So here I am and here I stand, just one man on a grandslam tour of freedom.

     Basically, I’m struggling with things at a survival level, such as food and places to sleep. I think I’m on the verge of solving them semi-permanently, until the seasons change at least. And then that’s a whole ‘nother level. I need boots and gear…my my. But Fall should be pretty nice.

     That said..I still have operational processes to carry out, such as sales for MoR Marketing, School, and my various profit initiatives. Because I need to start making a profit for this all to work out. Tuition is due in exactly four weeks.

     There’s also fun. Dance is fun. Exercise is fun. Friends are fun. But I would even go so far as to say that they’re more important than anything else.

     I feel caught between worlds. There is the drifter, the nomad. The car warrior. Then there is the wild child. Lost to the woods and loving it. The businessman. The entrepreneur. The Artist. Practicing the one art of dance, music, and motion.

     Nowhere in here does school fit. But then again, all of these need a place to sleep and some food. And preferably soon, on both counts.

     My shoes need to come off.

     LATER!

RANK	Code		Major				# Enrolled
1	NONE		Undeclared 	  		2574
2	BSLAS 		Psychology 	  		1210
3	BSLAS 		MCB			 	901
4	BS 		Electrical Engineering 		890
5	BS 		Accountancy 	  		843
6	BALAS 		Political Science 	  	792
7	NONE 		Curric Unassigned 	  	781
8	BS	 	Civil Engineering 	  	724
9	BS 		Mechanical Engineering 	  	705
10	BS 		Computer Science 	  	659
11	JD 		Law 	  			602
12	BALAS 		Communication 		  	587
13	BALAS 		Economics 	  		586
14	NONE 		Biology 	 		584
15	BALAS 		English 	 		582
16	BS 		Kinesiology 	  		520
17	BS 		Architectural Studies 	  	513
18	BS 		Finance 	  		505
19	BS 		Advertising 	  		499
20	DVM 		Veterinary Medicine 		453
21	BS 		Computer Engineering 	  	429
22	BS 		General Engineering 	 	428
23	BS 		Chemical Engineering 	 	415
24	BALAS 		History 	  		401
25	BALAS 		Sociology 	  		385

     I was somehow surprised by the fact that the highest number of students are undecided, and the #7 spot is taken up by “Curric Unassigned” which I assume is similar. Combine those and you have about 1/10th of the undergraduate student body deciding what they want to do.

     Also out of the blue in #11 is Law (JD). I didn’t know we had so many law students. Combined with Veterinary Sciences (DVM), about 1,000 enrolled students out of the top 25 majors are graduate students. Seeing as those 25 majors are comprised of 17,568 students, or a little under half of the entire enrolled population (40,038 students, grad and undergrad), that’s a pretty small fraction of the whole, but more than 1/10th of the graduate student population (9325).

     Here’s the data so you can poke around with the numbers yourself.

     And look, it’s just in time for Welcome Week!

     Have a good one, guys

     What I ended up doing was walking 10 large circles around the top of the building. My feet prickled with every step. At best, it bordered on pain. At worst, it was honestly painful. I wondered sometimes why I did this to myself and what I would do if I stepped on one of the many shards of glass I saw glinting in the lamplight.

     What’s worse was that the circle was enormous. The first two circles seemed to take forever, and I constantly reconsidered my decision to make 10 rotations. I decided to play wait-and-see until I was at 5 rotations, which took a godawfully long time. But something magical happened when I hit number 5. My brain saw that I was halfway done and sat up. I had done it once – now I only had to do it one more time. The last five times felt like they took half as long to complete.

     But more than that, around about number 7, my feet decided that they’d had enough of my shit and they were going to do things differently. Almost unconsciously, my feet started to move differently. The ball of my feet began to tip to meet the ground. That let my calves buffer my weight as I shifted forward onto that foot. It’s called fox stepping, and it was remarkably less painful.

     I also noticed afterward while I was walking on the concrete around Krannert, carrying my shoes, that my muscles all along the length of my legs were not comfortable with the new way I was walking. I was still fox stepping like I had on the pebbles, but I felt torsion in my leg muscles.

     What was happening was that while I was slowly walking on the pebble bed, my body had learned to optimize for forward movement with fox stepping. Instead of lazily pointing outward, my feet padded straight forward, continuing the along the line of motion. This carried over even when I was off the pebble bed. Normally, when I stand still and when I walk, my feet are splayed, pointing outward. Hold your hands up, fingers pointing to the ceiling. Now rotate both hands outward a bit, and that’s how my feet normally move. What fox stepping had done was to straighten them out and straighten my gait out.

     I could actually feel it! I could feel half an hour of training shoving up against the established habits of 22 years of incorrect walking. I have lost a lot of that sense while walking already, but it just makes me really excited to see how else my body’s biomechanics will change with more barefoot training. I really hope I’ll be able to apply these benefits to tricking and hopefully get injured less.

     The war began long ago in the annals of history, but the final, decisive battle started last night at 9pm and only just ended.

Last Night – The Cleanup

     I came back to an apartment literally filled with trash. Not even the trash that had been in the garbage can had been thrown out. My roommates had all moved out and I was left with personal items left in the bedrooms and in the bathrooms, trash everywhere, and a full refrigerator.

     Just to be sure – I’m not blaming anyone. I am a little bit angry, but it’s fading. If I wasn’t the last one to go, I wouldn’t have known what my roommates did or did not want to keep, so I would have been more hesitant to throw things out. I furthermore might have left some stuff just in case my roommates wanted to keep some of it, and my friends and neighbors who helped me out actually did want to keep some of it, so that was a bonus. All I’m saying is that after a long, tiring drive, the last thing I wanted to do was clean until the wee hours of the morning.

     I got back at about 9:30 and started bagging and trashing. My neighbors, Fong, Jeff, Ying Ying, and Victor caught me throwing stuff out and asked if I could help them move. In turn, they helped me throw stuff out and scavenged whatever they wanted. I helped them move at 12ish. I ended up getting back to work on my own apartment stuff around 1am. Then the rest of the time I spent organizing what I was going to keep and what I was going to donate to Goodwill and loading it into my car. This included emptying the fridge and the freezer.

     By the time I was done, I was dizzy with exhaustion and I was making mistakes. I forced myself to keep going instead of sleeping. I thought I loaded everything I needed, and then I dropped the time sensitive frozen goods off at DK’s apartment, where I will be staying until the end of summer and from where I am typing this post right now. I was so intent on “finishing this fight” (cue Halo music) that I bought envelopes from Shnuck’s to drop off my key in.

     When I finally got back to DK’s apartment, I couldn’t sleep and kept getting up to do things. I remembered then that I had forgotten the food and fruit that my mom had packed me from the suburbs. I had locked myself out. So I called CPM emergency and got a number for the locksmith, who didn’t pick up. I figured I’d call them in the morning. But for some reason, I had forgotten the biggest thing.

The Big “Oops”

     The entire reason I am staying at DK’s place instead of practicing living in my car is because I have an important charge. I’m keeping Alfred, Lord Tennyson, my betta fish, in good hands until I can discharge him to my Korean TASC daughter, Cody (I just realized how strange that sounds).

     Anyway, I woke up in the morning at 9am and called the locksmith company again to find out how I could get in, and was informed that there would be a charge of $50 to get back into my apartment. At first, I dismissed it. I wasn’t going to pay $50 to get some blueberries out of the fridge and turn the outside light off. Then I realized. I’d been in such a rush taking care of the rest of the apartment that I’d forgotten my betta fish, Lord Tennyson, in my room, and the cleaning people probably wouldn’t take too kindly to his presence.

     I quickly called the locksmith back and agreed to meet them at 12:30 to get Tennyson out. Then I waited with DK for the Comcast guy to set up cable at his new place, ate brunch at Einstein Bagels with him, then went to donate stuff to goodwill. I figured I might be able to get into the apartment myself, so I grabbed a wire coat hanger in hopes of lifting up the plank of wood blocking the porch door.

Good thing I brought the coat hanger.

     Because it was useless.

     When I got back to my CPM apartment, I climbed the balcony to my 2nd floor porch, hoping nobody would call the cops. I tried to jimmy the wire between the sliding doors to get to the plank. Then I realized that the door that wasn’t blocked by the plank was jiggling. I planted my hands against the glass and pushed. Sure enough, the door just slid right open. The trust I’d had in that plank of wood all year long was instantly betrayed. Still, I managed to get in, called the locksmith back and told him I wouldn’t be needing him anymore. I emptied out my apartment for the last time, taking my fish and refrigerated goods, and here I am.

Great! Just enough time to head back to Chicago

     …and get there in time for dinner. Damn, my life sucks. I forgot a box and my passport in the suburbs. This term has never been this apropos…

     FML.

     Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, reddit, YouTube…what do these have in common? They’re Social Media, and pundits say they have changed the rules entirely.

     Gary Vaynerchuk grew his business from the $5 million venture his father had founded to the $50 million name brand it is today using a combination of easily shared videos and a constant social media presence.

     Eight months ago, Dell announced that they’d made $6.5 million in sales from their twitter account, @DellOutlet.  Dell has a following of 1.5 million on Twitter alone, not counting its other social media ventures.

     This summer, I used Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to connect with entrepreneurs in Urbana, Chicago, and Los Angeles to arrange informational interviews.  What I learned during those meetings may not have had cash value, but what I learned was priceless.  Without social media, I may have never had a chance to talk to them, Dell would have missed out on a sizeable profit, and none of us would have ever heard of Gary Vaynerchuk.  Like I said, everything is different with social media.

     Or is it?

     Let’s take a look.  Social media allows people to connect more quickly, to specific people, in an authentic manner.

QUICK

     OKCupid is a dating site mostly run by Harvard trained mathematicians; stats geeks whose sole job is to improve the matchmaking capabilities of their website.  Members can view photos, search for potential mates and sort by personality, and message as many other members as their hearts desire.  Members can very quickly assess what kind of person they’re looking at through their photos, profile, and personality matching questions.  The best part? There’s no entry to getting an account because it’s free.

SPECIFIC

     Google revolutionized search, but today, search is taken for granted – every website worth its salt has search and filters to narrow down specifically to your interests.  Twitter is known for its usefulness as a publishing platform, but its secondary, less obvious function, is that it is a handy site to search for interesting topics and for the people who are talking about them.  If you want to know the latest news in any subject, there is almost certainly someone talking about it on twitter.

AUTHENTIC

     Shaquille O’Neal goes by the moniker @THE_REAL_SHAQ on Twitter, and is followed by over 3 million people.  What’s more remarkable is that he actively engages with the twitter community.  In public he has been known to update his twitter and call for members to “show themselves” when he “senses the twitterdom nearby.” In one case, he met up with two fans who updated their twitter upon seeing him in a restaurant.  In another, he gave out free basketball game tickets to the first twitter users to physically touch him.  With so many conversations going on with so many people, it is impossible to be anything but authentic.

     But more than just having to be authentic, social media allows people to be authentic effortlessly, to respond to individuals, and to build trust.  And that’s what it all comes down to.

     Not social media.  Business.

IT’S ALL ABOUT TRUST

     We trust Ford to build tough, quality vehicles.  We trust Apple to build the most detail oriented devices in the world.  We trust Google to organize the world’s information.  That’s why we buy Ford, that’s why we buy Apple, and that’s why Google is the number one search engine in the world.

     When it comes down to it, social media doesn’t change business all that much. What it does, and does very well, is help find who is worthy of our trust quickly, specifically, and authentically.

Overview

(You can skip this..even I got bored just by looking at it)

     Just finished a 130 mile hike.

     So as it turns out, I did a lot of things wrong and a lot of things right. First of all, I got to Chinatown. From the very beginning of the trip, I visualized being right there in front of the rabbit statue, and I eventually did it. I wouldn’t say that was THE most important thing, though…if I wanted to, I could have packed my bag and then driven to Chinatown easily enough.

     The most important thing was…that there was no ‘most important’ thing. The experience itself transcended any goals, brought me to what I thought my limits were and beyond. Lydia, one of my saviors, said that it was a rite of passage. Honestly, I don’t really know why I did it except that it was scary and I wanted to see if I could face that fear. In retrospect, it has definitely turned out to be a rite of passage, though to what place I’ve passed through to is a mystery. It’s a better place for sure; I know that much.

     I spent the week before in cold chills with no concrete fear other than the magnitude of the task in front of me. To combat that, I focused on the image of taking that first step on the road, the dust rising around my shoes, committing to the path ahead of me. The image was concrete – I could practically feel the gravel grinding underfoot. The fear, on the other hand, was vague, and if it was a specific fear, I thought of a specific solution. I didn’t realize until now how much that helped. In my mind, concrete visualizations turned into successes even before I’d set foot outside and specific fears became problems that were overcome, a different kind of success. The cold grip of fear was still there, but I could do something about it. I realized that the unnameable fear came down to a lack of faith in myself. I normally think of myself as a confident person, so that came as a shock. It’s not until you test yourself that you know yourself.

     Anyway, I came into this with a few preconceived goals, many of which were realistically impossible. Basically it comes down to making it all the way on foot and making it in two days. Technically, it’s possible, but much easier if you are prepared for it. These two goals caused me trouble from the start. I knew I wasn’t in the proper physical condition to do this; I’d never done anything physical long distance before, and I hadn’t done any special training for it. Furthermore, I have had very few successes with all nighters – I need my sleep. To convince myself it possible, I actually partially convinced myself that being on the move would awaken super powers that lay dormant in humans who never moved across the land like our prehistoric ancestors did. To some extent, I still think this is true. I am operating on very little periods of rest, fragmented across the trip…and I am still going. Well, sort of. The bit about not being physically prepared is still true, so while I’m still going, I am limping. And I doubt our prehistoric ancestors carried 30-40 pounds of gear everywhere they went.

     However, it remains the case that I wasn’t completely convinced, so I packed a lot of 5-hour energy drinks and, most controversially in my mind, incomplete camping gear. I brought everything but the tent, deeming it too heavy to be able to complete a 130 mile trek in two days. I brought a self-inflating mat, a sleeping bag, and a small tarp, figuring that if it rained I would wrap myself up like a burrito. No, that doesn’t work. Yes, I am stupid. The worst part about all of this, though, was that it conflicted with both goals. There was no way I could bring all that gear and complete the trip in two days on foot. If I brought the tent, I might have been able to complete the entire trip on foot, but not in two days. If I ditched all of it, I would have a better shot at completing the trip in two days…if I was physically prepared, which I was not. I remarked on Facebook that leaving just the tent was a bad compromise and it turned out to be a terrible compromise, as I would find out in the middle of the storm from Hell.

     Let’s see, other mistakes…bringing anything electronic besides my cell phone and the GPS. The chargers, the power strip, everything took up a lot of space and hampered organization efforts. Organization makes a big difference when you need to get to something in your pack fast. Not making sure my gear was waterproof. Bringing too many clothes and not enough of the right kinds, like socks. I could have left all of my underwear behind, as I stopped wearing any not even midway into the trip. Bringing my journal, again just conflicted with the time requirements, because when was I going to have the time or energy to journal when I’m constantly on the move? Packing only large quantities of rice for sustenance – initially, it did fine, but it’s incredibly heavy and mostly water weight. Something like matzo would have been better…light and full of carbs. Speaking of heavy things, I ended up throwing out a jar of peanut butter because it was insanely heavy and inconvenient to eat.

Anyway…

The Story

     The week before I set out was a mess. I knew the various things that I wanted to get together, and I accumulated them in fits and bursts, throwing them in piles on the floor. Thursday, the day before, I began to carbo-load, which consists of a high intensity sprint followed by eating 12g of carbohydrates per 12kg of body mass. After doing the appropriate conversions, it came out to the equivalent of 1.68 pounds of rice…dry weight. So I started cooking rice. Honestly, I have no idea how much carbo-loading actually helped.

     On Friday night, I got everything packed up, started cooking the last batch of rice to take on the road, and had dinner with David, Victor, Fong, Jeff, Ying Ying, and Pei, which was super kind of them. It gave me hope. I should have insisted on doing the dishes, but it was almost time to go. I got back and instantly knew something was wrong when I tried lifting my backpack. It was unreasonably heavy, possibly up to 40 pounds. DK stopped by to wish me luck, and we chatted while I put the finishing touches on the pack – reflective tape.

     I had asked Don to give me a boost to just outside of town, so I left when Don and Wilson stopped by. They took me to the outskirts of town. I got out and started walking and Don and Wilson drove alongside for a while. We had a cinematic moment as Don strummed on his guitar and I sang Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Then I got back in the car and we turned around. I had forgotten bug spray. And I would need it. At about 9:30, we got to the actual dropoff point, which was about 5 miles farther than they had originally dropped me off. Along the way, the bugs were so thick it was as if the cornfields were snowing. They were highlighted by the headlights like a blizzard of blood sucking snow.

     Oh. Exhaustion finally hit me. I’ll finish this in another post when I wake up.

UPDATE

     I never passed out. Too busy replying to stuff and getting this nifty thing set up (zoom way out):

View Chinatown Hike in a larger map

     This pretty much traces my path. Most of the points are chronological, but not all. I went back here and there.

     I’ll actually let you go through the points to see where I went and what I was thinking at the time. For an idea of what time passed, by the time I got to Paxton, it was about 7am and I’d been walking for 10 hours. I got to Loda at 8am, called a coworker who happened to live there (who I’d only just met the day before) and slept again for a bit. I headed out again. Sundown next was during the bus ride between Kankakee and Manteno. Joe Park, Richard Chen, and DK actually called while I was getting my shit together in Kankakee and really motivated me to keep going, but I remember this specifically because I had to cut my discussion with DK short as the sun was going down and I had shit to get in order, as I said.

     OH, BY THE WAY

THANK YOU:

Jeane Choi, Spence Lome, Annie Choi – for the Camelbak! God, what a lifesaver! I don’t think I would have made it anywhere during daylight hours without that thing.

Matt Sanghwan Lee – for the GPS! I would have made it places, but I would have had no idea where the fuck those places were. I depended on the GPS a LOT.

DK - for the health kit (lolz yes, I said health kit), words of support, and visit just before I left.

Fong Fan, Jeff Zhang, Ying Ying, David Jung, Victor, and Pei – for dinner and support just before I left!

Jen Chen – for the ankle braces and painkillers!

Don Mach, Wilson Thai – for the warmhearted drop off and insect repellent! And texts throughout the trip!

George Wu – for helping talk me through it before, trying to anticipate problems ahead of time.

Joy House – for inspiring me. Seriously. You are bad ass.

Kin Fong, Perry Chu, Spencer Lome, Deen Farooq, Brent Trotter, Winnie Cheng and Nathan Cheng – for the words of advice on my blog. Definitely needed them! And Kin…What?! XD

Officer Berns – for the ride! If I’m ever in Loda again, I’ll ask around for you. My gratitude!

Sunny Choi, Leslie Elizabeth, Jake Chen, Peter Hu, Kyou, Sigmund Ku, Jamie Lang, Nathan Cheng – for the texts during the trip. These kept me going at checkpoints.

My family, Alyson Kung, Khin Way Kung, and Malina Chin – for picking me up and saving my ass and then treating me to dim sum!

Lydia and Alyssa Hernandez – I have no words, no way to convey my debt to you. You were angels in the darkness. Thank you so much for everything you did. Lydia, I hope your husband came back skunk-free!

     Everyone – for your support and for giving me Hope! Truth is, I Love you. But next time I try to kill myself, one of you act like you care and try to stop me, alright? Haha, just kidding.

     Probably couldn’t stop me anyway.

Weird Random Thoughts

• I think rice vaporizes when it hits the stomach, because I didn’t take a sizeable crap the whole time.
• I lost 5 pounds on this trip
• My stomach shrunk…I filled up fast at dim sum
• People who stop to ask if I need a ride are nice
• People who scream as I pass are assholes
• People warn me against hitchhiking and against people giving rides
• I think more people are nice than are mean. And besides, the nice actions have more meaningful effects anyway.
• Part of the reason I did this is to face my fear, like I said. But another part is because I wanted you to know that it’s possible, and to reach beyond what you think you can do.
• Days I can eat just rice and furikake rice seasoning without hating it: 2
• Times I wanna see large containers of rice in the near future: 0
• Times people stopped to ask if I needed a ride: 7
• Times people drove by screaming: 4-5
• Times I screamed back: 1
• Times I saw a glowing, ethereal memorial at the side of the road during the storm from Hell for someone who had died and thought the area was haunted: 1
• Number of Clif Bars eaten: 2.5
• Number of 5-Hour Energy shots downed: 4
• Number of times I brushed my teeth, dry: 1
• Number of times I showered (rain): 2
• Number of times I showered (sweat): 2
• Number of times I showered (soap): 0
• Number of times I uttered “Truth, Love, Hope” with every step: Uncounted. Many, many times. It helped me keep moving.
• Number of miles traveled (foot): ~55
• Number of miles traveled (train): ~30
• Number of miles traveled (bus): ~10
• Number of miles traveled (squad car): ~30
• Number of miles traveled (Wilson’s grocery getter): ~5
• Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up: 3
• Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up that turned out to be stupid and make me look like a fool or a lunatic: 1
• Number of hours it took: ~36

     Tomorrow, I’m going to walk this route, from Urbana to Chicago’s Chinatown.

     The night is calm. I am not sure that I can do this. I have a feeling that this battle alone, the one I am about to embark on tonight, while I meditate, will determine my success. In one mentality, I have already lost. I have not yet found the other.

     My heart is beating faster just thinking about it. Visualizing the trail and the destination. Feeling the asphalt underfoot and the hot sun above. I chose this weekend for the full moon, but the forecast says it will be cloudy. Hopefully only during the day.

     I tried carbohydrate loading today. I haven’t quite eaten the required 12g per 1kg of body mass in carbohydrates, but it hasn’t been a full 24 hours yet, so I have time. We’ll see how that works. I have to get a flashlight from the car and extra batteries. Attach the reflective stickers to my backpack and pack everything up – dump my extra pair of shoes in there, too. Pack up my various chargers and bring a power strip to steal electricity wherever possible. Hat for shade. Ankle braces. Knee braces. Pain killers. Thanks, Jen. Some Clif Bars, a 6-pack of 5-hour energy. Notebook to scrawl in. Cellphone. Video camera. Google Maps directions.

MUST BUY:
Extra batteries (AAA)
Pain killers (pills)
Baby powder
Sunscreen
Sunglasses

MUST DO:
Attach reflective tape to backpack
Pack everything away
Make more rice
Pack some rice
Freeze some rice
Fill iPod with songs
Wash water bottles
Fill with water
Bring Toilet paper
Meditate
Meditate
Meditate

Truth. Love. Hope.

~Brian Kung

*EDIT* Changing the parameters a bit. I’m going to bring stuff to sleep on and move only during the night when it’s cooler. There’s a heat advisory. This almost definitely means calling off my Monday appointment.

     I was having a crisis of faith.  Faith in myself. Because what I’m planning this Friday and the ensuing weekend is possibly less sane than anything I’ve attempted before. Yes, those are walking directions. No, I don’t know what I’m going to do about dogs. Perhaps somewhere along the way I will pick up a stick to defend myself.

     I didn’t stop feeling sorry for myself, but I did pack everything I needed and left. I had an appointment with Tanagram, and I was going to keep it. Funny thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped moping. I arrived about half an hour early, so I wandered about the city for a bit, then returned and still had time to solve Redeye’s sudoku of the day. Unfortunately, my contact had an emergency which ended up cutting my visit short, as they had no idea what to do with me.

     And yet, even so, I kept my head up. On the drive into Chicago, I reminded myself of the value of Hopefulness, and soldiered on. I also ate a piece of dark chocolate. So remember, when all seems lost, eat dark chocolate because the antioxidant flavanols boost blood flow to the brain and the cacao content triggers a hefty endorphin release, leading to an improved mood.

     Oh, and don’t forget Truth, Love, and Hope!

     PS, I’m walking to Chicago from Urbana Champaign this weekend. Wish me luck!

I just saw Inception, which was an excellent movie, but at the same time, I didn’t like it.

…what?

The acting is great.  The action is inventive.  The plot is a bit contrived. The cinematography is good as well, but beside all of these details, what makes Inception a good movie is the fact that it makes the viewer think.  In fact, the entire point of the movie is contained in the last scene.

I won’t give it away, but it is intended to make you think.

Let’s start with the acting.  I really don’t know how to detect bad acting.  Let’s skip acting.

The action…what’s funny about the action is that it’s incidental to the movie.  There is action in this movie, but it is not an action movie.  It’s strange how the characters avoid getting shot…even a bit more so than most other movies.  This can be forgiven, however.

The plot could have been more or less surreal without really affecting the quality of the movie because of the very nature of the plot itself, but the existence of the technology is not explained, nor are the motivations of the experts corralled into helping the main character.  It’s populated by shady extra governmental militant corporations and unlikely characters.  In fact, most of this movie seems to exist in the main character’s head.  And they even mention the unreality of it all at one point.

Suspicious.

Now for the cinematography.  I also don’t know how to evaluate that.  There were some pretty scenes.  I liked them.  But let’s skip cinematography, because I’m an uneducated boor.

REALLY, though, the best part of this movie is that it makes you think, constantly.  It’s about a technology that allows you to infiltrate other peoples’ dreams and steal information.  But the dream reality is just as convincing as real life…it has to be, or the dream will start to implode as the dreamer realizes it’s a dream, and his or her subconscious will begin to eliminate any intruders.  And you wake from a dream most easily when you die.

I guess the best way to reframe this movie as a philosophical exercise is exactly that, actually.  What if life was a dream, and the only way to wake from it were to die?  Would you ever know during your life?

That said, I didn’t like the movie, primarily because I couldn’t suspend my disbelief, and the movie turned out to be Shutter Island II.  My subconscious immediately abstracted it out to the problem above, and I no longer cared about the movie or any of the multiple dreams the characters inhabited…

But there’s still something missing.  Something I’m not seeing, or something that I glossed over.  I just can’t think of it…

What I’m looking for is some positive message in this.  Truth, Love, Hope, all that jazz.  Someone help me out?