Koyaanisqatsi

A Hopi word made famous to a wide audience by the Godfrey Reggio film of the same name, Koyaanisqatsi is a word defined as:

1. Crazy life
2. Life in turmoil
3. Life out of balance.
4. Life disintegrating
5. A state of life that calls for another way of living

Combining potent contrasting visual imagery coupled with the music of Philip Glass, the film drives its cautionary message deep. The visceral, persistent nature of the theme behind the images delivered in a moving, non-judgmental even beautiful way, is hypnotic and difficult to miss on a deep intuitive level. How closely do we really look at our world, and how often, even today? There is a huge gap between looking, and seeing and bridging it is not for the faint of heart.

Though the film debuted more than 25 years ago, in 1983, the warning to the occupants of the third planet from the sun against unbridled, ill-conceived progress, projected through this masterpiece of film, remains. Its warning to beware the thoughtless trajectory  of our material industrial preoccupation is heeded scarcely more today, than then, to our collective peril.

As the credits rolled, I was reminded of the  butterfly effect, communication, the persistent nature of ideas, and yet again reminded of the potency of the web in developing an understanding of the world we live in. The web allowed me to rent this film, to expose myself to the opinions of others, and allow me an opportunity here on this site, a forum to share of my own thoughts to a potentially huge audience. The power of the web is vast, but diminished especially when we build web constructions that are unwieldy, lopsided, and out of balance.

Koyaanisquatsi is still our warning. And our wake up call.