I was afraid of this... it has happened. I dont even know how it began that I decided to watch that first episode of the X Files again... maybe because I saw Khooshboo at work watching it. The flame rekindled inside me... little by little though. It began as the blur vague memory of that year I spent watching the whole X Files series. I can probably guess what year it was. I was working at the daycare center and had graduated high school. I remember calling out maybe twice because I just couldn't keep my head from being fed more and more episodes of the season I had recently received from China. During those days downloading wasn't really the thing to do, not with movies anyway, that was back when people downloaded songs and not albums. I had my old eMachines then too. My guess is that the year was 2004 then... I really need to be keeping track of these things. I know the year is kind of arbitrary in and of itself but I really am interested in making connections. So I kinda wanna have an idea of the things that were going on around that time as well. I wanna see if I can figure out why I am rewatching the X Files now. What is it that my soul gathers from it? This is basically the best show I've seen in my life. I am aware of that now. Not when I first watched it. The very first time I watched it was probably when I was 10 years old. I remember this one particular instance, when I watched it with my father. Memories can get mixed up though, and thus, are not to be fully trusted. But according to this memory, we were in my parents room and we watched the episode of when Mulder and Scully get stuck in the woods, and there are these fluorescent bugs in the trees that are fatal in some way shape or form, and I just know that is one of my most favorite X Files episodes and I cannot remember much more from it, even though I have at least seen it twice already, if not more times. But yea, me and my dad, and usually my brother, the three of us used to watch scary or creepy things all the time, and I loved it. It gave me nightmares since I was a kid but I just loved the whole process of watching scary movies with them. I can't remember my brother being around that time we watched that particular X Files episode though. I remember the AC being on, which was a relief. I think it was evening time too. I remember thinking, this is a really cool thing to watch. I remember asking my dad about it. I don't think he knew much but I remember he liked it a lot too. I also remember wanting to watch more and more of it. So I was able to catch it on tv a few times and I loved every single instance of it. I mean I know I did but I can't remember any of those other instances the way I remember the time I saw it with my dad. I must have seen about 10 or so episodes that I was able to catch on tv. Later on when I came to the US, I believe that I caught a few on cable, and then I tried to catch it regularly on cable. I stole a few newspapers from different neighbors' front lawns on Sundays to get the tv programming for the next week and see when I could watch the x files again, along with other movies that could be interesting. Then, at the point when I could finally make online transactions and after a while of having discovered eBay and becoming somewhat addicted to it as well, I found the cheap Chinese copies of the X Files seasons on eBay. They went for about 30 bucks each, including shipping, which at the time was really really cheap. And then was the "part 2" of the X Files for me, which is kinda more like part 1 cuz I had never seen the full series before, but anyway. I call it that because I was much older then. Now that I think about it, it was probably 8 years since I had first encountered the show, and since then it's been about 8 years till now that I sort of decided to rewatch it. Have I mentioned 8 is my favorite number? haha... what's one of the X Files mantras... "I want to believe"... gotta love that. The other 2 being of course, "The truth is out there" (which is so amazing), and finally "Trust no one"... I remember setting up a password for something as that, it was 'trustno1' actually but yea, probably an easy one to uncover... And so I went through that throughout that year. It's about 200 hours worth of episodes, and it could've taken me a lot less to watch it but I didn't have that much money and so I bought season after season and had to go through the process of waiting from bidding till actually receiving it between each season. Throughout that year also the way I mostly enjoyed or felt compelled to join in conversations was to begin with "That reminds me of this one episode of The X Files..." and it pretty much could've just ended there cuz most people were simply not interested. I found 2 people... TWO PEOPLE who basically shared the passion I had, in the same level of intensity. (Well, I remember you and I Jaime had some talks about it, but mostly I remember you telling me that I reminded you of Carlo, ur friend in EC who apparently loved the X Files as much as me; a fact which I had to confirm when I got there, mostly cuz it seems so hard to believe it based on the infrequency of such occurrence, and yes, he did indeed love The X Files as much as me except at the time that I asked we were in that really awesome club and I was half drunk and also couldn't remember much of the X Files because my memory is a case in and of itself and requires its own blog post...) But yes, the 2 people were 2 older men, 1 who was the father of a boy I babysat, and another one who was an instructor for an art class I took. I had crushes on both of these men and that could be something else to explore either in this post or later... but I do definitely wonder now if it all began with The X Files... I hear the music goin now in my head... and what I mostly want to say about these encounters is that when I talked to them about the series, their eyes lit up and the excitement took over them. I could definitely understand them at that moment.
So then, I encountered Dr Who later on... read a lot of books... and then now, just a few days ago, decided to give in to the temptation of being sucked back into the X Files world. However now, I don't just want to be a passive observer, not that I ever really was, but I want to be as active in it as possible. I want to know why it does what it does to me, and to the few people that it also seems to affect. If I'm gonna get into this again, to give up the next 185 hours of my life to this (I already spent about 15), I want to discover as much as I can. I want to find a bridge between my reality and The X Files inasmuch as possible. And if I sound crazy, well I may be. But I'm not alone. There are others like me out there. There's even a book that was written by X Files producers and authors, and it's an intelligent book, not one of them celebrity gossip things. It's called 'The Philosophy of The X Files" and it explores pragmatism, feminism, existentialism, love and friendship. All things I often think about, well maybe not feminism so much.
I may not believe in aliens, the paranormal, god, government conspiracies, love, and all those awesome things that The X Files make us wonder about. I may not believe in any of them. But if there is something I want to believe in, it's the truth, and our relationship to it. The truth is out there. I want to believe. And I trust no one to be given it. It must be sought for oneself and by oneself.
No comments:
Post a Comment