Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra
(Basically, I need a chaser from that last post. It's the Roman Catholic in me that needs to apologize.)
Grant Morrison is one of the best comic book writers to grace the Western World. Deepak Chopra is a best-selling author of self-help books and has been successful at repackaging Indian Philosophy for a Western audience. I was fortunate to see them at a panel discussion on Sunday at San Diego Comic Con.
Here's an article from wizarduniverse.com and from comicbookresources.com. They go more in depth than me. I didn't take notes.
Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra at Comic-Con International 2008
At the beginning, Chopra was asked about the Human Soul and instructed the audience to "Turn your attention to who's listening. Do you feel a presence? That's your soul." I have felt that particular feeling several times-- at church, in meditation, prayer and ritual-- but I wouldn't necessarily call that particular feeling the "Human Soul". But I do know what he was trying to get at and describing the Human Soul probably wouldn't give us time for the Q&A at the end.
Although, I'm sure that the audience members who really loved Morrison's run on Batman and came to the panel discussion out of curiosity have never felt that side of themselves before and might find the world a bit more interesting after that panel discussion.
Morrison went on to explain super-heroes and stories/mythology. One thing he said that really struck me was the stories we create. The world's current story is of global ecological disaster, a story that stems from the prevailing Book of Revelations. The World has been through much worse than Global Warming and has seen countless species come and go. We don't need to save the World. Morrison proposed a different story, where global warming is sort of a necessary stage in the World's development ("World" meaning the planet and the things that live on it as one whole system or organism). It's sort of like one's teenage years when hormones are going off, we're having violent growth spurts, and everything's confusing. A story where all this chaos that's going on right now is only a precursor to something better. To paraphrase Morrison, "Who cares if its not true. If you change the story you change everything!" (This was sort of a theme in Morrison's opus, The Invisibles.)
To segue on the importance of story, I was just listening to the Radio Lab Podcast and Robert Krulwich was giving the commencement speech at California Institute of Technology. Very interesting stuff.
Also, this isn't the first time that these two gave a discussion at Con. Two years ago they gave a discussion on The Seven Spiritual Laws of Super-heroes.
I couldn't attend that year, but at least I found this video with really bad audio.
Grant Morrison is one of the best comic book writers to grace the Western World. Deepak Chopra is a best-selling author of self-help books and has been successful at repackaging Indian Philosophy for a Western audience. I was fortunate to see them at a panel discussion on Sunday at San Diego Comic Con.
Here's an article from wizarduniverse.com and from comicbookresources.com. They go more in depth than me. I didn't take notes.
Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra at Comic-Con International 2008At the beginning, Chopra was asked about the Human Soul and instructed the audience to "Turn your attention to who's listening. Do you feel a presence? That's your soul." I have felt that particular feeling several times-- at church, in meditation, prayer and ritual-- but I wouldn't necessarily call that particular feeling the "Human Soul". But I do know what he was trying to get at and describing the Human Soul probably wouldn't give us time for the Q&A at the end.
Although, I'm sure that the audience members who really loved Morrison's run on Batman and came to the panel discussion out of curiosity have never felt that side of themselves before and might find the world a bit more interesting after that panel discussion.
Morrison went on to explain super-heroes and stories/mythology. One thing he said that really struck me was the stories we create. The world's current story is of global ecological disaster, a story that stems from the prevailing Book of Revelations. The World has been through much worse than Global Warming and has seen countless species come and go. We don't need to save the World. Morrison proposed a different story, where global warming is sort of a necessary stage in the World's development ("World" meaning the planet and the things that live on it as one whole system or organism). It's sort of like one's teenage years when hormones are going off, we're having violent growth spurts, and everything's confusing. A story where all this chaos that's going on right now is only a precursor to something better. To paraphrase Morrison, "Who cares if its not true. If you change the story you change everything!" (This was sort of a theme in Morrison's opus, The Invisibles.)
To segue on the importance of story, I was just listening to the Radio Lab Podcast and Robert Krulwich was giving the commencement speech at California Institute of Technology. Very interesting stuff.
Also, this isn't the first time that these two gave a discussion at Con. Two years ago they gave a discussion on The Seven Spiritual Laws of Super-heroes.
I couldn't attend that year, but at least I found this video with really bad audio.
Labels: comics, Grant Morrison, philosophy
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