” ‘And a movie is like a lifetime, Don, is that right?’ Richard asked.
Travel Air pilot Donald Shimoda answered, ‘Yes.’
‘Then why would anybody choose a bad lifetime, a horror movie?’ I wondered.
‘Because they think they deserve it for horrifying somebody else, or they like the excitement of horrification, or that not boring is the way they think films have to be. Can you believe that lots of people, for reasons that are very sound to them, enjoy believing that they are helpless in their own films? No, you can’t.’ Don continued.
‘Until you understand that, you will wonder why some people are unhappy. They are unhappy because they have chosen to be unhappy, and Richard, that is alright!’ Don emphasized.
‘Hm.’ I felt mystified.
Don explained, ‘We are game-playing, fun-loving creatures, we are the otters of the universe. We cannot die, we cannot hurt ourselves any more than illusions on the screen can be hurt, in whatever agonizing detail we want. We can believe we’re victims, killed, and killing, shuttered around by good luck and bad luck.’
‘Many lifetimes?’ I asked.
‘How many movies have you seen?’ Don questioned me.
‘Oh.’ I spoke in amazement.
‘Films about living on this planet, about living on other planets; anything that’s got space and time is all movie and all illusion,’ he said. ‘But for a while we can learn a huge amount and have a lot of fun with our illusions, can we not?’
‘How far do you take this movie thing, Don?’
‘How far do you want? You saw the film tonight partly because I wanted to see it. Lots of people choose lifetimes because they enjoy doing things together.
The actors in the film tonight have played together in other films– before or after depends on which film you’ve seen first, or you can see them at the same time on different screens.
We buy tickets to these films, paying admission by agreeing to believe in the reality of space and the reality of time … Neither one is true, but anyone who doesn’t want to pay that price cannot appear on this planet, or in any space-time system at all.’ ”
Illusions: The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach, pgs. 107 – 108