“When you say it that way, and throw in some pornography…”
ChatGPT Summary:
In this article the author reflects on their experience watching the movie "Oppenheimer" and its thematic elements related to history, human conflict, art, and storytelling. The post is also inspired by a trailer for the film "The Holdovers," featuring Paul Giamatti, where he discusses the idea that "history is an explanation of the present" while analyzing a sexually explicit image on ancient Greek pottery. This concept resonates with the author's consulting philosophy, emphasizing the profound impact of the past on the present and the concept of Narrative Trauma. The author connects these ideas to their reflections on human history, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the ways personal, familial, and cultural histories shape individuals' decisions and interactions in various organizations. The author offers insights into understanding and reshaping relationships based on the narratives and histories that influence them.
When you say it that way, and throw in some pornography…
Hey. Even I get to do clickbait sometimes!
My wife and I saw Oppenheimer yesterday. It was good, for many reasons, and I recommend it. But this is not a post about Oppenheimer. Not specifically.
I mean, sure, the movie touches on many of the themes I constantly ponder and help others to reflect on as they improve their communication and influence - history, human conflict, the paradoxical meaning and beauty we find in the darkest experiences of pain and the stories we tell about them, the irrevocable past that shapes our future, the sacred and even religious nature of creating and consuming works of art to relive all this. And Oppenheimer has all that in spades. It’s a hypnotic, lyrical film based on a pivotal episode in our history, indeed the history of the human race.
So, thematically it tracks.
But no, this post is actually inspired by an amusing trailer that preceded the feature. Oppenheimer is on the artsier side. (I note that Christopher Nolan opted for the Swedish composer, Ludwig Göransson, known for his work on The Mandalorian, to score the film, rather than his frequent big budget collaborator, Hans Zimmer, which I found to be a highly refreshing and stylistically appropriate choice.) So this trailer is to a film that I fear will not grace the silver screens of my little rural community. But we’ll definitely see it eventually, somehow.
It’s called The Holdovers and features the always distinctive Paul Giamatti as a crusty, embittered prep school prof who gets stuck with babysitting duty over the winter holiday and forms an unlikely friendship with a wayward student. Here’s the trailer. Delightful!
The moment that really caught my ear was 1:45 when Giamatti’s character explains to the student that…
“History is not simply the study of the past, it’s an explanation of the present.”
…while they are studying a sexually explicit image on a piece of ancient Greek pottery, to which the student replies the headline of this essay.
And I love it. I wish I had come up with that chestnut myself, because there isn’t actually a whole lot more to my consulting philosophy than that. We have the present, but it’s really the past, so we don’t really have the present. All we have is the story of the past and the way that motivates us. And the past goes back a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way. That whole story infuses our blood and bones, weeping and rejoicing, shaping our decisions subconsciously. Your decisions, in each and every moment, shaped by many generations of our ancestors. This is a significant facet of the concept I call Narrative Trauma.
This evening I was listening to Göransson’s immersive, spacious, and haunting score for Oppenheimer on my noise-canceling earbuds and reading about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Wikipedia, which is a long article full of details I had never heard about. It all got me reflecting on the nature of human history and how this Narrative Trauma flows through the organizations we all work together to run. Some of you own small businesses. Some of you direct non-profits. Some of you serve on boards. Some of you work in large corporations. And you’re all surrounded by people, each of whom have personal, familial, national, ethnic, and religious histories that shape their visions and aspirations. Histories full of weeping and rejoicing. And our decisions today are a response to this.
Immersing myself in the breathless history of the Atomic Age and the World Wars with which it intersected reminded me of this beautiful film which communicates the grand tribalistic story of our species:
Remember Giamatti’s words in the trailer. History is an explanation of the present. And it goes back to the beginning. All relationships with which you struggle have a story, and an explanation. And I can help you find it, change the present, and refashion the future, no matter where you are.