Waking Life
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:36:01
Even exhilaration. But that hasn't
happened like that, thank goodness.

:36:07
I think that what we don't take
into account when we’re young
is our endless curiosity.

:36:10
That's what's so great
about being human.

:36:12
- You know that thing Benedict Anderson
says about identity?
- No.

:36:16
Well, he's talking about
like, say, a baby picture.

:36:19
So you pick up this picture,
this two-dimensional image,
and you say, "That's me."

:36:24
Well, to connect this baby
in this weird little image...

:36:27
with yourself living and
breathing in the present,

:36:29
you have to make up a story like,
"This was me when I was a year old,

:36:33
"and later I had long hair,
and then we moved to Riverdale,

:36:36
and now here I am."
:36:39
So it takes a story
that's actually a fiction...

:36:43
to make you and the baby in the picture
identical to create your identity.

:36:47
And the funny thing is,
our cells are completely
regenerating every seven years.

:36:52
We've already become completely
different people several times over,

:36:55
and yet we always remain
quintessentially ourselves.

:36:58
Hmm.
:37:20
Our critique began
as all critiques begin:

:37:22
with doubt.
:37:25
Doubt became our narrative.
:37:27
Ours was a quest
for a new story, our own.

:37:31
And we grasp toward this new history
driven by the suspicion...

:37:33
that ordinary language
couldn't tell it.

:37:37
Our past appeared frozen
in the distance,

:37:40
and our every gesture
and accent...

:37:42
signified the negation of the old world
and the reach for a new one.

:37:46
The way we lived
created a new situation,

:37:49
one of exuberance
and friendship,

:37:51
that of a subversive
microsociety...

:37:53
in the heart of a society
which ignored it.

:37:56
Art was not the goal
but the occasion and the method...

:37:59
for locating
our specific rhythm...


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