Avatar, non-attachment, and playfulness

[owlectomy]

I managed to watch all 20 episodes of the first season of Avatar in the last week and a half or so, which is only an accomplishment when you consider I had no Windows for most of last week and I was desperate to reinstall it only so I could watch the next 12 episodes. I'm late to the party so I'm sure this is nothing new, but I wanted to talk it out anyway...



I've been impressed with it as a show that manages to run a continuing, developing plot and genuine character development in the context of an episodic picaresque series; but mostly I've been impressed that it has a theme. Most cartoon series, you get the pat moral at the end of the episode, and then by the next episode no one's learned anything; in Avatar, you get the pat moral at the end of the episode but you also get the series as a whole advancing a philosophy of non-attachment and, particularly, the relationship between playfulness and creativity and non-attachment. Single-mindedness is how you lose, taking things too seriously is how you lose. Getting fixated on a single idea of how you want things to be is how you lose sight of alternatives, lose sight of the big picture. The series is subtle enough that it's not "Aang wins, and Fire Nation loses, because of non-attachment" -- you see Aang and Sokka and Katara get fixated on the wrong thing, and learn what they have to give up. But Aang's essential playfulness seems to be a key to that.

There's a TED talk where the speaker is talking about extrinsic rewards and their effect on creativity. You give people a box of thumbtacks and a candle, and tell them to fasten the candle to the wall. And you either offer them money to do this, or you don't. As it turns out, being offered money makes you do worse. To solve a problem that requires creativity, you have to approach it without any pressure. The more pressure you put on yourself, the more your options narrow.

And that was a little revelation to me when I was in the mindset of "Must write 1000 words a day! Must write 1000 words a day!" and wondering why on earth I was blocked... but this is really the first time I've thought about the connection between playfulness and non-attachment. Play means that what you're doing is somehow provisional, even though it can be very serious; play means that you have permission to fail.

I think one of my guidance counselors in middle school or high school had a poster that said "If you don't know where you're going, how will you get there?" (and "It takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown," which made me wonder how many muscles it takes to punch someone), and I have thought since then that I didn't want to live my life that way. You take the one right step in the moment you're in; you take one day in the direction of your whims, to install Linux on your computer or get a Berlitz Japanese tape at the library; you trust that it will make sense looking backwards, even if it doesn't make sense looking forwards. And that is so much the opposite of the message that kids are hearing these days that I'm pretty thrilled there could be a popular cartoon saying just that.

Comments

[sasha_feather]

HOW ARE YOU SO SMART. :)

[secondsilk]

Yes, yes, yes.

If you don't know where you're going, you get there by noticing where you are. And anyway, the here and now is more important. (If you don't know where you are, it doesn't matter at all where you're trying to get to.)

I must actually watch this show, now!

[bnharrison.livejournal.com]

This is amusing to me because about half an hour ago I began...acquiring the first season (book?) of Avatar.

I also really get what you mean about pressure and playfulness. It took me four years to write my first novel, and apart from the very end when things finally started to fall together, I can't recall taking any more pleasure in it than maybe the occasional moment of grim satisfaction. The beginning certainly wasn't any fun. But, here I am a week later, and I've already got the first chapter of my next novel written, and I'm absolutely bouncing with joy over it. Every word that gets put down is a new discovery. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself this much writing original prose. And I'm already conscious that it's better than the last one, or at least at the first one is now, pre-edits. Everything's coming to me more naturally. And did I mention how much fun this one is?

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert on Mahayana Buddhism or anything, but I would say it's not so much a matter of "caring too little" or "caring too much." I'd say it's more a matter of whether that caring is grasping, a way of asserting ownership over what isn't yours. You can love something deeply and also know that ultimately it doesn't belong to you. In that sense, non-attachment isn't in opposition to universal compassion, it's an extension of it, because you can't see other people as full human beings in their own right if you see them as extensions of your ego.

...So, it kind of bugs me to see that cartoon portrayal of Buddhism where it's all about Not Caring About Anything, and I'm glad that Avatar has a genuinely different vision of what non-attachment means.