WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WATCHED A MOVIE OF A FUTURE YOU WANTED TO LIVE IN?

TOTAL READ TIME: 4 MINUTES

I recently re-watched WALL-E, one of my favorite Disney Pixar films. Have you seen it? WALL-E is set in the 29th century, telling the tale of two robots who fall in love, fight the evil controllers, and ultimately help the human race move back to Earth after surviving 800 years in a spacecraft. They discover that planet Earth can sustain life again after humans originally destroyed it around the year 2100.

When my oldest son was around four years old, WALL-E was his favorite movie. Therefore, we watched it many, many times. He loved the life they depicted on a spaceship with robots. He loved how robots automated everything for the humans. He loved how humans had free access to soft drinks, french fries and ice cream. During this WALL-E phase, all of a sudden, we started catching our son rolling down the window in the car and throwing garbage onto the street! Time after time, we would stop the car and make him get out to pick up the trash.

We finally asked him, “Why on earth are you throwing trash out the window? You know this is not ok.”

He simply replied, “I want to live on a spaceship, like the movie WALL-E.”

I was equally mortified and impressed. Our four-year-old had big goals (destroying the planet so he could live on a spaceship) and sound logic (if I do my part to trash the Earth now, I can reach my dreams faster).

I wonder why, for a children’s movie, they chose to depict a destructive future. On the surface, WALL-E is a cute story about robots. However, the underlying plot paints a planet that has been destroyed by humans and evil AI technology. Humanity got to that point because the global leaders made stupid rulings void of critical thinking, then humanity went along blindly. Come to think of it, don’t most movies set in the future paint a similar picture?

I now have a problem with Hollywood. Am I being programmed to believe the future is bleak, dirty and oppressive? No wonder why so many humans have depression and anxiety these days. Think of all of the movies that you have watched that were set in the future. I’ll bet all of them paint this setting. The stories include either AI technology, aliens or dictator humans – all evil and geared to control humanity… then peppered with undertones of oppression, war or hunger. A few movies or TV shows that fit this description include: Terminator, Hunger Games, Interstellar, Walking Dead, Children of Men, Ready Player One. Don’t Look Up, Finch, The Road, Independence Day, War of Worlds, 12 Monkeys, The Matrix Trilogy, Minority Report, The Maze Runner, Oblivion, Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend, Mad Max, Logan, 1984, Zombieland, A Scanner Darkly, The Lobster, Cargo, The Fountain, Sin City, Waterworld, 28 Days Later, The Island, Dredd, In Time, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Equilibrium, Moon, The Fifth Element, Looper, Avatar, World War Z, Her, Dark City, Mr. Nobody, Blade Runner, Cloud Atlas, and A Clockwork Orange.

You may be saying, “Kathy, this is just entertainment. Of course the future will be better than that!” Well, are you familiar with the Law of Attraction? In its simplest terms, the Law of Attraction proves what you focus on is attracted, whether it is positive or negative. This is proven on a molecular level and quantum field studies. It is both scientific fact and spiritual truth, leveraged by both communities. Importantly, this is not called the “Theory of Attraction.” This is the Law of Attraction… just like the Law of Gravity.

Given this Law of Attraction, what happens when you have up to seven billion humans watching movies that depict a dystopian, fear-inducing, war-riddled future that is under centralized ruling? I don’t think we should answer that.

Only one question remains: what future do you want to create? You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine. Then we’ll create it together. Let’s tell better stories. Write better stories. Watch better stories. Believe better stories. Intentionally create community, right where we are at. Participate in local government. Build local tribes – groups that care for each other. We cancel out the programming around us by simply changing the channel.

I’m still discovering the future that I want to create. I’m doing it day by day, choice by choice. All I know, is it’s far from bleak and gray. It is full with lively color we dreamt today, then built, together.