. Make friends. These things will help in any future.

Learn to be good with discomfort. One of the most important skills you can develop is being OK with some discomfort. The best things in life are often hard, and if you shy away from difficulty and discomfort, you’ll miss out. You’ll live a life of safety.

Learning is hard. Building something great is hard. Writing a book is hard. A marriage is hard. Running an ultramarathon is hard. All are amazing.

If you get good at this, you can do anything. You can start a business, which you couldn’t if you’re afraid of discomfort, because starting a business is hard and uncomfortable.

How do you get good at this? Do things now that are uncomfortable and hard, on purpose. But start with small doses. Try exercising for a little bit, even if it’s hard, but just start with a few minutes of it, and increase a minute every few days or so. Try writing a blog or meditating every day. When you find yourself avoiding discomfort, push yourself just a little bit more (within limits of reason and safety of course).

Learn to be good with uncertainty. A related skill is thriving in uncertainty. Starting a business, for example, is an amazing thing to do … but if you’re afraid of uncertainty, you’ll skip it. You can’t know how things will turn out, and so if you need to know how things will turn out, you’ll avoid great projects, businesses, opportunities.

But if you can be OK with not knowing, you’ll be open to many more possibilities. Read more on uncertainty.

If you’re good at discomfort and uncertainty, you could do all kinds of things: travel the world and live cheaply while blogging about it, write a book, start a business, live in a foreign country and teach English, learn to program and create your own software, take a job with a startup, create an online magazine with other good young writers, and much more. All of those would be awesome, but you have to be OK with discomfort and uncertainty.

If any opportunities like these come along, you’ll be ready if you’ve practiced these skills.

Overcome distraction and procrastination. All of this is useless if you can’t overcome the universal problems of distraction and procrastination. You might seize an opportunity because you’re good at uncertainty and discomfort, but then not make the most of it because you’re too busy on social media and watching TV.

Actually, distraction and procrastination are just ways of avoiding discomfort, so if you get good at discomfort you’re way ahead of most people. But there are some things you can practice — read more here.

Learn about your mind. Most people don’t realize that fear controls them. They don’t notice when they run to distraction, or rationalize doing things they told themselves they wouldn’t do. It’s hard to change mental habits because you don’t always see what’s going on in your head.

Learn about how your mind works, and you’ll be much better at all of this. The best ways: meditation and blogging. With meditation (read how to do it) you watch your mind jumping around, running from discomfort, rationalizing. With blogging, you are forced to reflect on what you’ve been doing in life and what you’ve learned from it. It’s a great tool for self-growth, and I recommend it to every young person.

Make some money. I don’t think money is that important, but making money is difficult. You have to make someone believe in you enough to hire you or buy your products/service, which means you have to figure out why you’re worthy of someone believing in you. You have to become worthy. And you have to learn to communicate that to people so they’ll want to buy or hire you. Whether you’re selling cookies door-to-door or an app in the Apple store or trying to get a job as a cashier, you have to do this.

And you get better with practice.

I worked as a clerk at a bank and then a freelance sports writer when I was in high school, and those were valuable experiences for me.

Protip: save an emergency fund, then start investing your earnings in an index fund and watch it grow over your lifetime.

Build something small. Most people fritter their time away on things that don’t matter, like TV, video games, social media, reading news. A year of that and you have nothing to show for it. But if you did a sketch every day, or started writing web app, or created a blog or a video channel that you update regularly, or started building a cookie business … at the end of a year you’ll have something great. And some new skills. Something you can point to and say, “I built that.” Which most people can’t do.

Start small, and build it every day if possible. It’s like putting your money in investments: it grows in value over time.

Become trustworthy. When someone hires a young person, the biggest fear is that the young person is not trustworthy. That they’ll come in late and lie about it and miss deadlines. Someone who has established a reputation over the years might be much more trusted, and more likely to be hired. Learn to be trustworthy by showing up on time, doing your best on every task, being honest, admitting mistakes but fixing them, trying your best to meet deadlines, being a good person.

If you do that, you’ll build a reputation and people will recommend you to others, which is the best way to get a job or investor.

Be ready for opportunities. If you do all of the above, or at least most of it, you’ll be amazing. You’ll be way, way ahead of pretty much every other person your age. And opportunities will come your way, if you have your eyes open: job opportunities, a chance to build something with someone, an idea for a startup that you can build yourself, a new thing to learn and turn into a business, the chance to submit your new screenplay.

These opportunities might come along, and you have to be ready to seize them. Take risks — that’s one of the advantages of being young. And if none come along, create your own.

Finally: The idea behind all of this is that you can’t know what you’re going to do with your life right now, because you don’t know who you’re going to be, what you’ll be able to do, what you’ll be passionate about, who you’ll meet, what opportunities will come up, or what the world will be like. But you do know this: if you are prepared, you can do anything you want.

Prepare yourself by learning about your mind, becoming trustworthy, building things, overcoming procrastination, getting good at discomfort and uncertainty.

You can put all this off and live a life of safety and boringness. Or you can start today, and see what life has to offer you.

Lastly, what do you do when your parents and teachers pressure you to figure things out? Tell them you’re going to be an entrepreneur, start your own business, and take over the world. If you prepare for that, you’ll actually be prepared for any career.

Moviejournal: Spider-man gazillion, captain America, 澳门风云

Normally i would avoid the heavily cheesy flavoured teen/nerds blockbusters especially from cookie cutter studios like marvel and Sony. Truly despicable. It's everything's that excessive and wrong about American in your face capitalism and soulless pursuit of formulaic profit. Indeed it's vomit inducing and gut wrenching just think about it. But due to circumstances I found myself sat thru these 2 yearly pop corn film lately. With exorbitant entrance prices. 

Spider-Man is really forgettable. The sticky wristed hero fiction has gotten to such a sad state that, for me, even a really good porn parody of Spider-Man would not arouse. And worse still, i don't find that fact particularly saddening, but would rather consider it an evolution of human species. When we reject the truly horrible, can human intelligence gainfully advance !

Captain America-winter soldier is my first intro to the captain america cartooniverse. The back story of this Chris Evans portrayed cap a is rather interesting. It's a ww2 relic and it's a nostalgic and american centric view of the universe. Patriotic education at its most entertaining. 

澳门风云：what a farce. Most memorable word is when 谢said 我最恨别人碰我家人。