C. Benson Quotes

The unexamined life is not worth living.

The awful penalty of success is the haunting dread of subsequent failure.

In a 1972 story titled “The Big Space Fuck,” Kurt Vonnegut names his spaceship with “eight hundred pounds of freeze-dried jizzum in its nose” the Arthur C. Clarke, “in honor of a famous space pioneer.” Its mission is to impregnate the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Lord said, 'Look unto me in every thought' (D&C 6:36). Looking unto the Lord every thought is the only possible way we can be the manner of men and women we ought to be

Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do." Jean Piaget

We all need each other. This type of interdependence is the greatest challenge to the maturity of individual and group functioning." Kurt Lewin

It’ll ruin my vagina! Don’t let them do this!” Lilah shouts. “You love my vagina, Benson!

Horney says the “shoulds” are the basis of our “bargain with fate;” if we obey them, we believe we can magically control external realities, though in reality they lead to deep unhappiness and neurosis.

Meaning is something we “discover rather than invent,” according to Frankl, and we must find it for ourselves. We find it through living, and specifically through love, creating things, and the way we choose to see things.

humanity’s propensity for error, every glass ever broken in all the Jewish weddings of history, a cymbal crash marking the death of God, a metaphorical token akin to the flash of insight produced by a Zen koan—and on and on.VI

Kubrick told his visitors that, in his view, there were three factors to consider in every film: Was it interesting? Was it believable? And, was it beautiful or aesthetically superior? At least two of the three had to be in every shot of the film. He

2001’s production notes contain a number of startlingly prescient glimpses of the world we live in today. As of mid-1965, approximately the same time that the US Department of Defense was conceiving of the internet’s direct predecessor, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), Kubrick’s intrepid band of futurists had seemingly already visualized important aspects of the new technology’s implications. One document sent from Tony Masters to Roger Caras on June 29 listed matter-of-factly—under a letterhead replete with the roaring MGM lion—nine props that he asked Caras to help him with. Number one was “2001 newspaper to be read on some kind of television screen. Should be designed television screen shape; i.e., wider than it is high.

Throughout, Kubrick and Clarke remained locked in dialogue. One strategy they’d agreed on in advance was that their story’s metaphysical and even mystical elements had to be earned through absolute scientific-technical realism. 2001’s space shuttles, orbiting stations, lunar bases, and Jupiter missions were thoroughly grounded in actual research and rigorously informed extrapolation, much of it provided by leading American companies then also busy providing technologies and expertise to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

theory of conformism, which states that when a person has neither the ability nor expertise to make a decision, he will look to the group to decide how to behave. Conformity can limit and distort an individual’s response to a situation, and seems to result in a diffusion of responsibility

Rogers explains defensiveness as the tendency to unconsciously apply strategies to prevent a troubling stimulus from entering consciousness. We either deny (block out) or distort (reinterpret) what is really happening, essentially refusing to accept reality in order to stick with our preconceived ideas.

You will live in the midst of economic, political, and spiritual instability. When you see these signs---unmistakable evidences that his coming is nigh---be not troubled, but, "stand . . . in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come" (D&C 87:8). Holy men and holy women stand in holy places, and these holy places include our temples, our chapels, our homes, and the stakes of Zion . . . "This preparation must consist of more than just casual membership in the Church. You must learn to be guided by personal revelation and the counsel of the living prophet so you will not be deceived.

Seventeen aliens—featureless black pyramids—riding in an open car down Fifth Avenue, surrounded by Irish cops.” Although the form of what would eventually become 2001’s monolith hadn’t yet been established—and wouldn’t for more than a year after much shape-shifting—its color (black) and quality (featureless) had already emerged.

Perls, on the other hand, feels it is essential for people to understand the power of their own roles in creation. He wants to make us aware that we can change our realities, and in fact are responsible for doing so. No one else can do it for us. Once we realize that perception is the backbone of reality, each of us is forced to take responsibility for the life we create and the way we choose to view the world.

our personal sense of reality is created through our perception; through the ways in which we view our experiences, not the events themselves. However, it is easy to forget this, or even fail to recognize it. He says we tend to mistake our viewpoint of the world for the absolute, objective truth, rather than acknowledging the role of perception and its influence in creating our perspective, together with all the ideas, actions, and beliefs that stem from it.

Horney said that it is essential to recognize when we are not operating from self-determined beliefs, but from those internalized from a toxic environment. These play out as internalized messages, especially in the form of “shoulds,” such as “I should be recognized and powerful” or “I should be thin.” She taught her patients to become aware of two influences in their psyche: the “real self” with authentic desires, and the “ideal self” that strives to fulfil all the demands of the “shoulds.

However, as we strive to become free, unique individuals, we still feel the need for unity with others, and in trying to balance these needs we may seek out the comfort of conforming to a group or an authority. This is a misguided approach, says Fromm; it is imperative to discover one’s own independent sense of self, and one’s own personal views and value systems, rather than adhering to conventional or authoritarian norms. If we try to hand responsibility for our choices to other people or institutions we become alienated from ourselves, when the very purpose of our lives is to define ourselves through embracing our personal uniqueness, discovering our own ideas and abilities, and embracing that which differentiates each of us from other people.

Benson’s face cracked into a sly smile. “I’m surprised the Legion even gave you a rookie, after what happened to Sarah. I always said you were going to get one of us killed! What you did to her was unforgivable. You broke our most sacred law!” He turned his head and read the puzzlement on Kara’s face. “Oh? So she doesn’t know? You’re better off looking for another Petty Officer, Rookie. Love affairs are forbidden in Horizon.

Psychology, on the other hand, is mainly about individuals or small groups of people, as in Social Psychology.

console. “Sir, I have info on the two northern contacts. They’re two Type 052C Destroyers; heading just to our west. Range nine miles.” “Good, Benson. Well done. Come to 330. Speed 12 knots.” “Sir, I picked them up because one of them used an SJD-9 sonar to make an active ping.” “How good is that sonar, Benson?” “Not bad, sir. It’s a development of a French design; hull mounted.” “Active ping, is it? It’s playing safe, or more likely it’s a clean-up operation.” “Clean up, sir?

The aim, as Rogers sees it, is for experience to be the starting point for the construction of our personalities, rather than trying to fit our experiences into a preconceived notion of our sense of self. If we hold on to our ideas of how things should be, rather than accepting how they really are, we are likely to perceive our needs as “incongruent” or mismatched to what is available.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process." Stanley Milgram

Like Charlie Chaplin's bolt-tightening factory laborer in "Modern Times" (1936), spinning along with the very cogwheel he's working on--only with less humor and more pathos--they were ghosts in the machinery, component parts of their chilly, refrigerator-white mother ship.

But you pay a terrific price for a good plot, because the minute everybody's sitting there wondering what's going to happen next, there isn't much room for them to care about how it's going to happen or why it happened.

Ordway was simply proposing a design enabling a reverse-angle shot of a person's face, illuminated from below by a screen. At this very moment, of course, a sizeable percentage of the planet's population is lit in exactly this way. But inevitably this technology, and its resulting lighting geometry, was described for the first time and in a first place. Probably here, decades before the sight became so omnipresent as to be unworthy of comment ....

Resilience is a person’s ability to grow in the face of terrible problems." Boris Cyrulnik

Once we realize that perception is the backbone of reality, each of us is forced to take responsibility for the life we create and the way we choose to view the world.

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour of humans and animals.

You know that they ring the bell all night on the feast of All Souls?” “Yes,” said Roderick, “I have heard it ring.” “Well, on that night alone,” said the farmer, “they say that spirits have power upon men, and come abroad to do them hurt; and so they ring the bell, which the spirits cannot listen to...

And with them all things are well, for a man, too, may be born again, and without descending into the grave.

generally.

In real life the adventures are scanty, and for most of us existence moves on in a commonplace and inconsequent way. Misunderstandings are not cleared up, complexities are not unravelled. I think it is time that

I couldn't breathe with that much pain, it had a vise grip on my chest that made me want to tear my chest open to make it stop. Gabby, Fortis.

Love is a very powerful thing. It’s a catalyst. It can inspire an epic poem, or a creation of a moving music that speaks to your soul, or a classic work of art and It can even entice someone to overcome boundaries and reach their greatest potential.

Kubrick told his visitors that, in his view, there were three factors to consider in every film: Was it interesting? Was it believable? And, was it beautiful or aesthetically superior? At least two of the three had to be in every shot of the film.

Psychology has a long past, but only a short history." Hermann Ebbinghaus

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Ivan Pavlov

Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory marked a return to the study of subjective experience. He was interested in memories, childhood development, and interpersonal relationships, and emphasized the importance of the unconscious in determining behavior.

Wilhelm Wundt

The first fact for us then, as psychologists, is that thinking of some sort goes on." William James

Bandura’s hypothesis was that children learn aggression through observing and imitating the violent acts of adults—particularly family members. He believed that the key to the problem lies at the intersection of Skinner’s operant conditioning and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of identification, which explores how people assimilate the characteristics of others into their own personalities.

very often a change of self is needed more than a change of seen

And if I’m in love with Benson, then my life is going to suck even more. Because it hurts to love someone you want to shoot a little.

Kubrick was nearly incapable of actually picturing visual concepts when they were described verbally. He also didn’t necessarily know what he liked until he saw it, and so he needed to be given several choices.

Apart from IBM, companies approached included Hilton Hotels, Parker Pens, Pan American World Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, Bell Labs, Armstrong Cork, Seabrook Farms, Bausch & Lomb, and Whirlpool. The number of firms consulted ultimately topped forty.

As a result, throughout the production, the director shot an estimated ten thousand Polaroids as the lighting was adjusted, then readjusted, and the camera positions were modified.

It was Minsky who’d recommended the terms behind HAL’s acronym, and he’d also been the one who confirmed to Kubrick that computers thirty-five years in the future might be advanced enough to suffer breakdowns when faced with apparently irresolvable conflicts. And Kubrick had named one of 2001’s hibernating astronauts Kaminsky in tribute to the creator of the first self-learning neural network, SNARC.III An

Of filmmakers then active, Kubrick valued Ingmar Bergman above all—so much so that he wrote the Swedish director a fan letter in 1960, praising his “unearthly and brilliant contribution,” and stating, “Your vision of life has moved me deeply, more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films.

Fastidious about personal hygiene, he couldn’t stand to be around anybody who was ill. If this was unavoidable, he insisted that they—and everybody else on the set or in the office—wear surgical masks to lessen the danger of germs spreading.

One day he observed to Roger Caras that being brave was stupid; why would you risk the only chance you have at life, simply to prove something?

Once that was accomplished, however, the handmade technologies devised to shoot in their topsy-turvy environment would enable them to produce some of the most blatantly original footage in filmmaking history.

It all has a Möbius-strip, M. C. Escher, WTF quality, a disorienting tour de force in which Lockwood runs circles around the audience and prior cinematic verities.

Trumbull, get the fuck out of my office and pay attention to your own goddamn business,” he said in the icy tone he sometimes used when irritated.

Under the supervision of a powerful alien master race, the Overlords, Earth’s children merge into a single group consciousness comprising hundreds of millions of individual minds.IX

Freed from “the tyranny of matter,” they were now “Lords of the galaxy . .

It’s his image of himself at this stage of his development. And perhaps the Cosmic Consciousness has a sense of humor. Phoned these ideas to Stan, who wasn’t too impressed, but I’m happy now.

Is he on drugs?” he demanded about the actor in question. “Yes,” Caras said. “Are you certain?” asked Kubrick. “Yes, he is.

Well, yeah,” Caras conceded, suddenly serious. “We’re gonna announce that we’re gonna be replacing you, because you’re a junkie, and you can’t learn your lines anymore, and you’re useless as an actor.

this key moment halfway through the shoot, Clarke’s nine-point plan became a blueprint the director largely followed, though he cut them down a bit further, in part by incorporating some into the astronauts’ pod dialogue, which hadn’t been shot yet. In much the same way that Lockwood’s and Dullea’s dialogue improvisations had methodically been reduced to their essence, Clarke’s suggestions stripped down and clarified the story.

I don’t know what you did,” he said, “but Stanley wants to triple your salary and get you a union ticket. Come back as soon as possible.

The director also insisted that Weston wear his Bowman wig in the sweaty, overheated environment of the suit—a directive the stuntman soon evaded by discreetly flipping the thing into a corner of his high launch platform.

Standing in front of a mirror, it dawned on him that what had been an enjoyable discussion had become an audition in front of one of the world’s great film directors.

you were having an extraterrestrial in your bottle in your chemistry lab, and you wanted to make it comfortable so you can observe it,

His credulity now definitively curdled, Clarke wrote a friend,

He was twenty-one years old and had effectively been appointed producer-director of aeronautical second-unit film production by one of the hottest directors in the world.

People who deal with Stanley and don’t know him perhaps don’t understand that he was an alien.

Kubrick had caught wind of Pahnke’s so-called Marsh Chapel Experiment, conducted in 1962 under the supervision of his thesis advisors, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. The study was designed to see if hallucinogenic drugs, when taken in a religious setting such as a Boston University chapel, could induce religious experiences comparable to those recorded by the great mystics of history. Nine of the ten theology students participating reported that they had indeed experienced sensations indistinguishable from religious revelation.

It being a good three decades before computer-generated imagery, detailed models would have to be constructed for all their exteriors.

When you do a science fiction film, it’s very difficult to discipline yourself to stay within reason. There are no limits, and you can go berserk.

Only three science fiction feature films were released in 1950, but by the middle of the decade, the genre was averaging around twenty-five per year, and by its end over 150 had been released—an unprecedentedly fast expansion for a new genre, even if most of the productions were schlocky B-grade material.

Stan, I want you to know that I’m a very well-adjusted homosexual.” “Yeah, I know,” responded Kubrick without missing a beat.

If you can describe it, I can film it.” Though I managed to disprove this dictum, I must also admit that Stanley later filmed things I couldn’t possibly describe.

What we want is a smashing theme of mythic grandeur.

Forbes asked what kind of project he was thinking of doing next. Kubrick responded that he was looking into the possibility of doing a science fiction film. “Oh, Stanley, for God’s sake!” Forbes exclaimed, turning. “Science fiction?

Despite some well-publicized attempts to render the genre respectable over the previous decade or so, in the early 1960s, science fiction was only a step or two above pornography on the social acceptability scale.

Ask not for whom the monolith tolls.

He proposed that they abandon their prior idea that the monolith (still called “the Cube” in the letter) should be seen overtly transmitting audiovisual lessons to the man-apes.

What great control! I reach for something, the movement begins in the very center of my body. I stand up, turn, and run—all the movement starts from my center. Moving this way does many things. It

I had seven magnets hidden in the teeth. Who other than Stuart Freeborn could have produced such a phrase?

Accordingly, Dan had established a brutal physical training regimen—boot camp for man-apes. Every day, they met in the fields behind the studio, ran laps, and performed calisthenics.

Actually, I do not agree with you that Stanley is insensitive to the needs of others—he is very sensitive, but his artistic integrity won’t allow him to compromise.

In February 1966 Esam became the first person ever arrested in the UK for dealing LSD. He beat the charge, though, and was acquitted the following year.

Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.

It’s how they reached the border between the known and unknown—that place science is always probing like a tongue exploring a broken tooth.

At its best, science fiction takes our post-Enlightenment way of understanding the world and extrapolates, using the findings of science and projections concerning the future of technology and putting them at the service of truths expressible through fiction.

As for HAL singing “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two),” this, too, was Clarke’s contribution, including the song’s gradual devolution to near incomprehensibility at the end. The idea originated in a visit he’d made in 1962 to Bell Laboratories, where he’d heard John Kelly’s voice-synthesizer experiments with an IBM 7094 mainframe, which had coaxed the machine to sing Harry Dacre’s 1892 marriage proposal—the first song ever sung by a computer.

Stan has decided to kill off all the crew of Discovery and leave Bowman only. Drastic, but it seems right. After all, Odysseus was the sole survivor.

the science of mind and behavior.

You can never have enough information, and you can never ask enough questions. —STANLEY KUBRICK

Late May and early June were spent exploring some of the implications of inorganic versus organic extraterrestrials.

Asked if he felt the pervasive spread of technology was beginning to dehumanize us, Clarke replied, “No, I think it’s superhumanizing us.

After seeing his guests to the door, he waited an hour and then called Clarke at the Chelsea. “Get rid of him,” he said. “Make any excuse, take him anywhere you like. I don’t want to see him again.

In this, he was fueled by a diet of liver paté on crackers, an artery-clogging repast sometimes served by a questionable new interest of his: an Irish merchant seaman with a room down the hall named Peter Arthurs.

(Later revised to “Stanley has invented the wild idea of slightly fag robots” doing

At one point in July, he and Clarke suspended their discussion of plot development to engage in a lengthy exegesis of Cantor’s paradox, which is based on the idea that the number of infinite sizes can itself be infinite.