• How does the story of Amanda illustrate M. Scott Peck’s idea about maps?

Amanda, a deaf photographer, is the main character of the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?. Amanda lives her life on a daily basis with a dramatic viewpoint that has been affected by her experience of catching her ex-husband cheating on her. This experience dramatically affects the way Amanda sees the world, which greatly affects her in turn. M. Scott Peck’s Choosing a Map for Life is an outstanding parallel to the ideas and concepts displayed in Amanda’s story in What the Bleep Do We Know!?.

M. Scott Peck writes that “the more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world”(18). A map is our view of reality, and helps us to live our life. Amanda did not have a clear vision of reality, and this filled her life with anxiety and frustration. Her map was not clear and thus made her life more difficult than it had to be. For example, Amanda is a photographer, but her map of life gave her a negative view of weddings due to her failed marriage, and she hated to photograph weddings.

A problem with maps, Peck notes, is that we have to constantly change them. Our viewpoint is always changing and we are always being hit with new information around us, which requires a map revision. However, we often ignore or dismiss this information so our map can go unchanged. Amanda falls victim to ignoring and dismissing the information that encounters her until the end of her story. She encounters a basketball whiz-kid who informs her of the many possibilities in life, an amazing exhibit displaying water affected by thoughts, and a dream where she sees Columbus ships (or lack thereof) through Indian eyes. Although Amanda does not completely ignore this information, she does not fully appreciate it or change her map until the very end of the movie when she recalls; “If thoughts can do that to water, then imagine what our thoughts can do to us”.

Peck refers to the “process of active clinging to an outmoded view of reality” (19) as transference. Transference often involves clinging to a past experience, and making this experience the basis for a modern map, or view of the world. Transference greatly manifests itself in Amanda’s view of reality. Amanda’s reality is plagued by the memory of her cheating ex-husband, and this memory affects her to the extent where she can’t even go to the church where she was married or photograph a wedding without it affecting her. She morphs this past experience into her modern view of men. For example, when she sees two people having sex at a wedding she is photographing, she assumes that the man is the groom, and recalls her husband’s wandering glances when she sees the groom staring at a bridesmaid.

Finally, Peck writes that transference can be overcome by truth and being open to challenge. He notes that “we teach ourselves to do the unnatural until the unnatural becomes itself a second nature” (24). Amanda does the unnatural as a second nature in the film by constantly taking anxiety pills to calm her panic attacks, which are often caused by her inaccurate map.

Finally, Amanda is able to overcome transference and her old map and see truth and reality. She recalled the water and thought exhibit and experienced and great change, where she saw her true self. However, this change occurred after Amanda woke up hung over and violently yelled at herself in the mirror and broke it, and suddenly experienced a change. Amanda once had a map affected by tranference, and this made her life miserable. However, her map changes and she sees true reality, and finally makes a shot by throwing away her anxiety pills.