Inception

Okay, so I've just watched Inception, which is a new sci-fi/action film starring Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic), Ken Wantanabe (Batman Begins), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whom I have nicknamed 'The Hottie' from 10 Things I Hate About You), Marion Cotillard (Big Fish), Ellen Page (Juno), Tom Hardy (Wuthering Heights), Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) and Michael Caine (The Dark Knight). The film explores the power of dreams and concepts of reality through 'extractors' - people who steal thoughts and implant ideas through dreams.

When I first heard of Inception, I knew it was one of those films I wasn't desperate to watch, but once I watched it I wouldn't regret it - like the Matrix, which is now one of my favourite movies. In fact, Inception has been described as 'The Matrix crossed with James Bond', which is astoundingly, mind-blowingly true - even if you think that those two movies simply couldn't be crossed, Inception is proof that anything is possible.

Inception has reminded me that there is still some intelligence in this world, but it's also awakened some very powerful, deep things that a mere movie probably shouldn't, couldn't arouse in a normal person. But I never claim to be normal, I never claim that normal people have these powerful, deep meaningful things inside them, and I never claim that Inception is a mere movie. Inception is philosophy, theology - in it's most beautiful, mind-fucking, thought-screwing form.

Death as portrayed in Inception has awakened something deep in my murky memories of childhood where my constant fascination with the world after Death originated. In Inception, if you are in a dream, if you are killed in the dream you wake up. I used to ponder this concept in my mind, and I still do. But it also breathes life into a particularly murky part of my childhood - my heart operation when I was five.

There are very few things I remember clearly from the hospital, only random snippets - I played with the mechanics of my hospital bed until my weakened body couldn't move, I remember what clothes I wore, I remember one of the nurses reminded me of my teacher. I also remember, perhaps erronously, that I never considered the very real fact that I could die, at the age of five, in that hospital.

This, I now realize, was incorrect. I always believed, that I, aged five, had no concept of death. This is only half-true - I had very little concept of death, but to say that I had none would be wrong. I now remember that there were a few brief moments I was frightened of the idea of dying, of never seeing my mother again, but I comforted myself with a simple, childish idea - 'when I die, I will wake up'. I believed this so fervently that I survived my operation, and that moment was nearly wiped from my memory. It's funny how your mind thinks of things to save you, but then wipes them, as though those ideas are simply to brilliant to be safely stored into a mind of a child.

The second thing that Inception has caused me to think about is something about my future. I have often wondered what my true goal in life is - and I realize it only now, even though I have been racing towards it all my life - I want to understand people, I want to understand the world we live in. I want to understand why people are the way they are, why they are so petty, why they are so mean to me, why he likes her instead of me. I have always believed that modern people have deviated somehow from our true beings, and how our actions and attitudes do not reflect the heroes and villains of times long gone.

Fitting in had once been my goal in life, but I realize that that has never left me. Instead, my dream is to understand just what went wrong, why is it that the people I grow up with are nothing like the people who lived in the past and haunt my dreams, and my dream is to fit in, not with them, but with people...people like me.