“Ready Player One” is a movie produced by Steven Spielberg and based on a novel of the same name. It became a hot topic because it features appearances by Tracer, King Kong, Gundam, Chunri, and other game or movie characters. The movie also received great reviews, as would be expected from a Steven Spielberg movie.
The plot goes like this:
Unlike the bleak reality of 2045, virtual reality world OASIS allows anyone to go anywhere and do anything as the character one wishes to be; you think it, you can do it. Protagonist Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) finds his only comfort in entering OASIS, where most people spend their day.
One day, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), genius and OASIS Founder, announces through his will that he has hidden three challenges in the virtual world and that the person who wins them will be awarded ownership of OASIS and a huge inheritance. He also leaves a message that there are hints among the 80s culture and lifestyle, which he cherished.
Wade Watts, with his admiration of James Halliday, succeeds in solving the first challenge, which catches the attention of IOI, a video game conglomerate that steps in to stop Wade from proceeding further and even attacks him in reality.
OASIS, which is everyone’s dream and hope, must be saved!
Friendship and love in reality is also important to win, so Wade Watts and his friends all come together against adversity and hardship and ultimately succeed in saving OASIS.
The first question that came to my mind while watching this movie was: What is it that people must truly protect and save? Protagonist Wade was an ordinary, impoverished teenager, but he loved the virtual reality world OASIS more than anyone. OASIS was his everything and he admired Halliday, creator of game world OASIS, more than any hero or saint in the world—there was nothing he didn’t know about Halliday. When OASIS fell into danger, Wade faced every challenge and fought back, refusing to let anything discourage him.
As we live life, there are many things we have to protect. Fathers endure any difficulties in the battlefield of their work in order to take care of their wives and children. Soldiers give their lives for the nation’s safety and peace. Police and firefighters also put their lives on the line for the community’s safety. I believe that we also have something that we must definitely protect.
Our inside, which is not visible to the human eye, should be protected and taken care of. Meditation is becoming more and more valuable in today’s society and many people are seeking it out. Why? To keep our minds and hearts healthy and safe. Just as Wade saved OASIS, which was most valuable to him, it is absolutely necessary for us to save our minds and hearts. An increasing number of people are dealing with all kinds of stress and developing illnesses of mind and heart due to the competitive society nowadays. There are many of us who go to gyms or take dietary supplements in order to strengthen our bodies and keep it healthy. However, far fewer numbers of people make any effort to keep their mind healthy and there are not many institutions or educational organizations that can properly guide people to do so.
If there is anything that we must truly protect and take care of in this world, I think it is our happiness, our true mind and heart, and our true selves. The real mind and heart that has been inside us is the original happiness and eternal peace that does not disappear. Would there be anything more unfortunate than being unable to keep that mind and wasting our lives drenched in all kinds of agony and stress?
For once, let’s close our eyes and think about this. Have I been able to keep and protect my happiness and true mind? Or am I often caught up inside stress and worry? This is truly something to think about. Confucius once said, “Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. There families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.” This means that one’s must rectify his heart in order to regulate his family, to rightly govern his nation, and to make the world peaceful. It is a passage that describes the difficulty and importance of governing one’s mind.
If you do not know a method to govern your own mind, it is very important to learn a meditation that teaches you how to do so and thus strengthen your inner self. Really, aren’t your health and happiness, along with your true mind, which is the never-changing truth, the most precious? Meditation is the quickest, most efficient way to find that. Just as we go to the gym to train our bodies to stay healthy, we must also meditate to train our minds and hearts in order to keep my heart’s happiness and true life.
In the movie, Wade did not give up on saving OASIS to the end. What will you do to save your mind and heart?
The Master
My mind is what thinks;
My mind is the Universe.
Everything, all of it,
exist in my thoughts.
Even when this body does not exist,
my mind exists in heaven and earth,
so I am the master of the world
that never dies.
All things are within me.
– Woo Myung
