The Truman Show (1998)
Director: Peter Weir
Writer: Andrew Niccol
You might have heard about Jim Carrey’s, The Truman Show. If you haven’t watched it yet, I would strongly recommend it. It’s a real masterpiece. In the movie, the director,Christof,designs the Truman Show, which is a live broadcast of the entire life of Truman (Jim Carrey) from his birth. Truman’s parents, friends, teachers, and even his girlfriend are actors and actresses. They interact with Truman and live theirlives together with him according to their roles, so their relationships are all lies. Truman is the only one who believes it all to be real, but his house, village and all the other places he is able to see and visit are all part of a very elaborate movie set, encased in a town-sized dome.One day, a camera falls from the sky by mistake. At that moment, Truman realizes his life is not real and that it is actually broadcasted live. He then tries everything to throw off his life in the live show. His wife even reveals that she is an actress and tries to make him give up his efforts by telling him that it is impossible to escape the live show. However, Truman tries very diligently to escapeand, in the last scene of the movie, he finally sails out of the movie setto find his real life. Truman realizes that his life is false so he goes through many ordeals with the innocent conviction that he can succeedandfind his real life. It is truly beautiful.
We shouldn’t just take this film as a film because the reality of our life is not different from Truman’s at all. The life you are living is not real. I’m telling you the truth. Everyone mistakenly thinks that they are living in the real world but humans are not living in the world. We have eyes, nose, mouth, ears and body; this is a camera that continuously takes pictures. We learned from school that the camera was invented based on the principle of the human eye. Sincebirth, we took pictures of the world with our body, but those pictures are false. If pictures are taken with a camera, the pictures are stored on a film. However, the pictures we take with our eyes are stored in our mind. Let’s prove it, shall we? If you recall your elementary school– classes you studied, classmates, teachers, and yourself who listened to the class in a classroom –you can recall it. Also, let’s think about exercising during a physical education class in high school. For example, if you recall playing sports, the you who played the sport is within your mind. Playing together with friends and meeting teachers are also all in your mind. Let’s also think about your wedding day. Guests who came to the wedding hall to congratulate you and your family are recalled within your mind. Your spouse and you yourself can also be recalled. You could recall having breakfast after waking up this morning, anyone you ate with and yourself who was there eating. And you are reading this right now. So, if you think about it, before going to sleep tonight, you would know that everything – this column, as well as yourself reading it – had already been taken as a picture in your mind.
Likewise, humans take pictures from birth and are taking pictures right at this moment. The self even lives trapped in the pictures. Philosophers usually say that life is just a simple dream and films like Matrix and Inception suggest that the life we are living currently is not real but false, a dream and a program. These are actually right. Because the picture world that the self has made is overlapping the real world, we are not aware of it. But actually, we live trapped in the mind of the self, which is false. At schools, if some kid has a psychological disorder or does some weird actions that ordinary kids don’t do, we commonly say “he is living in his own world.”Simply, everyone in the world lives trapped within the world of the self. Because everyone lives trapped within the life of the self, it is pain, stress, loneliness and solitude. We like seeing birds fly in the sky but would not feel good seeing a bird trapped in a cage. Just like this, we live trapped in the mind’s cage that we ourselves have made.
We should now become Truman and find the real freedom by coming out of the life of the self, which is false. That time has come.The method to live happily and freely forever in the real world by escaping from the mind of the self, which is false,has already come to the world. What we should do is diligently meditate using this method and find the real self and real freedom like Truman. How lucky and great it is to live in such a true world!
Thousands of people have already found the real self and happily live in the true world. As such a time has come, let’s live happily together in the true world. The Truman story is our own story. You are living in the false world now and it is now the time when you need the courage like Truman to come out to the true world.
