Final Part: Two

          Seven Pounds is not just an original film made for an audience to find enjoyable. As it is to give an audience a new prospective on an individual's life as to why they did the things they did. When the film begins and ends with the same scene it ties together the whole plot of the story making it easier to understand, grasp, and to show the isolation in the flashbacks that keep reappearing. "In seven days, God created the world. And in seven seconds, I shattered mine"(Tim Thomas). A good and innocent man by the name of Tim Thomas killed seven people including the death of his beloved fiancé in seven seconds which changed his life forever. He decides he's not worthy of living and gives back the lives that were stolen from those seven people to others by donating his organs. Donating eyes, lungs, liver, kidney, bone marrow, heart, and his own home that once belonged to his love and him to seven strangers was his way of giving back and giving it to strangers that deserve a life to live other than himself. Ezra, a blind salesmen talked on the phone with Tim in the beginning of the film started insulting and getting angry at Ezra on why he was the way he was."I'm actually starting to feel pretty bad for you, Ezra. Because I look at my life, and it is surrounded by so much beauty.. and you can't see shit"(Tim Thomas). It was surprising to see that as nice as Tim seemed he had no respect or sympathy for Ezra. But over time as Tim started to follow Ezra around to see the life he was missing out on Tim wanted to change the way he saw the beauty in life instead of always hearing it from people. Ezra got this impression from Tim that he was alienated, that he was isolated from the world but by the eyes given from Tim he wouldn't be alienated any longer. For Tim to be able to donate these organs he had to find a way to commit suicide that wouldn't destroy his organs but destroy his nerves."The first time I ever saw a box jellyfish, I was twelve. Our father took us to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I never forgot what he said... That it was the most deadly creature on earth. To me it was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen"(Tim Thomas). Jellyfish symbolizes duality, a balance between good and evil which was the best tool for Tim's suicide. They give a harshness to life which is parallel to Tim and how harsh his life has been ever since the car accident. To think that something so beautiful can kill a person in the matter of minutes is such an odd resemblance.

          Technology advancements have changed the world dramatically. It has changed the way technology has become one of the most popular and intriguing pieces of art that is going to last forever. With new and updated technology being introduced weekly, where will this world be in the next few years. It concerns many that this world will lose a sense of social construction since people will be so busy with technology instead of people. In Craigslist Joe, Joe takes a journey through a world with no money but his clothes on his back, his technology devices such as his phone and his computer. With the act of kindness and generosity Joe was able to survive through his journey of having no money but Craigslist. "If you take a snapshot of America today, what would it look like? As a country we're wealthy, diverse, and technologically sophisticated. Yet some say that we lost the sense of community that used to carry us through tough times. Today it's every person for themselves"(Craigslist Joe). Generations ago technology hadn't been a very popular aspect to the world since it was new and people were so used to socializing face to face. The sense of community was very much present. As looked in modern day face to face communication it's decreased excessively due to technology advancements. Some may think it's going to take away from the socializing and be more focused on email to email communications which will lose the sense of direct communication with a person. "Are we at a place in our society with the technology of the internet and websites and human interaction where we can take care of each other"(Craigslist Joe). Yes, it is much easier to communicate through technology giving people fast and straightforward information but it still fails to keep from noticing others actions and emotions towards certain situations."We have been so caught up in our own lives that we don't notice life outside our bubble"(Craigslist Joe). People are having technology be thrown in their faces and forget the world brought them in the past. They are trapped in the world of technology that they forget the people they care about and spend all their time on the internet when they could be spending it with their loved ones. 

          Press Pause Play is a documentary viewing the democratized that this world has become involving music and art. Technology today has made things easier to produce music where people who didn't go to film school can still be as successful or even more successful than ones that had gone to school for the making of productions. "It's that idea of this grey gew and this idea like if you have itty bitty bio machines that can replicate themselves there's nothing to stop the world being covered in grey gew. These little things are going to replicate themselves until there's nothing left of the world except for these little machines. Our culture potentially might sicome into that same principal where if everybody is a musician and everyone is making mediocre music, immensely the world will be covered in mediocrity... People become comfortable with mediocrity which to me is the danger"(Seth Godin).  If mediocrity keeps reoccurring in the future years the sense of creativity will be completely destroyed. Technology can be an easy way to get the job done but it can also destroy the ability to be able to get the job done by using other's own knowledge instead of cheating their way through everything. As more and more people try to produce different types of music it turns into a cacophony. Different mixtures of sounds are being thrown into different pieces of music totally changing the meaning of the way people saw the original song itself. "When you fall into the trap of confusing the artist and the audience and believe that the audience knows more than the artist is more authoritative, is more creative, more talented then art ends.Then you have something else, you have cacophony, you have simply an apology rather for democratization and it's wrong to confuse democratization and culture political terms with the creation of art which by definition is for better or for worse an elitist business"(Andrew Keen). The audience itself starts analyzing a mixture of a song to the point where they are getting the wrong message. Today, anyone could create their desired music, it's just that simple. Some random person could become famous easily in just discovering and messing around with new internet technology that it becomes less of an art and music institution. "Music today is sorta streamed to us. I people don't really sit at home with the record and listen to track 1 to track 15. We might go on Facebook, get a track on MySpace, get a track in an email. Music is this sort of stream of noise. I remember when I was a kid I went out and bought a record and it was this moment of this pure concentration and joy of listening to every bit and looking through the vinyl and watching the vinyl turn around and the needle in the groove. It's a full concentration and now is a thing where I always do something when I listen to music"(Anne Hilde Neset). Music use to be a beautiful thing and today it's so common to make music that it's just there in the background. People used to listen to words and analyze the meaning of the song and learn the morals that come out of each song. But in today's music there is no meaning or there's a meaning but it's meaningless. Music and art is a beautiful thing but when discovering new ways where anyone can make music through technology it loses the sense of beauty and destroys the music institution.  

          Fire and water are to opposites but can both protect and kill a human simultaneously. In the film Smoke Signals fire and water are very symbolic where the fire protected Thomas from getting burned in the fire and using water for healing Victor's father from his post traumatic stress.  "You know there are some children who aren't really children at all, they're just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And there are some children who are just pillars of ash, that fall apart when you touch them... Victor and me, we were children of flame and ash"(Smoke Signals). Thomas and Victor were children of the flame and ash. They were always around fire which protected them in ways in which they didn't know about. "Thomas I wish that fire had killed you"(Smoke Signals). Thomas and Victor never got along well. Victor always thought that he saved Thomas instead of his own son. He had a bad relationship with his father and started learning bad habits from him. As it is the opposite for water it embellishes the fire also a source in protecting and healing things from burning. Towards the end of the film Victor's father, Arnold dies, Thomas relates Arnold to salmon swimming upstream. "Victor I am going to make one more trip to the river and I am going to toss these in and your Dad's ashes will rise and rise into the heavens, just like the salmon. Funny I was thinking about doing the same thing myself. I mean I never thought of my dad like a salmon but it would be just like cleaning out the attic, like throwing things away when they have no more use"(Smoke Signals). Salmon spend their whole life in the water swimming upstream and get beaten against the rocks. This is very symbolic to Arnold and the life he lived because growing up around natives they struggle daily through obstacles about being different from other people but really are the same as everyone else. Salmon usually swim upstream to spawn, to lay their eggs. But it can be dangerous and they typically die after two years of spawning. Arnold spending his whole life trying to heal and start his life over from where it went all wrong but he finally let go. Instead of rocks being beaten against the salmon, for Arnold it was the drinking and the angry he obtained making him so weak he couldn't handle his life anymore. The fire saved Thomas and the water symbolized the salmon and Arnold that he was represented as if he were always a salmon. He was always trying to heal from the water.  

        Today, many go through a daily routine of trying to numb one's pain and emotions by doing something that's simply just blocks every memory from them for a certain amount of time. When the thought or memory reappears they directly go back to the numbing of the pain. The effect that war gives on oneself comes off to be one of the most brutal and painful experiences one has ever dealt with. Especially Tayo a past soldier in the war dealing with his best friend and step brother Rocky getting killed right in front of him, he couldn't live with the pain and guilt of why he wasn't the one that got killed. "No, they say  coffee is bad for you. He laughed, and Tayo smiled because Harley didn't use to like beer at all, and maybe this was something that was different about him now, after the war. He drank a lot of beer now"(Silko 18). The use of alcohol can cure a human being for a certain amount of time feeling pleasure and taking the pain away from an individual but can always can be deadly if one has too much and poisons themselves to death. "Somewhere, as if the years, the centuries, were lost in that sound. The rain pounded louder on the tin roof, and she looked up from the note then, at the screen door and the cottonwood tree outside, its leaves beaten flat by the downpour"(Silko 91). Although it triggered Tayo in remembering about Rocky the rain gave him a healing sensation. Throughout the novel water started symbolizes the healing process in which healed Tayo. The Night Swan that Tayo makes love to resembles the ocean whenever she made love to anyone. She was the symbol for the season of spring and the how it is the start of new beginnings. "He saw her feet, the open-toe blue satin slippers and her painted toenails. The kimono was blue satin and it was wrapped around her closely outlining her hips and belly"(Silko 90). The blue symbolized that she healed people through water and she did to Tayo. Water protected and healed Tayo as he was going through a hard time throughout his past life. Tayo and his post traumatic stress has given him remembrance of the things that have put him through hell when he went to the war and this quote expressed the healing process in which Tayo has remembered things can be good again.