Caleb, Hannah, and Sarah were wanting to see the new Dr. Strange movie before the weekend was over. I was game. And maybe because it was Mother's Day, Melissa came to the theater with us.
Four of us enjoyed the movie while one of us thought it was one of the worst movies ever made.
Melissa was aghast. She spent the two hours alternating between covering her eyes and looking disgusted. It turns out that the buzz around the movie - that its PG-13 rating was just inches away from an R - was true.
I, on the other hand, kind of enjoyed it. (It may have helped that I went in with low expectations.)
Author Scott Adams writes about a phenomenon he calls "two movies on one screen" - the way in which two intelligent adults can look at the exact same situation - be it personal or political or whatever - and react as if they are seeing two completely different scenarios.
What strikes one as innocent fun, the other finds deeply offensive.
What amuses one, another finds horrifying.
What impresses one as heroic, another mocks as ridiculous.
And so it goes.
Through all of life.
As Adams puts it, "Living in completely different realities is our normal way of living." (Win Bigly, 67)
If you assume that you and the person next to you are seeing the same reality, you are oblivious.
I don't know why it took me 50 years to recognize the prevalence of this dynamic in real life, when it obviously happens at the theaters all the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment