YOUR MIND IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Hello people!

I just happened to be surfing the net randomly when got inspiration, so yeah I think I'll blog about it quickly before I forget.

How many of you out there have watched the movie Inception?

Well if you haven't, I'd suggest you go and watch it as soon as possible, because it's one of the best movies I've ever watched, The Dark Knight aside.

And no, it's not because of Ellen Page

So basically the movie is about dreams. Familiar topic, eh?

To be specific, it's a dream within a dream within a dream ...

You get the idea.

The main character of the movie is Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio (I'm also very sure that many of you would have seen him in the Titanic.

But that's not the point..

The main idea of the movie is that in your mind, anything can happen. People can steal ideas, people can plant ideas (and that's the concept which is going to be explored in this movie) and do anything they like in your mind! And that all happens when you're dreaming. And when you wake up, you have no idea who interfered with your thinking.

Here's the thing about our Dear Dom. He can steal valuable and important information, ideas and secrets by entering their dreams via sophisticated technology. He also has a totem, an object which he carries everywhere, and he spins it while he is in dreams to see whether he is dreaming or if he is in reality. His totem is shaped like a top, and the idea is that if it spins continually, he is in a dream, but if it stops spinning, he is in reality. Also, he's working for a mysterious organisation called Cobol Engineering, which will not tolerate any failure to steal dreams. Later, you will find out that the stringency (such a word?) of Cobol Inc will lead to his desire to want to accomplish the mission for Saito.

Dom Cobb and his team of secret-stealers (I'm not sure if there is an official term for dream-stealers but anyway even if there is, I forgot) were sent to steal secrets from a wealthy businessman, by the name of Saito (he's played by Ken Watanabe btw). However, the plan backfired as Saito had already known what they were trying to do and he stopped them before they could steal his secrets.

Later, Saito told the team that it was actually a test, that he had actually allowed them into his mind to test whether they were good enough. I guess you can already infer from here that he wanted them to accomplish a task for him.

Now, in the movie, it was revealed that Dom Cobb had a history that he didn't exactly want to boast about. The projection of his deceased wife Mal (played by French actress Marion Cotillard) continually haunted him, foiling his plans every time he entered a dream world to steal secrets. Cobb was also unable to return to his hometown due to suspicions that he was the murderer of his wife. Hence, the connection established here was that Saito would be able to allow Cobb to return to his hometown if he accomplished a mission.

And the mission? The exact opposite of what Cobb had been doing until then.

Inception.

Cobb, delighted at the chance to return to his hometown, considers the proposal briefly and accepts it. From then on, he recruits Yusuf (Dileep Rao, who I had never heard of previously) as a chemist, Ariadne (Ellen Page) as an architect and Eames (Tom Hardy) as a forger. Basically, Yusuf's role is to design the sedatives to plunge the team into dreams, Ariadne's role is to design the dream worlds which they would be going into and Eames's role is to change his appearance in dreams (which would prove really helpful later).

Inception would be the art of planting an idea inside somebody's head, instead of stealing one.

So, their main objective would be to drug Saito's main competitor, Robert Fischer. His father, Maurice Fischer, was in poor health and the team's task would be to plant the idea inside Robert's head that he should break up his Father's company.

Following that, the team drugs Robert on a plane and each of them go into the dream (including Saito). In each dream level, one member of the team stays behind and the rest of the members proceed further to the next level of the dream. In the first level, Yusuf stays behind while the rest of the members go deep in, following that would be Arthur, and then Eames. At the third level, a number of things happen. Saito dies and goes into limbo, while Fischer receives the idea that his father wants him to live his own life, which means that the team has succeded. But now they have to get out of the dream. And something (or somebody) will make it difficult for them.

In the third level of the dream, Cobb's projection of his deceased wife Mal appears and shoots Fischer, which messes up their plans. Cobb and Ariadne then follow Mal and Fischer to the final dream level, limbo. Limbo is a level where nobody is the dreamer, where the people who enter a dream go when they die (albeit when they are under heavy sedation). To cut a long story short, Ariadne shoots Mal and makes herself and Fischer go to the third level of the dream by jumping of a building. That is called the kick. When you die in limbo, you will go up to the dream level above limbo, making you go closer to reality. However, if you die in any other dream level than limbo, you will go into limbo. Complicated huh.

Saito and Cobb eventually find each other and shoot each other, riding the kick all the way up to the surface. The scene there is the same scene as the scene at the beginning, with the clever use of the flashback technique used to build up suspense.

Eventually, Cobb succeeds in his mission and gets through customs all the way back to his hometown. He sees his children, whom he has missed for many years because he had to flee the moment the authorities suspected him of killing his wife. Meanwhile, the scene shows his totem spinning on the table, but the screen blacks out before the totem stops, leaving open the issue of whether Cobb is back in reality or still in his own dream.

Whew. That was tiring. But i guess i haven't really done a good job of explaining what happened in the movie even after writing so much. Still, i hope I've done enough to convince all the movie-fans out there to go and watch the movie yourselves! It's really easy to understand once you've watched it a few times. So there!

Sean.

Spare the rod, help the child?

Hello World!

it's been quite a long time since i last posted anything on my blog. Anyway, in short, this post will be about discipline, as the title suggests. Yup.

To begin, i'm really sure most of you kids/teenagers out there would have experienced punishment (or discipline, in a nicer way) in different forms. Caning, grounding, and so on. What's more, it takes place in school, at home, in the outside world (fines, etc, etc). But what is the main purpose of discipline?

Just to clarify, I shall be mainly focusing on discipline matters within the four walls today. Maybe discipline in the outer world may follow in my next post. But let's ignore that for the time being.

So why do parents discipline/punish their children? Mainly it's because their child has done something wrong, broken some rule, etc etc. But can you parents out there deny the fact that some of you punish your children simply to vent your anger on them? Say one day you came back from work, in a bad mood because something went wrong, and your child comes up to you and asks you "why is the sky blue?" And that, to some of you, is the "final straw". Your child becomes the butt of your anger, you thrash him/her repeatedly, ignoring his/her cries and totally forgetting the fact that your child knew nothing about your day at work. He/she did not mean to provoke you. There was no hypocrisy at all in his/her question, just childish innocence. Did he/she deserve the beating?

Of course, to look at this issue purely from the child's point of view would be unfair and biased, as I myself am only a teenager. I understand that sometimes children flout the rules and it would only be fair and just that they are given their desserts for that. That is undeniable.

Let us look at this from yet another angle. Say you punish the child every single time, whether it be over a trivial matter or over a serious issue. What do you think the result will be? Your child will grow up a defiant, angry person. Now, would any of you like to see your child turn out that way? I am sure, no matter how cruel a person can be, no parent would want to see their child have such a character.

Now, i hear you ask, then what should you do? The solution, really, is quite simple. Listen to your child. Talk to him/her more. Spend more time with him. And i assure you, as your relationship improves, you will not punish him/her unless there is a justifiable reason to. And he/she will accept it. And that is because what your child needs from you is really your support, your guidance, your advice! As parents, don't you feel that you should help your child?

As always, nobody is perfect. Children will always make mistakes. But there is no need to punish them so severely. Grounding, the removal of privileges, and so on! These are all various methods to teach your child a lesson. And the most important thing is that after you have disciplined your child, you talk to him/her and explain why you punished him. Tell him/her that what you did was for his own good, that he should not repeat his mistake lest the consequences of his error be severe.

To conclude, parents out there, please be aware of your child's feelings. We are humans too. Talk to them, spend more time to them. Advise them. And slowly but surely, you may totally abolish the need to punish and discipline them. Spare the rod, spoil the child? Maybe not.