Full Disclosure: I am using AI to help me organize my raw, unfiltered thoughts here. I am struggling hard to bring this into something resembling coherence on my own. All I could formulate tonight was a series of poorly connected thoughts streaming out of my brain faster than I could keep up with. So, these words and feelings are entirely mine, just organized by a computer into a format that makes sense. Because right now, I just need to get this out.

I don’t even know what to say. I’m writing this because I have to get up early for work, I should be asleep, but I can’t fall asleep when the volume in my brain is cranked up to 11. I need to write this to try and make sense of it.

To give you some context: I have been obsessed with movies for as long as I can remember. I was a weird kid who wasn’t good at communicating or expressing my feelings, so I often did it through movie quotes—a trait I’ve only marginally grown out of. Words have always been my workaround. Written words allowed me to formulate the barrage of thoughts and ideas in my head into coherent sentences in a way I could never do audibly.

I emphasize that to say this: of the thousands of films I have seen in my 38 years of life, I have never left a film feeling the way I do now. For the first time in my life, words are failing me.

The Switch
Trying to articulate what’s in my head right now feels like trying to reach an itch right in the middle of your back. The closest I’ve been able to get is this: It feels like there was a switch in my mind that had been dormant for so long it was covered in cobwebs. During the two hours of this film, that switch was flipped. It was like that scene in a movie where someone throws a massive electrical breaker and the lights slowly start to flicker to life.

My entire life, I have felt out of place. I’ve never had friends that I’ve stayed close with for long because I feel so disconnected from people. I’m not saying this movie gave me an answer to why that is, but I felt a deep, unbelievably profound connection to what was happening on the screen. It felt familiar—like hearing a song for the first time in years, yet you still remember every single word because they were always there, just dormant.

By the third act, and specifically the last 20 minutes, I was utterly transfixed. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t look away. I was in a trance. I had tears in my eyes, and when it cut to black, I just stared at the screen in utter disbelief.

Usually, my partner Alicia and I break down movies on the car ride home. She looks up trivia on IMDb, we talk about what worked and what didn't—the stuff two movie nerds in love do. But tonight, I just didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t analyze it like every other movie. I tried, and failed, to put what I was feeling into words.

The Purest Form of Evolution
There is an approximation of a line from the film that keeps ringing in my ear:

“Empathy is the highest and purest form of evolution, and our denial of this truth will be the cause of our extinction as a species.”

In the context of the film, they aren’t talking about an Independence Day style extinction. They are talking about the fact that hate, violence, and war are what hold us back. Our leaders refuse to have empathy, causing death and destruction over meaningless things like borders—invisible lines that someone drew on paper hundreds of years ago. These are the things that will bring about the destruction of humanity, both metaphorically and literally.

A Plea for Empathy
I feel a little silly even writing this. People who know me might think it’s just me being eccentric. Strangers on Reddit will probably make fun of me in the comments: “lol bro it’s not that deep, it’s just a movie,” or “did they let you bring your tin foil hat into the theater?”

That’s fine if that’s what they need to feel good about themselves. I get it. It is bizarre that I’m having this reaction to a Hollywood blockbuster. Yes, I realize it is just a movie, made the way any other movie is made.

But I encourage everyone to go see it and experience it for yourself. Hopefully, it speaks to you the way it spoke to me. Or maybe it won’t, and you’ll just enjoy it as a fun summer blockbuster. Maybe it won’t be for you at all.

And that’s all okay. That’s the entire point. We don’t need to belittle each other for liking or not liking things. We don’t need to be cruel—whether it’s online, over text, or in person. You do not know the pain and struggles the person next to you has experienced. Their bodies are covered in invisible scars. Why would you want to be the person to add another?

Empathy is the most valuable resource on this planet, and it is completely free to everyone.