Holly's Secret Garden

 

Reflections on Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion

 

 
本論文主要探討「少年Pi的奇幻漂流」符合神話英雄的冒險行徑。理論是根據神話學大師坎伯所著的「千面英雄」。此書蒐羅世界各文化的神話傳說，歸納出英雄冒險的相似軌跡分成三部分：啟程，啟蒙，及回歸。英雄得到某種外在的召喚，離開熟悉的家鄉出發前往陌生的領域，在此期間他必須經歷各種磨難考驗，所幸有外在的神祕力量保護而生存下來，並且得到心靈的成長。最後英雄通過試煉回返家園，把冒險得來的智慧分享給世人。此類英雄的範圍，包含屠龍的勇士甚至如佛陀及基督之類的智者。

 
Siddhartha is a 1922 novelette by Hermann Hesse, a German-Swiss poet and novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. It explores the spiritual quest of an Indian young man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. Lyrical and philosophical, the book was influential during the 1960s as it rediscovered Oriental wisdom as an antidote to mechanistic civilization. In a certain sense, Siddhartha is a reflection of Hesse’s yearning for deliverance from the bondage of individuality. However, this keen searching doesn’t always meet with positive response in academia. The objections include Hess as an unintellectual guru, or Siddhartha as a false portrayal of Buddhism combined with Western individualism.

 
Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, is an acclaimed American black comedy film winning the 2014 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Despite its genre as a comedy, it arouses such turbulent emotions as pity and fear much like a tragedy. It’s not just a story about a washed-up superhero trying to regain his power. Rather, it’s a mirror of every one of us struggling to be relevant in our time, a projection of the universal fear that we don’t exist.

There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity  
The best quote in the film, also a thematic sentence, conveys the importance of our inner value in creating beauty and order out of the chaos of human life. Amazingly, so heavy a message can be delivered through such a lighthearted tone of the film. To me, no better words can describe the film than “entertainingly significant.” It keeps me in high spirits for the rest part of the day after watching it. In memory of this delightful experience so that it will leave some traces in my life, I write down what it is all about. Basically, it is an appealing artwork featuring a balanced structure, picturesque scenes, and thrilling suspense. But most significantly, it touches the big philosophical question---the meaning of life.    

 

 
 
 
Prologue