One thing is, when one attempts to be a writer or a filmmaker, an artist or poet (what defines this?) is that one begins to dissect the pieces that have come in advance. I liken this to the movie, The Matrix, when Neo begins to see the 1's and 0's in the program itself. He has embraced the art, the programming...he now sees the beyond. He is powerful. And so how is this in art, in philosophy? One begins to dissect every piece. Each frame, each sentence. The enjoyment is lost at some point and it all becomes 1's and 0's. For the filmmaker, the deciduous becomes the play of light on the boundaries and the interstitial. For the writer, the sentence, the paragraph, becomes the block of narrative. And, can we divorce ourselves from this? Should we? So, I was watching Seven Samurai today. One of my favorite films. One of the greatest films. One not only embraces the narrative but also becomes imbued with Kurosawa...the true test of a master. And so, I immediately fell into the matrix, the play of 1's and 0's. But in the watching, 20 minutes in, I forced myself to watch it for its purpose alone: emotion, entertainment. Difficult beyond measure at this point, but necessary. Because, it seemed, I had lost the joy in the story. Each of the things I mentioned is truly about the story: about humankind, about emotion, about what connects us. To lose this, to divorce from this, forces us to lose contact with humanity itself. We lose the purpose for why we, as artists, do what we do. So, embrace that leaf, the ocean, the play of light. Examine its purpose. But never lose touch of the very human that we find in that...the distinction between instinct and human.