It's been to few days since my last entry - I blame this on a combination of me contracting a nasty bout of man flu which resulted in me being dizzy, full of mucus and unable to think straight for a few days, combined (rather inconveniently) with the fact of my beloved wife's birthday. I try and take lessons from life wherever I can, and the one presented by this combination of events was that my general preference for doing things at the last possible moment is no longer going to wash. It was cute when I was in my late teens and early to mid twenties, when my body was more or less invincible to anything as mundane as illness or fatigue and I could run around at a million miles an hour at the last moment and get everything done, but now as a man approaching my mid thirties, and falling prey to all the usual maladies and shortcomings that are presented, I need to plan. I need to finally adopt some kind of structure and order to my life, and to start taking better care of myself as well. It's all so very very dull.
This tangentially brings me to the subject matter of today's blog - the different ways in which we perceive things as we grow older. Rose tinted glasses is a phrase often used to describe that act of looking back and remembering things from our youth as much better than they in actual fact were. We've all I'm sure had that experience of watching a beloved show from our childhood only to find that it leaves us cold with terrible acting and ridiculous special effects. We've all eaten something that we fondly recall as the height of tastebud pleasure from our youth and spat it out in disgust. There are certain things that fundamentally alter about us as we move through life, and these things in turn alter our perceptions and tastes, moving us on to positions and opinions unthinkable years before.
So far so ordinary - we all are aware of this - we even have a twee little commonly used phrase to describe it. What interests me as I get older is that it isn't something exclusive to things from many years ago. I recall for instance going through old emails when I was about to leave my last job, and happening across one I'd written scarcely two and a half years previously. It was an email to a solicitor who had been less than helpful, and I remember at the time being immensely pleased with myself as I wrote it, deploying my gargantuan wit and splendid intelligence to mock this solicitor. I recall also the way that my skin crawled and I felt so terribly ashamed of myself as I viewed that email two and a half years later. It wasn't just a feeling of 'oh, that was a bit strong' - I literally
cringed at what I had written, and more importantly at the person I had been. It really made me think about how others perceive us, and about how we perceive ourselves. About how even a little bit of distance can make us totally re-evaluate things.
I see it in sillier ways too. The other night for example, I sat down to watch the movie Resident Evil with Milla Jovovich. I have long been a defender of the first few entries into this franchise, though even I had lost patience by the fourth installment, which was frankly terrible. Up until very recently - 2 nights ago in fact - I would have told you that Resident Evil, while not especially faithful to the videogame it drew it's roots and title from, was an intelligent and fun take on the zombie movie genre, and one of the better videogame to movie adaptations out there. Sat there two nights ago watching it, I wondered what my younger self had been thinking. I couldn't get into it. I mean, yes - the dialogue was laughable, the whole idea is absurd and the effects were as out of date as you'd expect twelve year old effects to be. But it wasn't especially any of that which grated - I can happily watch hammy old episodes of Doctor Who, I can ignore and even embrace the terrible effects of shows like Red Dwarf and movies like the original Godzilla. But I think that now as someone who edits and reviews fiction as well as writing it, and therefore has begun to gather a more comprehensive understanding of narrative, structure and plot, I can't help but pick apart anything I watch on those levels, and it's on those levels that Resident Evil fails utterly.
I mean, let's start with the fact that Jovovich plays one half of a 'fake married couple' who live in a mansion atop the secret underground base maintained by the evil umbrella corporation. They are employees of umbrella, they are there to ensure security. The first lines of dialogue spoken to Jovovich by Colin Salmon's character are 'Report! Report now!'. And then hoes on to explain that 'The Hive' has enacted some kind of security lockdown and as part of this, deployed knockout gas into the mansion which had the effect - among others - of temporary amnesia. So the security response of this secret base, in times of emergency, is to knock out and wipe the memories of the two security personnel on the surface immediately, such that when the cavalry arrive, they will be precisely less than useless? And this makes any kind of sense how?
That's one example - I could list dozens more but you get the point. I know at this stage, there will be people yelling at me 'why can't you just enjoy the film for what it is Greg?' It's a valid question - Resident Evil never made any pretensions at being great drama. It was never made with an eye on awards or the respect of its peers. It's a schlock horror action movie vehicle for the director's wife to star in. I get that, and I have happily enjoyed far sillier movies. I think that my issue is that most of the sillier movies are supposed to be comedies. Whatever else you say about Resident Evil, it isn't supposed to be a comedy. It's supposed to be an action/horror film, and it fails on either level - the horror is predictable and dull and the action is...well, much the same as the horror. When you aren't being entertained enough by what a movie is doing, you (or at least I) inevitably start to pull it apart as you watch. Man of Steel is another movie where I recently re-watched it and found myself hideously bored when I wasn't in a cinema watching it for the first time and distracted by the big screen, loud speakers and first watch haze. Watching it again on a small screen, all of its flaws (and boy are there a lot of them) became painfully obvious. I don't even mean THAT ending that everyone got themselves so tied in knots about - it's a lot more fundamental than that. It's just a really poorly written excuse for a movie - a series of scenes that the director obviously wanted to make, loosely tied together by plot and dialogue that literally exists only to push the camera on to that next big scene. There is no organic or natural sense to any of it, and that means I can't help but sit there and pick it to pieces.
It isn't just films and TV - I find that some of the books and music that I loved only a few years ago now just don't work for me. I guess maybe it's just an age thing and I'm analyzing it too much, but it's fascinating to experience this and be aware of it. This drastic, almost seismic shift in the way that I have perceived things makes me wonder if anything is ever truly fixed. There are plenty of things from my youth that endure as passions to this day - the musical version of War of the Worlds for example. But I wonder if they truly are the exception to the rule, or whether I just haven't had long enough to grow out of them yet. It's a puzzler for sure, but one that I happily embrace. A few weeks ago I sat down and watched Jane Eyre with my wife for the first time ever. I vaguely knew the plot (it being my wife's favourite story ever) but I had never read it nor actually seen one of the countless adaptations of it. I watched the Timothy Dalton version and it was excellent. I was genuinely moved and enjoyed the whole thing. I know that even last year, I would have sat there bored and resentful. Now I can see a value to it - a quality that has survived over so many years to shine through even today.
As a writer just starting out on the journey of writing, an observation like that is simultaneously inspiring and terrifying. Inspiring in that there is always that tiny optimistic glimmer of hope that I might actually manage a similar feat on any scale at all, and write something that future generations might look upon and take something from. Terrifying in the challenge and responsibility that potentially places before me. Even now, I look at thing a I wrote a few years ago with disdain, all too painfully aware of the faults and shortcomings. I wonder then, whether I will ever be satisfied with anything I produce, or if there will always be some future version of me that will one day scan through my most painstakingly crafted works and tut and shake my head. I don't know, but perversely, I look forward to finding out.
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