For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.
The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.
I just don't feel that we've traveled very far in the realm of social equality. There just seems to be a little bit of unrest. And sometimes I think that happens when you really feel like something's about to change. Right before the moment of lift off, sometimes things feel a little bit unhinged, and that's what it feels like to me right now, both as a woman and just as a human on the planet as an American woman in America. I feel like we're on the precipice of change. I feel a little nervous.
War, poverty, corruption, hunger, misery, human suffering will not change in a monetary system. That is, there will be very little significant change. It’s going to take the redesign of our culture and values.
I wrote the entire history of Alpha because the space station was around for 500 years. I have 30 pages on the history of Alpha. Every ten years what happens. They took control and what happened. Every 80 years, they have to change the communication system because it doesn't work anymore. Some aliens come with new technology, and suddenly you can change the electric system. We wrote the entire story [for Valerian]
I think revolution is always a little bit possible. I think it won't look or sound anything like what we would expect. But I think revolution is very difficult, and I'm not optimistic for any kind of dramatic change.
What's called Obamacare is an effort to mildly change this [health-care system], not change it as far as it should go or as much as the population wants it to go, but to make it a little better and a little more affordable.
To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing institutions. They must make a philosophical/ spiritual leap and become more 'human' human beings. In order to change/ transform the world, they must change/ transform themselves.
Balance and control come from healthy anger. This is just as aggressive as the unhealthy kind. But it is based on a belief and hope for change in social roles and institutions. Healthy anger demands change and creates the confrontations needed for change to occur. It also gives the other an opportunity to help make that change. “Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution.
We think it is complicated to change the world. Change comes little by little. Nothing worthwhile can happen in one generation.
You never quite know what the change is until, one day, you wake up and go, "Wow, I'm reacting to things differently and I feel differently."
Change is always preceded by a little pain. Some people can change and they don't have to go through so many painful things. But I think that I'm of a personality that I'm a little stubborn, so it's tough for me.
Theres another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.
I admit that when I think of the money one could make from all this, I get a little twinge. But I'm pretty happy with nerd values: Get yourself a comfortable living, then do a little something to change the world.
I've been around the government system and believe me it's built to spend. You've got to change the system, otherwise it's like asking a cultivator to do what a combine does, it just doesn't fit, it won't get it done. You've got to change the system.
In the next couple of years, part of every film's process is going to be to adjust the images. And it'll be to change the color of an actor's tie or change the little smirky thing he's doing with his mouth. Or you can put in more clouds or move the tree a little bit.
The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and saddest you've ever been in your whole life.