Anywhere Is Possible

What I did watch last week was the movie Jumper - and Diane Lane connected the past few days (see my entry on A Thousand Chances).

This science fiction thriller begins the epic adventures of a man who discovers that he possesses the exhilarating ability to instantly teleport anywhere in the world he can imagine. From New York to Tokyo and from the ruins of Rome to the heart of the Sahara desert, anywhere is possible for David Rice. That is until he begins to see that his freedom is not total and that he is not alone. Instead, he is part of an ongoing, global war that threatens the very survival of his rare and extraordinary kind.

The film LOOKS great, but at a brisk 88 minutes, there is no time to fill in back story, from the epic history of paladin persecution to the deeply personal mystery of David's mother, and the cliffhanger ending is so abrupt that the movie seems bizarrely truncated. And all this simply means: that there will definitely be a sequel. I did not bet on this movie, and I would not be waiting anxiously for its sequel.

But this movie has few saving points: there are some questions that makes one think (again) - although it really does not need such an expensive movie to bring it up :) In one of the scene, Samuel L Jackson asked: "You think you can go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? There are always consequences."

This point and the above (about having no absolute freedom) is a concept we are very familar with. Islam teaches us both of these. Our belief in the Last Day and the Day of Judgment would answer the question by Samuel Jackson. In the natural order of things, every decision made will have consequences. It is in the fitrah of creation that there is a cause and effect. Hence, The Hour is a day of reckoning for us to be accountable for all that we have done while being a khalifah of God on Earth, or for that matter, for things we have not done.

Whilst Man have been endowed with the ability to make choices, such choices are never absolute. In the theological sense, because our lives have been scribed by The Almighty and His Ink has dried, we are merely playing out the destiny set out for us. Everything related to His Creations, us included, are at best, relative to His Absolute nature.

Deep down, we know this.