In 195something (editors note: something is actually "8". 1958) Alfred Hitchcock released the movie "Vertigo", which I watched today, upon recommendation of a friend. While watching it, I found it to be strangely familiar, and eventually recognized that I had seen it some time before.

In the movie, Hitchcock tells the story of a retired police officer (apparently afflicted with a terrible case of acrophobia) working as a private eye. This character, James Stewart, is hired by an ex-college friend to trail said friend's wife, Kim Novak, and diagnose her helplessly strange behavior. The entire story ends up being a convoluted plot for the would-be antagonist to commit a murder without consequence. Truth be told, the roundabout means taken to commit this murder were probably the least effective way to go about killing someone. In fact, it may have been more practical for the antagonist to kill literally everyone he had ever met. This is, of course, beside the point.

While all of my memories of the movie were from the second third, primarily due to the imagery and twisting of the story, I found the first third to be the most interesting. The first third of the movie was basically comprised of scenes of Stewart tailing Novak while she did inobstensibly strange things. Novak roams around town in a trance-like state preforming mundane,seemingly unrelated things like buying flowers, staring at a large portrait of a woman, and eventually throwing herself into a bay to be rescued. The fact is that, as a viewer, we see all of this from the persective of Stewart. We have no idea what is going on. Stewart becomes consumed with this woman's idiosyncracies and falls in love with her. As the audence, we too become consumed with this woman and her strange habbits. Of course, this has something to do with our not understanding what she is doing or why. All of these things are eventually revealed to us by the plot, but for the time that we do not understand, we are absolutely captivated. Why is this not knowing so exciting?

Ignorance is not bliss. The hopelessly perpetuated statement that suggests otherwise is possibly the biggest fallacy of all time. It is my firm belief that the majority of one's life should be spent persuing knowledge. Thomas Jefferson insisted that nothing should be permitted to stand between myself and the pursuit of happiness, and if we were somehow able to ask Mr. Jefferson, I'm certain he would say that the pursuit of knowledge is more unalienable than the pursuit of a lifetime of intellectual darkness and Andy Milonakis Show reruns. Even so, the ultimate fact of the matter is that there is something highly exciting about uncertanty; something absolutely romantic about simply not knowing.

A couple months ago I went out for a night with some friends. The night started with drinking a bottle of wine with a friend of mine. We arrived at a party, and another bottle of wine was consumed. Tequilla shots were had. Mixed drinks were made and consumed. Beer pong was played. The next morning, my friend and I experienced and interesting phenominon. The night before, my car was left at his dorm. We took his car to the party. Upon waking, we discovered ourselves, not at the place of the party we attended (A college apartment complex on the west side of the city of Louisville), but at my friend's dorm at a college on the eastern side of Louisville. His car was where we left it, on the west side, and my car was on the east side. With no recollection of how we got from one place to the other, a head still murkey from mixing no less than 3 types of alcohol, and a stomach that was not sure of itself, I woke up on a couch I was primarily unfamilair with. I would soon recognize where I was, but for a brief, fleeting moment, I was shrouded in uncertanty. I was truely alive.

I imagine moments like those are truely indicative of what it is like to be an animal. I imagine being a wolf is a lot like waking up in a strange place mostly hungover and partially drunk on a couch you dont recognize. I imagine the life of a wild animal is full of moments when you are intensely alert, and helplessly confused. When you have no idea what is happening or what has happened, or what may happen, everything seems much more important. Colors are brighter, sounds are louder, endorphines run wild, and adrenaline rages.

I'm not suggesting that a life is best lived one head-trauma to the next, filling the space between with a revolving door of substances and strange (hopefully) warm bodies, but I feel like the occasional overload of the senses is manditory in order to fully appreciate all the senses.

So, that having been said, I plan on waking up on someone's floor January 1st, 2010.