Let's get metaphysical

Do you feel your film will affect the upcoming presidential election?

Arntz: You know, when I was at the Mile High Church in Denver, someone stood up and asked me that very question. And the week before I'd been in Boulder and they asked me that question. It's nothing that we set out to do, but if you create your reality, and once you're empowered and you apply it to your life, you get much better at it. So let's say the people wanted to see a change in the government. If they applied these teachings wholeheartedly to it, it would definitely affect the election. One of the things in the film that we were very careful about is we never wanted to preach to people. Part of the reason for the title "What the Fuck Do We Know" is we don't want to come across as "this is the only way there is." We don't even care if you agree with us or not, but we would like people to think for themselves. My take is, if people start thinking for themselves and take a look at the world, and don't buy into what the media and propaganda machine has put out, then that's got to affect the election because there's some really screwy stuff that's going on. You know, I often have my crystal ball sessions in the morning right after I wake up. I kind of trip out into the future a bit. One of the futures I see is where the film ends up having a fairly large impact on the election, yeah.

How do you feel about all the people who'll say all this crystal ball and "creating your own reality" stuff is just a bunch of malarkey?

Arntz: What I have found is when people say things like "That's a bunch of New Age malarkey we've been hearing for years," they're basically at the level of 8th grade name-calling. Now if you're saying the science is bad, use science to prove it's bad. But no one ever does. So the fact that you've been hearing it for years means it's wrong? Gee, I never saw that in scientific proof.

One of the key ideas in the film is that the world does not exist outside of our perception.

Arntz: Right, and then you say, Well, am I just seeing what I want to see or what I'm comfortable seeing? And when you start chewing that one over, talk about being uncomfortable. The whole notion is that you create your reality. So when something lousy happens to you, instead of blaming the world and being a victim or blaming society and getting on that whole the blame trip, you say, "Hmm, how am I creating this?" And that's a real showstopper.

And you're saying there's no easy answer.

Arntz: Right. It's like we say in the film: The world is a very big place. It's very mysterious. Negativism is not the answer. But we're not going to tell you what the answer is.

Because we're old enough to decide for ourselves.

Arntz: Yeah, bingo. And who's saying that in our culture: Decide for yourself? Culture is saying, "We'll decide for you." You have a lousy life, guys? Use this deodorant -- you'll get laid. We're saying, think for yourself. If you think for yourself and decide you disagree with our film, that's totally fine. But at least you're thinking.

This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

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