The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Finding Bliss
Movie Recommendation
Did you know the default computer wallpaper for Microsoft Windows XP (pictured above) is called Bliss?
We all must have heard the saying “ignorance is bliss” at some point in our lives. But what really is bliss? Is it a place, real or imaginary? Is it a state of mind? Or is it just a synonym for feeling happy? If you want a textbook definition of bliss, it is a state of perfect happiness where one is oblivious of everything else. Personally, “a state of perfect happiness” seems too profound, and makes you wonder if the average person is even capable of experiencing perfect happiness. Could bliss be that feeling you get when you watch your favourite sports team win a championship? Or when you get that specific someone to accompany you to dinner and a movie? Maybe it could be as simple as watching the sunrise on a dock while your feet dangle over the cool water and you sip on a nice cup of coffee. This ‘state’ of perfect happiness is clearly different for everyone, and after watching the movie “Bliss” I believe it lies in one’s perspective.
The movie “Bliss” follows the seemingly normal life of Greg Whittle (Owen Wilson) as he meets a mysterious woman named Isabel (Selma Hayek) who helps him navigate through an “ugly world” that continues to prove itself not real. As the movie begins, we experience all the bad decisions that led Greg into ugly situations that define this world. From the sepia filter, to nonplayable characters glitching in the background like a video game, Greg begins to believe Isabel’s assertion that this “ugly world” isn’t real. As the story unfolds, we find out that the counterpart to the “ugly world” is in fact a paradise that is inhabited by ungrateful humans who live without disease, famine, or natural disasters, but still manage to be miserable over seemingly insignificant details – like having a thermostat that can’t keep the pool at an ideal temperature.
In order to make the inhabitants of this paradise more appreciative, Isabel dedicates her academic pursuit to creating a “brain box” – an ugly metaverse with the sole purpose of exposing individuals to negative experiences in order to develop a more profound appreciation for the good in life. Isabel’s attempt to use “brain box” to change an individual’s reaction to a stimulus or environment can be considered an odd form of conditioning and ultimately leaves her counterpart Greg wondering whether it is in fact the good experiences in life that condition you to appreciate the bad experiences. Could you train or condition yourself to find the good in a bad situation? Is your perspective all it takes to lead you to a state of bliss? Or is bliss just an unhappy person’s unattainable ideal? I don’t have the answers to these questions, and neither do Greg Whittle and Isabel, but both characters do not fall short of trying to navigate through their “real” and “not-so-real” worlds to find their bliss.
You can watch the movie, which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, to figure out for yourself if Greg and Isabel made the right decisions when finding their state of bliss.