Daydreaming, Major Tom?

And is the Earth blue, so there's nothing you can do?

Time may change me
But I can't trace time

David Bowie: Changes

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey premiered. A movie so magnificent, epic, and yet poetic. Using the nature of the moving-image medium, Kubrick’s film was indeed out of this world, but somehow its themes are always within us. Even in the outer space, questions of humanity are always earthbound. Even the machines Kubrick and Arthur C. Clack thought about are human-like.

Back home, on our planet, another star was about to shine. Young David Bowie, following an unsuccessful eponymous debut album, released a song that would mark the popular culture in the years to come. Flamboyant and androgynous, Bowie flew in a spaceship, singing about Major Tom, a cosmonaut whose mission was to observe our little planet.

While people in his hometown of Bromley daydreamed on the street, Bowie was dreaming about space, but never let his alien persona become unfamiliar. Instead, he embraced the change.

Ground control to Major Tom

In the song, Major Tom goes out in space, following a successful launch from the surface of the Earth. The papers, as ground control crew said, wanted to know whose shirt he wore. But instead, he goes out on EVA and observes — just observes.

Major Tom felt still, even with the engines on. He was at peace looking at the stars. And seeing his home, now a little dot.

As Major Tom described his view:

Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.

After that the lyrics of the song go back to the ground control crew. They say they’ve lost him due to a dead circuit. But he continues to float.

Here am I floating 'round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

The song then goes on, repeating the sounds that we heard when Major Tom was set to go into the outer space. As with Kubrick’s film, the circle is complete. But, as Camus wanted with Sisyphus, one needs to think of Major Tom as someone happy. While Sisyphus was punished, Major Tom found peace in the void.

It’s easier to imagine him happy, at least for some time before his oxygen tank goes dry. Yet, for the time in the song, Major Tom never had a chance to say to his wife one last I love you. The signal broke when he uttered the words. And he continued to be alone. For his existence is now only his own, as he is surrounded by particles and inanimate objects.

Many spiritual practices relate to this idea that detaching one Self from the material world, even outer-world phenomena, is the way to experience a nirvana of sorts. The song does not explicitly say what happened to Major Tom. He’ll appear on more songs by Bowie and others, but his story ended here. From what we know, he was, at least for a moment - happy.

Check ignition and may God's love be with you

But we, here at home, at Bromley, Zagreb, Beijing or the outskirts of Iceland — on our home planet — exist in a material reality. We don’t have that curse of Sisyphus or the peace of Major Tom. We have our own lives and the lives of others.

One piece of cinema that decided to reinterpret the story of Major Tom is Secret life of Walter Mitty. It follows the titular character, a chronic daydreamer who wishes his life wasn’t boring. He works at Life magazine in the negatives department, where he oversees every negative that comes and that will eventually make the cut and end up as a cover.

Alongside his job, Walter tries online dating, but fails due to his profile being mostly empty. He calls customer support and eventually makes friends with his agent. But what happens on the first day is a revelation that neither Sisyphus nor Major Tom could expect: Life was about to change. No more covers, no more negatives. One last issue.

And the cover from the famous photographer Shaun? It’s not there. Number 25 is missing from the roll. But there is a gift. A wallet with Life’s motto on it. Shaun is Mitty’s friend, one that he never met. But Shaun trusted only him with his negatives, as they are valuable pieces of Life.

Walter, a boring company worker, amidst the chaos of acquisition, decides to go on a journey. After being fired, he tries to find Shaun. And his adventures? They’ll take him around this little blue marble.

I'm stepping through the door

Walter fights daydreaming as if it was a disease. He sees a woman he likes playing Space Oddity in a pub on Greenland. He imagines he’s a hero saving a dog. He images he’s the figure from a photography found in Life’s office. He wants to fight the corporate pawns that suck life out of Life. Out of something people who made it cared about.

But Walter is a dreamer. He lives within a confined space of negatives — frozen pieces of reality, or someone’s vision of reality. He sees something no one else does. Beauty. Not the splashy beauty of the city’s skylines, nor the neon lights. Just pure beauty.

For one philosopher, beauty was unifying force of all of freedoms. That is, beauty is free from capital, from management, corporate discourse or TV ADS. And Walter? He’s able to see it.

Stepping through the door that shields the company walls, Walter is exiting Plato’s cave. Not only that, he’s accepting that both the shadows and objects of the world coexist.

Eventually, he finds Shaun. He finds him in the Himalayas, observing with his camera ready. But Shaun doesn’t take the photo of the creature he was waiting for. Some things aren’t meant to be captured, but experienced.

Here am I floating 'round my tin can

Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke — yet all under one name, one person. One dreamer. Bowie was brave to be someone else. And to do it again and again. To tell stories, to make Major Tom an addict in his song Ashes to ashes. He wanted to be himself. Thus he was reinventing himself.

Secret life of Walter Mitty is an interpretation of the story that sets Major Tom on the ground, just like Ashes to ashes tells a story of a cocaine addict. Walter does have a character arc. But his acceptance that Life is not dead because of a corporate restructuring, big capital or marketing department’s failure.

What was the 25? Hidden in a wallet with Life’s motto, it was a negative with no one other than Walter. A regular person whose existence meant something to the photographer able to capture anything. Yet he found and kept the beauty of the mundane.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must also imagine himself sad. Because in a world where happiness has become a part of corporate aesthetics (and by extension losing its own being), we need sadness, adventure, and constant change.

Like Bowie, who flew from space and fell to Earth, he didn’t ask where I was, but what I can do.

And he saw beauty. I’ve mentioned the tree close to my balcony. Sometimes I see more than beauty. I see time, I see stars reflecting light that has started its journey millions of years ago. But it’s just a tree. Yet, in my eye, it’s the most beautiful tree in the world.

Existentialists believed that authentic life comes from one’s own experience of the world, which itself is a collection of phenomena. But authenticity doesn’t necessitate stillness. We’re in a Samsara of reinvention, over and over.

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much
She knows

So even in the absurd condition, where forced happiness leads to mental anguish, people can change — by looking at the leafs or reaching for the stars.