chasing the moon

I've been reading the director Luis Bunuel's autobiography, My Last Sigh, with deliberate slowness. The book is thankfully as without structure as his films.

For example, sometimes a chapter will have a set subject, like the Spanish Civil War. In this chapter he admits to finally buying a rifle for protection, only to give it away in less than a week. He realizes he can't identify the group most likely to kill him and usually can't tell if someone is a Communist, a member of the Falange, or neither.

At other times, Bunuel will ramble about his rejection of Catholicism. He doesn't talk much about his movies except to offer reasons why he included a particular scene. Since his films were almost always a surreal rejection of religion, the upper class, monogamy, or politics - or a mixture - I found these explanations intriguing.

I particularly liked this observation of Bunuel's. Considering that the control freaks I've met could never manage to find any joy in life,  I think he has a valid point.

"All my life I've been harassed by questions. Why is something this way and not another? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal.

If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence."