I'd followed the stories in the news and used the timelines and animations on the New York Times website to put events in order and try to understand what was happening in Egypt, but documentary film making in the last several years has presented itself as an invaluable opportunity for human connection where newsprint, blogging and television news broadcasts fall short. These are the faces of the people involved with the revolutionary movement in Egypt. The faces that you can watch, second by second, as the emotion in their faces evolve from shock, to understanding, to rage, to determination. In place of a pretty girl whose makeup and hair has just been done, reading off of a sheet of paper, perhaps tripping over the pronunciation of some words, you have Ahmed, Magdy, Khalid, Dina, and Ramy running or standing resolute in Tahrir Square as first Mubarek, then the military regime, then Muslim Brotherhood supporters try to crush, depress, or manipulate the cause of the Egyptian people gathered there.
It is such a vital, clarifying experience to put faces to the numbers, names, and body count reports and to see the people of Egypt as their struggle was documented, to understand that their world does not disappear after the two hour film is finished and the credits roll. That world is not far away. It is here. We are all living here. It is inaccurate to think of a group of individuals in a movement, or a political or religious group and negate the fact that the individual precedes the group as an existence. Even in a group or country that staunchly identifies itself as a group and not as individuals. Each conscious mind is brought up being taught this value and this belief, but no mind is above self-actualization and self-awareness that recognizes that your love, your interests, your source of empowerment and inspiration are unique to you and are realized at different times in each lifetime. This conflict is shown most clearly in Magdy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which supports his family and his way of life and has done for decades, who also sympathizes with the words of his friend Ahmed, a revolutionary, who calls out the Brotherhood for making deals with the military to assume power. What may have taken a man 60 years to internalize may take another man just 10 or 20. Our minds are unique, but that doesn't mean we aren't connected, that we aren't capable of empathy and recognizing that despite our differences we come from the same place. Billions of light refractions that are all part of the same light. When a large amount of these refractions come together to form one shaft of light another realization is illuminated in the history of human evolution. A new way to live, an actualization of a possibility. These innumerable possibilities coexist, but nothing changes until we decide to focus our light on them, to open our eyes and move from observer to arbiter... http://funkyforestfirstcontact.wordpress.com
It is such a vital, clarifying experience to put faces to the numbers, names, and body count reports and to see the people of Egypt as their struggle was documented, to understand that their world does not disappear after the two hour film is finished and the credits roll. That world is not far away. It is here. We are all living here. It is inaccurate to think of a group of individuals in a movement, or a political or religious group and negate the fact that the individual precedes the group as an existence. Even in a group or country that staunchly identifies itself as a group and not as individuals. Each conscious mind is brought up being taught this value and this belief, but no mind is above self-actualization and self-awareness that recognizes that your love, your interests, your source of empowerment and inspiration are unique to you and are realized at different times in each lifetime. This conflict is shown most clearly in Magdy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which supports his family and his way of life and has done for decades, who also sympathizes with the words of his friend Ahmed, a revolutionary, who calls out the Brotherhood for making deals with the military to assume power. What may have taken a man 60 years to internalize may take another man just 10 or 20. Our minds are unique, but that doesn't mean we aren't connected, that we aren't capable of empathy and recognizing that despite our differences we come from the same place. Billions of light refractions that are all part of the same light. When a large amount of these refractions come together to form one shaft of light another realization is illuminated in the history of human evolution. A new way to live, an actualization of a possibility. These innumerable possibilities coexist, but nothing changes until we decide to focus our light on them, to open our eyes and move from observer to arbiter... http://funkyforestfirstcontact.wordpress.com