Limitless (2011) - The Lateral Thinking

”«And you know how they say that we can only access 20% of our brain? Well, what this does... it lets you access all of it.»
Lorenzo

When you are close to forty, in a deep crisis because you cannot shake yourself from a short-circuit situation in which you do not have a job, you have been left by both women of your life, you have a project for years but the insecurity has created you an impassable creativity block… practically you are looking for the crumbs of yourself under the table.

What if the solution to all of this comes in pill form?

Everything.

This, in a nutshell, is Limitless. a complex and very fast film, which deals with interesting collateral topics such as “Lateral Thinking” studies by the Maltese psychologist and writer Edward De Bono.

De Bono affirms that, if a problem is faced with the rational method of thinking, correct results are obtained, but limited by the rigidity of traditional logical models. When, on the other hand, a truly different and innovative solution is required, that is, one that contributes to a real evolutionary step with respect to the pre-existing conditions, the reasoning must be distorted, starting from the farthest possible point, overturning the data, mixing hypotheses, denying certain certainties and even rely on completely random associations of ideas.

We must therefore abandon vertical thinking, that is, one based on logical deductions, to enter the laterality of creative thinking.

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From Lateral Thinking, the cards of the “Oblique Strategies” were developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and published since 1975. These cards, containing particular guiding phrases, have been used by Brian Eno in many of his musical productions for other artists (Talking Heads, David Bowie, Devo).

Limitless is a well-shot, well-directed film, with effective and intelligent use of special effects and very tight editing, which are well suited to the speed that the story requires. Despite being a medium-budget film, every task was done very well, up to obtaining a product with a personal and recognizable style, it can already be defined as a cult film.

It is based on the novel “Dark Fields” by Alan Glynn but it follows its story only in part and the endings develop in a diametrically opposite way, so much so that the film tends to entice the viewer to use the Nootropic substances, now commonly defined as Smart Drugs, without too many worries about their origin and possible side effects.

A LATERAL THINKING SCENE FROM THE MOVIE LIMITLESS

On the opposite, Glynn’s story treads powerfully on the origin and motivations of the creation of this MDT-48 preparation (in the film renamed NZT-48), which will be further developed in the sequel to the novel, “Under the Night”.

The pill, therefore, becomes the usual quick but risky remedy that the modern era demands from modern man, regardless of the path necessary for inner growth: a school that can also last a lifetime.

Much more useful in this sense were the studies of De Bono, which are linked to those of the Fourth Way of Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff and Fourth Way: the house without a master

«Let’s imagine a large house where the owner is not present. Inside there are many servants, whose work, however, is not coordinated by anyone. It is a house where the servants do what they want. The baker arrives to deliver the supply of bread, but the groom opens the door and has the bread put in the stable. The plumber arrives who has to repair the bathroom pipes, but the cook opens the door and makes him sit in the kitchen.

The lack of coordination means that certain external stimuli never respond to the right person. The same thing happens in human beings. We present ourselves to a university exam, but instead of only the intellectual center coming into action, the emotional one also gets in the way with its load of anxiety, fear and embarrassment, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, to pass the test.

At a gallant meeting with a beautiful woman or a handsome man, the intellectual center comes into action instead of the Heart, which makes us talkative and unattractive. In the midst of sexual intercourse at a given moment the intellectual center takes over with its doubts and expectations … in your opinion what can be the consequence?

Things inside the house are so bad that some servants one day decide to elect a butler. These servants are the I’s of the Work, that is, those I’s – those parts of us – that at some point feel the need to change the situation and force us to undertake a Work on ourselves (…) The butler begins to observe, to follow step by step the various servants to understand what is actually happening in the house.

He must learn about the house. The mere fact that a butler observes them already changes the behavior of the servants. The observer modifies the observed object. He does not judge, he does not speak, he does not interfere in any way, but the constant presence of this silent witness, day after day, almost magically begins to put things in order and prepares the arrival of the master of the house: the soul.

The observer ego, the “witness” is not moral and does not judge in any way the acts of the various selves. If we are judging it is because we are not looking with the “witness” but with one of the I’s, that is with a part of our personality and this can lead to a dangerous internal split of the mind… The witness is pure presence, detached, devoid of personal opinions about what the machine does and what the world around it does.

The observer ego does nothing to change the situation but merely observes with detachment – without getting involved – what happens in the psychophysical apparatus.

Observe the anger, happiness, disappointment, frustration … experienced from time to time by the biological machine, with the same imperturbable objectivity. If in the face of a fight the personality wants to intervene the “witness” does not prevent it, if the personality wants to remain passive the “witness” does not prevent it. Just watch.

Why “build” the observer? Are we happy with how we behave? Or have we understood that our life can be anything other than the usual reactions to events?»

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