Mr. Nobody

Dear Readers,

This post is an interesting one. There is a 2009 movie called Mr. Nobody that, for a lack of a better term, is hard to keep up with. It is interesting how many ideas and concepts this movie goes through.

Angel of Oblivion sealing the children's mouths

Mr. Nobody talks about a pre-mortal life, when he was in heaven before being born. Though it is symbolism for the veil (ironically the veil being a symbol as well), it is describes as angels of oblivion touching the children's lips before they are born to keep them from remembering and talking about the pre-earth life. This is illustrated by the philtrum or medial cleft (the divot of the upper lip below the nose).

For me, this is the central key to the film. Because Nemo remembers his lessons in heaven, he is able to see the workings of God in his life, which is referred to as the butterfly effect. For those not familiar with this term, it is the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings can lead to a series of events that can drastically change history. In Mr. Nobody, this was illustrated by a butterfly flying away in Japan. It follow a breeze that picks up a leaf high into the sky. The leaf is carried into the atmosphere until it comes down in the US and Nemo's father slips on it, which causes Nemo's mother to come over to help him, and the couple meets.

Not only does the lack of the touch from the angels help Nemo see this butterfly effect, but also the future events. While on my mission, I talked to a member who seemed to be wise in the ways of ideas. In the church, we often say that God knows exactly what we are going to do because He knows us so well, like a parent can know when their child might be up to no good, stealing from the cookie jar etc. However, this never fully satisfied my mind on the subject. Thus, when that philosophical member talked to me about a kind of trial and error in our premortal lives, without consequences, I became rather intrigued.

He described this scenario: you are walking down a path in the forest, and suddenly get the feeling or prompting to go back. Unknown to you, there is a bear around the corner of the trail. Now, during your time as a spirit, as practice, you walked down the trail and saw that there was a bear. Yet, here in mortality, you don't have the memory of that, but the Holy Ghost can bring a feeling of remembrance and warn you, though you don't know what about.

Though this idea intrigued me, growth and full comprehension can only occur through mortality. Which is a big part of why we are here and why we shouted for joy at the opportunity to come down and receive a body (Job 38:7). Thus, for me, it was less of actually experiencing lesson in the spirit, but more of God explaining our lives to us. I feel as though He sat down with each and every one of us and talked to us about our mortal lives. He would calmly and lovingly tell us about different choices we will need to make. Of course, being there with God, we would say that we would make the right choice, but I imagine Him saying softly to us, but what would happen if you made this choice. I do not think that we would have our entire lives told to us at one time, so God might talk to others of His children for a while, and eventually come back to us and tell us what the repercussions of other people's choice might have on us. Therefore, during these early lessons we would make promises with each other, to help each other, as well as which choices we should make for ourselves.

Peter Bishop and September the Observer from Fringe

Like the wise man told me, when we feel that prompting, it is a reminder, either a reminder that we might be in danger, or a reminder that we have an obligation or opportunity to improve ourselves and/or help someone around us. Though I do not think that we experienced it quite like he explained, this does seem clearer to me now as to what our lessons were like. Yet, it should be mentioned that with my understanding of God's nature and how time works here in the physical plane (see my blog post about Gravity, Science, and the Spirit world) that time is set. We experience it fluidly because we are moving through time, moment by moment, but like an Observer from Fringe, God is able to see it as a solid whole. This is evident with the realization that in any given scenario, and opportunity to choose, we are limited by the knowledge we have, and thus must live with the choices we made. Even if we lived the same moment a hundred times, we would always make the same choice because we would always have the same knowledge, and same personality and desires.

Between knowing us as intimately as a family unit (knowing our personality and desires), and seeing exactly how we would live our lives before we even live them, I believe that God was perfectly able to know the end from the beginning (Abraham 2:8) and give us those first lessons to help us live the most honorable life we could. There may be some who ask, "If this is so, then why do we receive promptings from God that we will ignore? God knew that we would ignore it, then why send it?" My simple answer for this is that we must be accountable. In our ignorance of mortality, before this life, we probably pleaded with God to warn us of problems and to remind us to keep our promises to our brothers and sisters. Thus, being a perfect, honorable God, He always upholds His end of the bargain, even though He knows that we might not. This allows us to stand accountable for the choices that we made, for they were given to us, and many times, we probably even learn from those experiences. I know that in my own life I have had promptings that I wish I had heeded and that inspires me to heed the next ones more diligently.

Yet, many of you who have not seen the the movie Mr. Nobody might be wondering what this has to do with anything? Though we have these pretexts of pre-earth lessons and the butterfly effect, the majority of the movie consists of scattered scenes from several different timelines. Aside of setting each timeline on its own as its own movie, I found a video that helps depict the different timelines.

Sadly, this video is not complete to my standards, for it leaves out the timeline when Nemo rides his bike out in a rage and crashes, putting him into a coma. It also, for my own entertainment, had the space station destruction replaced with "Game Over". Thus leaving the "happy ending" as the timeline when Nemo was able to be with Anna and grow old to become Mr. Nobody, aka Mr. Craft (C.R.A.F.T. Can't Remember A [Freaking] Thing). 

Though I won't go over each and every timeline, I would like to point out some key insights from Mr. Craft. While telling the story of his life he would ramble on from one timeline to another, thus the cinematography of the movie jumping from scene to scene in great confusion. When the journalist asked him which timeline is real, he says that they are all real, and each one is worth living. Though most of us would like to find the woman or man of our dreams and grow old with them, sometimes our decisions lead us down other paths. The paths may include broken homes, unfulfilled lives, and premature death. However, these outcomes do not mean that these lives were not worth living. They are the reasons why we came down to receive our bodies. I believe that God explained the hardships, and the joys, all of the pros and cons, and yet we still chose these lives. 

Luckily, for everyone reading this post right now, you are still in a position to make choices that change your life for the better, or for the worse. I hope you gain confidence and strength in knowing that whatever choices you make, your life is one worth living. I hope you find the strength to accept the choices that you have made, and continue in life changing it as you see fit.

Jean, Elise, and Anna from Mr. Nobody

Mr. Nobody has a line when he talks about his child self, with the dilemma of choosing his father or his mother and thereby choosing which girl he will eventually marry. He remarks about how hard of a decision that is to make, especially for a child. Yet, knowing all of the possible outcomes, he makes the choice by sending the leaf up into the sky that will eventually bring Anna to him again. This brings him joy as in his final moments Anna's name is on his tongue. 

The Oracle from The Matrix

Because of the veil, we do not know every outcome of our choices due in part by the concept given to us by The Oracle from The Matrix movies, "No one can see past a choice that they don't understand." However, by aligning ourselves to God and His will, we can begin to see why we make our choices, because we love others, because we love God, and therefore we can see a brighter future ahead. 

Love,

Jacobugoth