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Should I get rid of my horror movies?
For those who don't know, I am trying to become a minimalist. But not 100% in the actual definition. More like trying to become more of a hybrid between "monk" and " modern man".
In other words, getting rid of things to simplify my life with the question of is it "morally" or "spiritally" ok to own this (thing/object)
I've always liked certain horror movies but not a big fan of horror in general. But the question of morality keeps me wondering should I get rid of the ones I have? Afterall horror is nothing but violence and blood and gore. I really don't think that Buddha would approve of keeping such movies.
Keep in mind "monk" and "modern man"...
Should I toss them?
In other words, getting rid of things to simplify my life with the question of is it "morally" or "spiritally" ok to own this (thing/object)
I've always liked certain horror movies but not a big fan of horror in general. But the question of morality keeps me wondering should I get rid of the ones I have? Afterall horror is nothing but violence and blood and gore. I really don't think that Buddha would approve of keeping such movies.
Keep in mind "monk" and "modern man"...
Should I toss them?
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Comments
First Twinkies, now this?????? You my friend are out of control :nyah:
Knowing the desired result is to scare the bejeezus out of people - as a way of extracting money out of them - I just find the whole horror movie notion to be bizarre.
On my picnics to the hell realms, I sometimes watch horrible things.
There is a computer acronym GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. Are you able to learn from horror? If so, bravo - I suspect not . . . you are probably just a cathartic, pent up, angry mob inside . . . or maybe that is just my remaining scandalous skandhas :wave:
In some agnostic, 'nothing to do with me' type dharmas we believe our actions should be, 'whatever will be, will be' . . . However I belong to the LILO school of Dharma, love in, love out.
I might just have to work on my zombie killing tendencies . . . even though it is for the wider good . . :sawed:
You could experiment (and incidentally, I do it this way, being quite minimalist myself): take the movies (and any other similar items) and put them in a storage box and in a closet. I do that and often if I don't even think of the item after about a year or two, then I get sell it.
I used to just get rid of things immediately because I felt I no longer needed it without a long period of keeping it in storage. As a result, I would get rid of things I regretted later (sometimes buying all over again)-- I ran into this problem continually with books. Now I have over 20 boxes stored next to the kitchen full of books (mostly philosophy, poetry and history).
The movies do not affect my practice but still, l find myself wondering theres really no "actual" benefit to watching them at least in the grander scheme.
@riverflow Im glad to see another minimalist here. Whats the #1 thing that helps you stay motivated to live a simple lifestyle?
Many years ago, living in Dallas, my ex-wife and I made a good deal of money and I think we gorged ourselves on a materialistic lifestyle (we never had children). Once the novelty wore off, I felt sick. We scaled things back a little bit, but not much by returning to Louisiana. It think this triggered my first awareness of wanting to live more simply.
After we separated and divorced (some eight years ago) I have tended to cut things out-- less upkeep. I have difficulty concentrating in a cluttered environment-- something I inherited from my mother (and her mother too). My place is not spic and span clean always, but I can't focus well in a cluttered apartment.
I mostly just read, write, or listen to music, rarely get out much (I live in a small town in Arkansas, if that explains anything hahaha). I don't think of my life as spartan but quite rich.
A lot of things just no longer interest me. I only found out a few weeks ago about "Duck Dynasty" -- I had heard the phrase, but didn't realize it referred to some reality TV show. LOL Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
thats awesome man
@riverflow said "A lot of things just no longer interest me."
yeah same here.
Except toys with motors, I tend to collect those! :P
If all else fails and I feel there are some items I need to hold onto for whatever reason, I do as @riverflow suggested and box them away or put them in a closet and see just how much I truly have a use for those particular things. If I don't end up using them within a reasonable amount of time, I give them away.
Also, you are aware that if you wish to hold onto movies, you can just rip them to a computer and not have them physically there? Maybe that's a viable option?
See how you feel about it in another month or two.
There are the horror movies that are far removed from reality that simply have a shock/scare value. These ones are very enjoyable for me, personally, because I like being scared but it's so rare that this actually happens. I think it's an adrenaline thing. I would lump both the new and the old Evil Dead movies in this category for different reasons. Also, zombie movies, creature features, and ghost stories would probably fall under this category.
There are horror movies that are truly terrifying because they involve either true stories of horrific events, or at least possible events. The Girl Next Door is one movie that was so terrifyingly real, I just wish I had never seen it. The Hostel and Saw movies also probably fall under this category. Although I am a fan of horror, I usually don't like movies like this because they tend to end on such a sad hopeless note. Usually, everyone but the main character is dead... horrible things happened to them that they can never forget... And I likewise walk away feeling like I wish I could forget them as well.
I think when analyzing whether or not you should get rid of certain movies/cut things out of your life, you need to figure out what sort of effect they have on you and whether or not that is worthwhile or something that you want.
Do not watch this film if you haven't already. Those that have, you know what I'm talking about. I had to turn it off after a while, I was downright disgusted.
Did the Buddha ever say, 'all virtue and no play, makes Jill a dull gal'?
Probably not.
His 'monks' were a bunch of lustful lads, to be sure . . . no wonder he kept the courtesans out (just the way it was in ye olde India . . . different now) Spice Gals
Thank Buddha I have not got a collection of dodgy music videos . . .
. . . come to think of it all I listen to on my MP3 player is Amitabha chanting . . .
. . . I could be a hopeless case . . . a dharma zombie . . . the living dead . . .
:bawl:
It’s just what some scriptwriter has been thinking and what a lot of people spend a lifetime in creating. They do that for a living. I don’t want to sponsor such a sick industry.
There’s a Buddhist recommendation to “protect the sense gates”. I just know the phrase, but I’m not sure what the source is.
You probably get the idea. Protect the senses against too many or to extreme impressions. They will make it hard to settle down in meditation. If you want to attain some jhana tonight; don’t go to the wild party first and don’t watch the horror movie.
Some images I do want to have in my system though. I will never forget a massive book I read maybe twenty five years ago. It described in great detail the atrocities in the German concentration camps (I think the title was “The SS State”.)
At the moment I’m reading a biography of Mao Zedong (responsible for 70 million deaths, the writer calculates). It describes in detail a long series of mass murders and the whole range of physical and mental torture that was put to use in the process.
Why do I want to know about real events? (Probably that’s taking me off topic.) I do want to know about the human mind; about what we’re capable of. Because I’m convinced we’re carved from the same wood. What other people do is what (most likely) you and I would do under the same circumstances. When I read about the real atrocities committed by real people, I read about me.
Thanks.
:hiding:
So equanimity is absolutely not the same as indifference and it is not about being able to eat your popcorn unmoved when people on the screen get butchered.
As Bhikkhu Bodhi puts it:
:hiding:
@lobster, you really need to quit posting purely for the point of just saying something.... :rolleyes:
Every aspect of this film ties into all sorts of uneasy psycho-sexual weirdness (some quite obvious, others much more subtle)-- every moment in the film cleverly contributes to this queasiness, sometimes even in a beautiful way.
My ex-wife used to watch all kinds of horror films (especially anything to do with vampires). I just don't relate. Going to the video store, she would head to horror, I'd head toward foreign films and we'd suffer through one another's films. haha
Ok, thread hijack is over.....
Not everyone thinks of being scared by horror movies as a bad thing. I enjoy some of them. I don't like the unnecessary non-stop cursing or the sex that often accompanies them, but I like one with a good story line, like The Exorcist. I have enjoyed the Paranormal Activity movies (some more than others) just because in the fall, a good creepy movie that makes me wanna sleep with the lights on is actually, in some way, enjoyable to me. Why, I don't know. I've wondered myself. But they don't give me nightmares and so far have not caused me to kill anyone else. I just enjoy them and then I am done, like some people enjoy the opera or the ballet, I guess. Why is one more pure for the mind than others, even when so many operas or ballets are utterly depressing? Is watching sports less harmless knowing how many people are likely cheating and getting paid millions for it? What makes fictional horror movies so much worse than the things so many enjoy in "real" life that are based on lies and horror in a different way? At least I know when I shut the tv off that the movie wasn't real. The horrors of the real world around us seems far worse than most things Hollywood can come up with.