Does it not seem odd that humans will make movies about animals in order to better understand themselves? I’d find it extremely difficult to ignore the parallel of animals in cages, and humans locked away in prison.
If you haven’t seen, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” I strongly suggest you do so. This film exhibits the gruesome undertones of living inside of a box, and allowing your circumstance to be the deciding factor in who you were meant to be.
Why would any being grow content with 3 hots, a cot and the “privilege” of going to the rec yard for 1 hour a day? Life just wasn’t meant to be that simple. Na mean?
A pivotal scene in this film was the primate exchange
between Caesar and the circus orangutan.
Caesar’s “Cookie rocket” tactics was their topic of discussion.
The orangutan couldn’t ingest the concept of
Caesar having the intelligence – as well as the desire – to escape their
“sanctuary,” but instead, settling for the pilferage of his captor’s chocolate
chip cookies.
I’m inclined to believe the writer of this script saw the
significance in knowing and embracing your purpose. This particular writer was also well aware of
the differences between aggressiveness and the natural instinct to protect
those whom we love. A very clever means
of displaying the human flow of fearing what we don’t understand. Feel me?
This is a movie in which a chocolate chip cookie was used as
a tool to form an alliance amongst potential foes. Only in Hollywood, right? Well, dig this: twice a year, several
churches donate baked cookies to the prison: a gesture of identifying the
humanity that has been forgotten by many.
I’m most appreciative of this gesture.
Some residents will make it their business to get the heads
up on the unannounced deliveries of these cookies. For some reason, the chocolate chip cookies
are always in high demand. So, there’s
rarely enough to go around, and with anything in prison, if there’s not enough
for everyone, then nobody should get any.
Believe me, this is no code of mine.
It’s just something I’ve witnessed during my time in this box.
Most prisoners simply accept the peanut butter and sugar
cookies offered. And then there’s the
handful of inmates more than willing to come to a compromise for the
distinguished consumption of a chocolate chip cookie.
If this compromise was a means of showing
others that a cookie is simply a cookie – through the gesture of sharing – their
compromise would rarely be seen as an allegiance to the provider of this sugary
treat. It would more so be embraced as a
diligent act to taint the overflow of selfishness with the antidote of giving.
Why is chocolate chip such a big deal? It’s not the antidote to our reproof. The genuine gestures of a church shouldn’t be
so easily road blocked by the complexities of “one-upmanship.” The chocolate
chip cookie is merely a metaphor to our reality.
So I ask; what is your chocolate chip cookie,
Blogosphere? Are you using it as a
resource to teach others how to view a much bigger picture, in the direst of
circumstances? Or, are you just taking
the bag and chalking it up as just another come-up?
In any case, the chocolate chip cookie seems to go a long
way. Word is bond!
Still Livin,’
MannofStat
Copyright © 2014 by Leroy Elwood Mann
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