To some extent, I've been less charmed by the latest two episodes of HBO's "Enlightened" while watching it, but in retrospect I've realized that Mike White and Laura Dern *are* still dealing with material that is relevant to FFL and to the cult of spiritual narcissism; it's just more subtle than in the first 2 episodes.
It's now been a week since Amy has returned from her idyllic (although enforced) retreat in Hawaii. Her epiphany -- whatever it was -- had faded in significance, and now she's focused on trying to still "live an enlightened life" out in the real world. In Ep4, confronted with her first weekend, she has to figure out what to do with it. She first decides to spend it meditating, which gives us a classic (and hilarious) opportunity to listen to her inner thoughts" in pretty much the classic TMer meditation. That is, all thoughts, no silence, all trivia and self-involvement. Her first thoughts are about being 40 and having wrinkles. Then she "comes back to the mantra" and tries to visualize something more positive, and lapses into thoughts of a happier time. But then, inspired by visions of that happy time, she sets out to recreate this fantasy happier time. And that's where the trouble begins. She phones her ex-husband in the middle of the night, waking him, and tells him that he's just got to go off river rafting with her. At 7:00 AM the next morning. And here's where the connection to TM and to cultism comes in; she doesn't *ask* him whether he wants to go, she tells him that he needs to, and makes the reservations herself. Being essentially a nice guy, he thinks she's crazy, but agrees to go anyway. They get there, are out on the river, and for a few minutes both are feeling a little of the fantasy happiness she was seeking. But then reality intrudes. She finds that he brought along a bag full of drugs and, offended in the way that only a New Age twif can be offended, throws them away. He goes ballistic, and storms away, her following. As he finds a new stash and gets high, she harangues him with what a low-life he is, continually insisting that she's doing it for his own good, trying to get him to become the person he could be. Problem is, it's not the person he wants to be. From his POV (and, by this time, the audience's), *she* is the one living in a delusional world, and worse, she's consistently treating not only him but *everyone* around her as if they're lesser than she is. The *only* way she can imagine interfacing with these "lesser" people is to try to convert them, to infect them with her hypomania and make them more like her. Fortunately Levi (Luke Wilson) finally has it up to here with her condescending, superior BS and tells her to fuck off and leave him alone. He tells her something she has never realized, that the way she sees him makes him feel like shit, because she sees him *as* shit, compared to her and her new fantasy lifestyle. That's where I think the real connection to FFL -- especially recently -- comes in. This place has been a hotbed of people asserting that they not only have the right to try to change people they don't like, they've been asserting that it's some kind of ethical or moral duty, and that anyone who *doesn't* "do as they do" and try to impose their view of how things should be on others is ethically deficient. Bzzzzzt. As Curtis has pointed out so well, this just does not compute. The only environment in which such a 'tude *does* compute is a cult, especially one that has a history of treating its members like children who "need" to be corrected by their betters. In other words, the TM movement. Such a sense of entitlement has no place on a forum composed of adults. Adults don't really need anyone to "stand up for them" when someone says something about them that they might not agree with. Adults suck it up and realize that the other person's view of them is just as valid as their own. They don't go around trying to impose their values on other people; they just do what adults do, try to do their best to live up to their own values, and allow others to do the same. Groups can't become cults if the people in them act like adults. They can only become cults if most of them act like children, and as if the gurus and the fellow cultists around them trying to make them "more like them" are right. Me, in this rap and in any of my others, I'm not trying to change any of you and make you more like anything, much less me. All I do occasionally is point out that there are many on this forum who ARE trying to change you and make you more like them. If you like that, and like being treated like children by those who feel that they are entitled to treat you that way, go for it. I'm going to -- as Curtis suggests -- focus more on ignoring the "entitled" and hanging out with folks who are a little more like adults.
