I just might be the only person on this continent who thought Wall-E was depressing, but maybe I'm not.

Maybe you thought the same thing. I can't imagine that anyone weighing over 200 lbs could have walked out of that movie without thinking that everyone was staring at them as they threw their drinks and popcorn buckets into the trash. Neither can I imagine that anyone who loves their conveniences felt anything short of major guilt, nor that anyone who wanted to live "green" had any hope for the future of mankind. I'm not really sure how this movie keeps getting rave reviews, except that it has a soft, cushiony way of throwing the hard truth into our faces.

Here's the biggest problem I have with this movie—will anyone actually change after seeing it? It's obvious that change is needed, but who and how and when?

Here's the other problem: I'm as guilty as the next guy, maybe even more so. When it comes to doing what I know I should—and, incidentally, what I actually want—to do, I sometimes just stall out because the job is just too big. Or it's too hard. And too hard is probably the truest of the two.

This movie comes at an appropriate time in my life as I am battling yet another addiction. I'm not sure I ever entirely got out of the cycle. Though I stopped drinking alcohol about 10 years ago, I moved right on from chemical addiction through a series of psychological addictions like coffee, shopping, exercise, work, and the ever-resilient bulldog of them all, eating sweets. And there are untold numbers of other addictions people struggle with—sex, gambling, reading, cutting, stealing, studying, even gardening, for heaven's sake!

Therein lies the hopelessness undergirding this movie: we are an addicted nation, believing that we should never have to do anything or face anything that is too hard for us. We would rather accept the lies, comforts, and escapism offered by our addictions than to face the difficult problems created by our human nature.

And here we are back at the "too hard" issue. In Wall-E, how did the Earth get the way it was? Simply because everything that was difficult to deal with was discarded instead of addressed. Even the solutions (the machines that were "digging them out" and carrying the trash into space) were abandoned when repairs became too difficult or too expensive to maintain.

Now, you may be thinking that you're not part of this vicious addiction/escapism cycle; but maybe you haven't looked closely enough at the issues behind it. Convenience is built into our culture, and as such, we are its pawns. We bow low to anything that promises quicker results or an easier load to bear. We have literally become afraid of hard work. We have also become afraid of suffering. Isn't there a pill we can take instead of all that exercise? Isn't there a medical procedure to cure that? Can't somebody figure out a way to deal with those landfills? Addicted to something or not, we just don't want to deal.

Continue: 1 2