Thoughts on Shutter Island [SPOILER ALERT]

So it's been a while now since Shutter Island debuted in theaters. It's also been a while since I've seen the film, so the details of chronology and so on are a bit blurry. But one thing does stand out in my memory: The incredibly clever joke the film plays on the audience.

The film turns on one key question: Is the protagonist insane, or is he trapped in a vast conspiracy? The audience is driven back and forth between these two points for the majority of the film. Indeed, for most of the movie either is at least somewhat plausible. But by the end of the film, we (the audience) have decided. The truth is clear: The protagonist is choosing the coherence of insanity, if only to avoid being a monster.

And this is precisely the joke of it all. We've decided on a reality within the film. But it is a film. It's not real. We, just like the protagonist, have created a particular coherence out of something that is not coherent and not real.

Thus, it is we that are proven to be "insane".

We are beggars all

So I picked up the latest album from Thrice (a band that I have fallen away from over the last few years, but was my absolute favorite in high school). In short: It rocks my socks off. Musically and lyrically, this is standout stuff. The lyrics of one song in particular have really been challenging me, in that they've served as an articulation of some emotions that have been rolling around inside me for quite some time.

Here's the lyrics (all copyrights reserved by Thrice, etc):

Beggars

All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats -
Politicians and entrepreneurs.
Can you safeguard your breath in the night while you sleep?
Keep your heart beating steady and sure?
As you lie in your bed, does the thought haunt your head
That you’re really, rather small?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you champions of science and rulers of men,
Can you summon the sun from its sleep?
Does the earth seek your counsel on how fast to spin?
Can you shut up the gates of the deep?
Don’t you know that all things hang, as if by a string,
O’er the darkness - poised to fall?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you big shots that swagger and stride with conceit,
Did you devise how your frame would be formed?
If you’d be raised in a palace, or live out in the streets,
Did you choose the place or the hour you’d be born?
Tell me what can you claim? Not a thing - not your name!
Tell me if you can recall just one thing,
That’s not a gift in this life?

Can you hear what’s been said?
Can you see now that everything’s grace after all?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.