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Symbolism In The Grid

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The movie Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance by the Hopi people displays hundreds of symbols. More specifically, in the section “The Grid”, the lights on cars and buildings, the people moving in patterns, and the signs represent symbols of a rushed, chaotic life and ungratefulness of nature. Multiple times throughout “The Grid”, people pause to eat at a restaurant or consume pre-made foods such as hot dogs, twinkies, and pop tarts. The inability to stop to make a meal for one's family and to enjoy each other’s company demonstrates the rush of life. People do not stop to enjoy the little things like a home cooked meal or a lazy day with the family or even appreciate the beauty of nature. Also in the movie, the viewer sees hundreds of thousands …show more content…

The three symbols lead to the conclusion that people rush through life trying to live the very best one, but miss out on so much in doing so. People overlook the nature surrounding them as they get caught in a routine without any adventure. How disappointed Henry David Thoreau would be to see people moving in a flurry of speed from here to there wasting time in traffic and working meaningless jobs. He stated in his essay Walden, “why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?” believing that people spend too much time on the details of life. At the end of Walden, Thoreau writes “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves”. In recording this belief, people can infer that Thoreau would be distressed with the systematic lives of people today. The repetition of the same activities day after day without adventure would bestow sorrow in his

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