Sky City
Many years ago, I could not understand “City in the Sky”; the picture is very beautiful, very Miyazaki Hayat. But for me at that time, the plot was full of too many metaphors, and I couldn’t crack it, so I lost interest.
Today, re-review, even seem to understand some.
Two children, with a rope tied around their waists, arrive in Rapa, jubilant; the pirate aunt said to the girl, “The poor girl’s hair has been cut short.” In that kind expression; from the scene of the robot standing alone on the island holding a small flower, I think I understand something.
Perhaps, when I look above my head, I can see the Rapa in myself. It is a holy place, but a holy place that can never be attained. Most of us seem cynical and tired of the existing, the mediocre, the shackles, but we have a core called the ideal.
No matter the individual or the human race as a whole, no matter how prosperous the material and comfortable life is, if the spirit becomes mediocre and the soul becomes empty, there will be absolutely no happiness at all. As the sky and the earth are increasingly obscured by crowded towers, we cast our eyes with apprehension and longing to that distant place. Is there our own Prada out there somewhere? There is all the peace, all the freedom, all the beauty, the kindness, the warmth. I wonder if Pandora in Avatar was copied from Prada in Castle in the Sky, or if all humans share a common ideal of Utopia? But at least I feel that this Prada is closer to my ideal shrine than that Pandora.
I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in holiness. I don’t know exactly where it is, but I do know that it must be somewhere I can’t see, behind the clouds, surrounded by roaring tornadoes. Most of us are blinded, but just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. However, its existence does not mean that I will go to such a place in my lifetime, I just know that such a holy place exists is enough to move me. In the end, the boy and the girl together destroy Prada, perhaps is a metaphor for this. There is a good, not necessarily to occupy. The other side, too far away, too far away so far away that no road even exists to get there.
In this utilitarian society, adaptation replaces creation and imagination and becomes a kind of talent; consumption replaces enjoyment and becomes the goal of life. And “soul”, “ideal” and “faith” are empty and will be laughed at words. So every man became a deposed king, and lost the urge to look up at his own country.
That lonely robot on the island, I believe, there is no deeper and stronger than his loneliness. But he enjoyed his solitude. Zhou Gulping said, “Loneliness is an important experience of life, not only because only in loneliness can one meet one’s soul, but also because only in loneliness can one’s soul meet God, the mystery, and the infinite mystery of the universe.” This robot, like us, is a pilgrim.
We are all pilgrims, and we all have our own “city in the sky,” which may be a utopia, but which sustains our lives, sustains what it means to be human. No matter how much knowledge is in the mind of a man without Prada, his heart is ignorant and unenlightened.
“There are as many pilgrim routes as there are pilgrims in the world. Every pilgrimage path is made by every pilgrim himself. It does not have to be the same, nor can it be. Then, as long as you are a pilgrim yourself, you don’t see it as a drawback, but as an inspiration. You will find that every man joins the spiritual tradition of mankind by his own solitary quest, and that you are not alone as long as you are indeed on your pilgrimage.”
So, even if we live in a very ugly world, as long as we think about the city in the heart, in fact, we are not alone.
