Ways to uplift your life and help others through the inspiration of Avatar
 

The thread about coping with depression has gotten plenty of attention, and its title sets an expectation about the topic of discussion. So I'd like this thread to be about positive feelings and actions that resulted from seeing Avatar, thinking about the Na'vi, and how you were inspired by what you saw. Ask for help too if you're facing problems or want to learn from others how to improve your quality of life.

From the thread about seeing:
Those are words that just make my day. I want to read more like them and write more like them. And this can also be a place to talk about how you have learned ways of improving the quality of your feelings and to touch the lives of other people.

I am on travel at the moment and was just out on the bluffs north of Mendocino, watching waves crash into foam, and listening to buoys chiming like meditation bells while the morning sunlight shafted through up a thin layer of fog hugging the sea. I was carrying my baby daughter in a harness next to my heart. A beautiful start to the day.

Indeed, I'll re-iterate what I said on the other thread and thats the fact that without this movie, we would have never been able to meet one another and creat such a tightly knit community. I'm glad I was able to watch Avatar and fall in love with this universe. Being able to share that with hundreds of others is just icing on the cake.

This will sound a little crazy, but if anybody is going to understand it, this forum will.

Avatar re-awakened my inner-dreamer - my ability and desire to dream and discover distant destinations, and then place these paradises in the pinnacle of my heart. Then carry these places with me wherever I go, and seek to find them in the hearts of others. I have a burning desire for love, life and liberty for not just myself but the world around me.

Reading that quote from Neytiri certainly brought a smile to my face. It's what TOS and AF is all about and we probably all feel it but it doesn't get said enough really. I love coming here as well, the feeling of community, the intelligent and thought provoking conversations. Nobody attacks anyone else, everyone listens to and respects each other. We're an internet based clan :)

A lot of positive things happened to me as a result of watching Avatar. Most importantly I have become aware of and now hold great respect for the natural world. I remember not long ago sitting under a massive willow tree reading a book and it started to rain, seriously rain, hail stones and all that lot. I sat there with the occasional drop finding it's way between the branches onto me, but I wasn't annoyed that I had to stop reading, I didn't think 'Why can't the sun come back out', I just felt safe and happy. It was a strange but very good feeling, I looked around at the smaller trees and plants nearby and was reminded of a parent protecting it's children, it was almost as though nature herself was embracing me and protecting me from the shower. I had never appreciated being outdoors so much. Today was a gorgeous day, the sun was out, clear blue sky and all day I just couldn't help but smile whenever I looked up, feeling the sun's rays on my body I felt energized.

I've also left behind that hideous wanting of material things. It feels as though I'm me again, the 'child' me who wasn't bogged down by the pressures society. The things that bring me joy now are being outdoors, talking to people on AF and ToS, playing with my dog etc. The things that truly make me happy do not cost money. Clean air in my lungs is one of the best things you can feel in my opinion, appreciating another person's laugh or smile is great, especially if you are the one that caused it.

It sounds cliche but the smaller things in life really are the best. I feel so happy and privileged to have been woken up to that.

Inspiring, TS. I have made many changes myself, and one that stands out right now is having the overwhelming sense that "everything is going to be okay," and that I could stop struggling. And you know, I've gotten so much more done since I gave up so much of the struggle. I had way too much judgement on myself to give inspirational speeches on public. Now I joined Toastmasters and hired a coach on presentation technique. And I'm doing alright!

Skål! I'm joining the Toastmasters at my school.

And TS, you really hit the nail on the head. My re-awakening is nothing more than the child's heart bursting out from deep inside. I'm a happier person because of this experience, and I'm glad the same has happened to you, to everyone here.

Great idea for a thread, Sempu. I'll tell my story, too. Since some others have done so as well.:)

Back in the PAD days, I determined that the root cause of my depression was existential. What I most longed for from the Na'vi was not their nature, but their lifestyle. Once I figured that out, I began to contemplate how to deal with these emotions, and take stock of my life. In all my contemplation, I realized just how short life really is, on average pretty much 80 years. I've already burned through 1/5 of my time on this planet, and I sure as hell don't want to spend a fair majority of the rest as a consumer wage slave. Life is simply too short to squander one's time on this planet doing something like that. If you've got dreams, you need to follow them, not waste that time pushing paper for 8 hours a day for 40 years. My dream? To fly, to run, to swim, to build a connection to nature, to come to full spiritual maturity, to live in the wild, and I'm gonna follow it, no ifs, ands, or buts. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the Na'vi life is completely possible on Earth, even Ikran (though ours are of cloth and aluminum instead of flesh:P), you just need to be willing to work for it. If you want it bad enough, you can do it.:)

Dammit people should be free, not living through the dictates of others. Everything that the Na'vi have, we can have on Earth (many things we once did have. Yet those who run the modern world have found it necessary to take these things way from us, to make us "productive" in the eyes of the handful of greedy sociopaths that have control of this planet. Well, I've had enough - my soul called, and it wants it's life back. It's time for all of us to take back what is rightfully ours - our nature, our freedom, our lives. I don't care if I have to travel to hell and back again, I will live my dreams. Nobody dare get in my way.;)

I can honestly say that I have been born again through Avatar - a soul reborn in the same body. Not only has my inner, care-free child broken through the bull**** that encases the modern world, but also my inner existentialist, who wants to carve his own path in life, not simply follow the one the world has laid out for me. It has awakened my inner dreamer, who dares to dream in ways that push the limits of reality. It has awakened my inner shaman, who seeks to find spiritual maturity and connection to the life energy of the world. It has awaken my inner anarchist, who seeks to be free from the oppressive institutions that control the world. Most importantly, it has awakened my inner warrior, which gives me the strength to act on these emotions. All of these parts of me that I never knew existed, or were horribly supressed by society are bursting forth, and it is only something I can describe as rebirth.:) I'm a na'vi in a human Avatar. :)

The things that Avatar has made me see don't always make me happy, there's a lot of ass-backwardry afoot on this planet - war, corruption, greed, pollution, the list goes on and on - that have become much more personal post-Avatar. However, the fact that it has helped me cut through all the bull****, and See the world from the outside in - and all of it's ills - always put's a smile on my face. Avatar has helped me reach a level of enlightenment in 9 months, that some people take years to reach, and this spiritual journey keeps advancing with each passing day.:D I wouldn't trade the enlightenment Avatar gave me for all the riches of the world. I'll die before I give it up.

Damn it feels good to have passion in your heart. W00T!!:D

Anyway, being a bit more specific to the title, some good ways to uplift oneself, and help uplift others would probably be:
- Meditation, to help reconnect with the heart and soul.
- Read inspiring literature and watch other inspiring movies - Into the Wild is one of my favorites for both.
- Get out into the natural world, and learn it's rythms.
- Know your dreams, and stand by them. This is one of your best defenses, and sources of inspiration. The world preys on people that don't have something worth fighting for.
- Remember that all ways of life are equally legitimate and admirable, from being a powerful politician to a humble tribesman or survivalist living off the land, and everything in between. The only wrong way to live is to not live by one's dreams.

Wow, Tsyal Makto. Do I detect a hint of passion there? :) Good for you ma tsmukan. We have to remember that the rest of the world has not had the experience we have had. Even we have had our different experiences. Whilst we have taken on board the 'revolution' and maybe even embraced it, we will find that the world will not. Instead it needs to evolve. Perhaps this is where we can lead by example?

My story is different, but nevertheless still profound, for me. I don't think I suffered any PAD. Maybe if I was still in my teens it might have. Duno. It wasn't so much the environment aspects that hit me. Perhaps because how we treat this planet has always been on my mind. But seeing Avatar for the first time did leave me seriously dazed - and I watched it in 2D! Going back to work in the January it took me at least two weeks to re-focus on my work.

For me it was the way the story was told and the Na'vi way of life and love portrayed that really rocked my soul. I found AF in January, and of course ToS along the way. I lurked for a few months before I found the courage to join in on the conversations. I found myself opening up like I never had done before. It was such a revelation to me, to find so many good, respectful and loving people from around the world all affected in their own, but similar way, by this film..story.

How did it affect me in the end? Well I started to loose weight! I was a tenth of a tonne and over some 5 months I lost 3 stone (42 lb). I just stopped eating in the evening. It wasn't even hard. I just ended up spending so much time with my new 'family' on the forums.

The next revelation I had was that I finally realised I was an 'artist' by nature. I'm not saying I'm any good - far from it. But I lay in bed one night and considering my life it just came too me, yet all the evidence had been there. I only ever got one A at school and that was in art. At work, as an engineer, I get such a buzz when a creative solution is required. My hobby is film making and resotring old railway carriages - both creative pursuits.

Perhaps time has past too far for me to change direction now. However, I started learning more about film making and ended up reading about screen writing (and I don't read books normally!). I wrote a 20 minute screenplay with the full intention of turning it into reality. But then...

...then I put up a suggestion on the forum to make a community film to help open peoples' eyes about the need to look after our planet. Three months of hard graft by 20 people from the forums and we have our film.

The positive effects of watching Avatar? I cannot believe the happenings of this year to me. You don't look for inspiration. It finds you...when you least expect it. It found me and has changed me in ways I would not have thought possible. Best of all is 'meeting' the good people on here and AF. Many new good friends for life...

Eywa ngahu,

Alan

I'll never lose the true feelings Avatar has given me... Pandora is my home and people can't change that... but while I'm here...

I started looking for a lifemate and not another meaningless relationship...
Before, I couldn't care less about people's impact on the world in general - I thought that while it would be nice to improve it, I didn't think that it was so important.
I have true friends for the first time in my life - people I can tall anything. People who truly See. I have told people I know from ToS things I have never told anyone in my life and never will to anyone else.

I want to escape from the way so many people are trapped - I don't want to be ruled by a job, working endlessly for some money only for it to go again. I want to be free. Equally, I want to get out of education, as it's the same thing...

Well, you'll get a very good idea of how I feel from this, but i'll say a few words nonetheless.

Before Avatar, and now that I can look back, I had a truly horrific mindset.

While it is true that I believed in the idea that every person should be treated equal - something that I 'salvaged' from my old self - I also believed that this world could be sacrificed for the progression of humanity. That we were placed on this Earth for the very purpose of becoming strong, powerful and wealthy in all aspects of 'humanity'... Military, industry, economy... and that if that meant sacrifice of the planet, then so be it.
Truth is though, the second part wasn't something I ever really appreciated fully. My life, as a person was empty. Wake, work, eat, sleep. That WAS my life. Nothing ever seen, nothing ever felt, nothing ever considered.
I was another being with no place, no future and no puropse.

Avatar completely changed all of that.

Now, "I can barely remember my old life."

Everything now feels like a journey, everything is rich in experience.
Even the smallest, slightest of things can carry much weight. A weight that wasn't ever there before. Be that for better, or sometimes, for worse.

Now, I can See.

I was given a glimpse of what was, what could be, what should be and I won't let anyone ever take that away from me. Even if it means fighting my whole life for it and possibly never achieving it.

Now, I want to fall in love with this planet and the people that live on it. Just as I did with Pandora and the Na'vi.

I'm still someone with no place, and the future looks rocky from here, but at least I feel now that I have a purpose.

Now, as for the topic at hand, I agree with most of the points that Tsyal suggested.

Meditation or simply just 'feeling' your way around the world is a good way forward. Try to rekindle that ancient, deep-rooted connection we all have with our mother. It may be buried beneith a lot of rubble, but it's there.

Another one I have a lot of fun with is dance. Dance 'till your legs give out. It's one of the oldest artforms in the world, the simple expression of movement in the human body, and it's completely free. However you do it doesn't matter, neither does what you do it to... Just feeling the rhythms, the intricacies of the different layers of a song flowing together and syncing with them will fulfil the soul in many different ways. If you think you can't dance, you're wrong. Everyone can. It doesn't have to be a 'good' dance, because there is no 'good' dance. Only 'your' dance. ;)

Get out there. (Hell, it even says it on the t-shirt i'm wearing. :P)
If you want to have an adventure, go ahead and have one. Run in the forest, sing to yourself, climb some trees, just do something that makes you feel alive. If that means venturing a little further from home than you usually do then so be it.

And finally, just be yourself. There's nothing more important than that. As they say... "If you've got it, flaunt it." and we all have it. Don't fit yourself to an image created by someone else, fit your mould and be proud to do so. :)

Avatar has awaken my inner dreamer again, it has shown me a place I dreamed of being on, with a family/community I dreamed of being a part of, away from other humans, with another race, something new, something so beautiful it is beyond words. Jakes life is the life I dream of having, living your everyday life, then an opportunity appears that will change Jakes life forever. He lives on a different place, as a different person, with a different family, and with the girl he loves so much he put his life on the line (numerous times) for her. As a quote I came up with says, "A new world presents new opportunities, a chance to start over"

Wow. Mind if I steal that line?

Holy cow, man, you're on fire. I liken my passions to a burning inside. You know what I mean.

Go right ahead.

Yeah, I know the feeling. There's nothing else like it in the world. It's the raw, untamed energy of life.

More people could do well to have that feeling, certainly.


One way that I felt inspired is that I felt the need to stop living in the grey areas of life. I've never thought that everything can be reduced to plain terms of black-and-white, but this view has changed after seeing how Jake tried to work with his human superiors while becoming more and more Na'vi at the same time. It just doesn't work, trying to play both sides like that. So, I realized that there were a few areas of my life where I just needed to stop trying to satisfy both sides of the issue and stop living in an awkward spot in the middle. I realized that it can be good to stay strictly on one side. Or at the very least, set strict guidelines for myself. There are probably still parts of my life that need this treatment, but at least now I know what to do. (And I know I may sound vague here..)

There are many other ways, the movie has really just been one big source of inspiration for me on multiple levels.

Ditto for me! And I'd like to borrow that line too, b/c *my* soul wants its life back as well. I think it got some of it back from Avatar, and now I have to continue on that path....

Yeah - so many people focus on the depression they got from Avatar, si I think it is good to have something that goes into the positive. Though of course for HNM there is no depression in PAD ;)

An idea can only come to blossom once its time is right. That is what I say about my life in respect of Avatar. Avatar brought upon me the right time to let loose something within me that you may call the wild soul, the fire within, the long lost self. As many others I felt PAD but it opened up something within me - a desire to reach for something, a desire to dream and to live as it was meant to be. A desire for community and for the things we can see around us and for something beyond what the eye can see. It smashed my armor plating of emotional numbness and allowed me to feel sad and happy again. But most of all, it opened the doors within me that held back so much for so long in my life. And once that was free, it was like a waterfall of little peaces coming out, shaping an image of the world as I perceive it. Its like everything started to fall in its place and I changed from within. I looked at things I have done and thought and in that new light it all made sense. I started dreaming again (during sleep and with open eyes as well). I realized how life should be for me. As many of you, I have the wish to be free, to kick that life of workplace, cars, cities, loneliness and careers into the bin and look for something I can turn towards. A life that is natural, fulfilling, connected, spiritual even. A life that rejects oppression, that encompasses rhizome and not hierarchy, that aims for community and values people more than things. Of course this was inspired by the NA'Vi, and of course it was within me as well, as this is what connects me to Avatar - it is that so much of it was in me before. The way of life of the NA'Vi was my hidden desire for a long time (stacks of books on anthropology talk of it), the interconnectedness of life on a planet is part of my profession as an ecologist and even the image of Pandora was within me in some way - so I truely felt at home with all that and connected to so much in the movie and in turn Avatar woke up all of these things that have been buried under work and education and daily routine and the grey dust of the city in the past years.
Now I go out, walk barefoot along a creek in the mountains, pass through the woods without a path, stare at the sky and the beauty of the colorful clouds in the evening with the golden sun. I SEE trees, meaning I also feel them. So many things, its like opening the eyes for the first time, seeing things in a different light. Of course there are downsides too, I get panic when I go into the city and feel distress when using an airplane that destroys a bit of the world I fell in love with. My emotions woke up and they are connected to this world for the good and for the bad.
And I started to act differently. I dont care so much anymore what people think, I got myself a hammock to sleep in and I am learning hangglider flying and I am walking barefoot - screw people who think I have gone nuts - I dont care anymore :D
And something else, something strange: I can talk or write. Endless, as you can see in this post. Its like all the words that got sucked up in the past decades want to come out at once :D - so forgive me for the WOT.

So how to uplift your life?
* Start dreaming - nobody can take your dreams, nobody knows your dreams, they are yours only and you are free in them to do anything that you want!
* Do the things you want to do - dont be hindered by people who just want to bug you. If you want to learn hanggliding, do so, if you want to dye your hair or get a tattoo - just do these things - take back your life, free your soul and dreams!
* Seek nature. Feel her embrace you, maybe go in some calm place far from the trails and breathe - listen - feel - touch - look at all the little details that exist there, the little ant that crawls - look at the widest widescreen there is, look at the mountains or the trees - allow yourself to be embraced by all this and recognize you are a part of it all.
* Seek your soul - your spirit - connect it to the world as this is your home - at least for now
* Read about people who live differently - in the past - in the present - be inspired - read about the world (or watch movies on it). Realize that things are possible that you may not have thought to be possible before.
* Create a vision for yourself! Do what you can do to make your vision a reality, do whatever it takes to protect what you love: our mother and the people.

YOU are ONE OF THE PEOPLE of this planet for this time beeing, do what any of the people would be if they would not be stark raving mad and insane - you (hopefully) are cured of the insanity - you can SEE now.

So true... I may not be able to get home, but I can live for myself here :)

That's the spirit.:)

This is written so perfectly Tsyal, I just can't agree any more.

I agree. It should be posted somewhere under the heading of a Manifesto.

Done. :) Check the sig.

Its about one of the things I look forward to everyday

[quote=Tysal Makto]my soul called, and it wants it's life back[quote]
Tsyal Makto that is one line for the ages. I hope you don't mind if I use it elsewhere. It's perfect. You whole post is excellent. Very well done.


It's great to see people waking up to the true nature of life. I might have that 5 day a week job that many seen to dread, but I spend a lot of time out doing what I was born to do. For me it works. As the saying goes money might not buy happiness, but it does make misery more comfortable. Not that I'm miserable, but for most of us some money is a necessary evil that enables many possibilities. Tysal you lament that you have burned 1/5 of your time here. Heck I'm more like 3/5's and counting. I've done a lot of cool stuff though. Sure I could have done more, but I have no regrets. I'm also hardly done. There are many more things to do. I'm always planning the next adventure.

I've got to say that if I have not been out there doing that soul feeding stuff, I doubt I would have made it this long.


One characteristic of "success" in this life endeavor is get to the point of "if I have to explain you will never understand" with some of the things you do. You see many of those caught up in the rat race just can't appreciate what some others do for feed the soul. It's kind of our birthright as a human. We can do almost anything given time, resources, and proper motivation.

Indeed GREAT quote! And I completely agree. This describes what has happened.

It is a balance, I guess. Many things that make us happy do not require much money at all - or actually no money at all. Others hold the promise of more happiness but they are past the point of diminishing returns - the investment in work to get money to buy these things just does not outweigh the gain. To walk out into a forest is free and it gives happiness. Do buy yourself a bus ticket to a national park and camp out costs little and gives high returns. For me investing some money in hanggliding promises to return quite a bit of excitement. But to save up €2000 for a weeks vacation is already beyond my personal point of diminishing returns. It would mean to work a lot more for that short moment - no way I am going to do that now.

The trouble is often, that one gets used to material things that provide happiness. And this leads to the need of a constant increase in these materials and a constant increase in the demand for money. A millionaire has most likely not really more gain in happiness in buying a yacht as I may have in buying a hangglider - but the absolute investment is much higher. It is a lot better to find happiness in ways that do not require money, as these are stable, they cant wear off in the same way.

Ah, same here. 1/5 would still be great. For me it is more like 2/5 - but yeah, I have dome some cool stuff but not as much as I'd like to have done (still more than some people I know). And hell yeah I am not finished yet either :D

Haha - "nobody can teach you how to see" - very true indeed, very true!

Greetings