meeting the mentor

Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

- The Matrix (1999)

mastership

I prayed wondering how many centuries, how many eons must pass before the wind and rain could wear away the mountain that enclosed me.
Darkness.
Darkness for centuries.
I wondered if there was still a war being waged on the ground above me if man would still exist on earth, when I saw the sun again.
The centuries rolled by.
I put my trust in time and waited for the rock to wear down around me.
I was free again.
Thousands of centuries had passed but the earth had stayed green.
There was no winter, no wars.

Had man finally learned to control both the elements and himself?

- The Time Machine (1960)

the formula

life is about commitment

Leichtigkeit

Humor ist die leichte Art der Demut,
Zynismus ist sein Schattenbild.

mitigating circumstances

- Lord Toranaga says, that I have told him, that Holland was a vassal of the Spanish untill a few years ago. He asks you if that is true.
- Yes!
- Then your ally Holland is fighting against his lawful king, is that true?
- They are fighting against Spain yes...
- Isn't that rebellion? Yes or no?
- Yes but there are mitigating circumstances, serious mitigating circumstances...
- There are no mitigating circumstances when it comes to rebellion against the sovereign lord.
- ...unless you win.

- Yes, mister foreigner with the impossible name, yes, you name the one mitigating factor. Will you win?
- Yes, hai, we will win!

- Shogun (1980)

loss of memory changes the world

The world is changed,
I feel it in the water,
I feel it in the earth,
I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

eine weitere Tragödie

Hier war die Arzenei, die Patienten starben,
Und niemand fragte: wer genas?
So haben wir mit höllischen Latwergen
In diesen Tälern, diesen Bergen
Weit schlimmer als die Pest getobt.
Ich habe selbst den Gift an Tausende gegeben,
Sie welkten hin, ich muß erleben,
Daß man die frechen Mörder lobt.

- J. W. von Goethe, Faust: Eine Tragödie, Kap. 5