The Artist
How does he make that happen…
capture my whole childhood
in one stroke,
yellowed highlight
of a single green leaf,
still-standing,
like my memory.
♦
Posts tagged ‘inspiration’
Sep 20
2 Comments
Sep 17
Movie Quote Monday – Stranger Than Fiction
I know I say this nearly every time, but I love this movie. I LURV it!
I listed this as a favorite on the 2011 Movie Quote Monday page, but it’s quite long so I never used it in a post. But last Thursday I heard an interview with Clay Morgan in which this particular quote was mentioned, and now I can’t get it out of my head. So, I decided to share my brains with you. You’re welcome.
Apparently, he referenced this scene in his new book, Undead. I haven’t gotten to it in the book yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing how Clay uses this quote. I can’t begin to get into Undead in a couple of sentences here, but it examines the fact that we can live without really being alive. I can see that idea playing out in Stranger Than Fiction.
So, if you haven’t seen this movie, then you should. But in the meantime, you need to know that Harold has begun hearing a woman’s voice in his head, narrating his life. As confusing as that is to him, it takes on new significance when she announces Harold’s “imminent death”. In his search to find a cure for this little problem, he meets a literature professor who is more interested in the literary quality of the narrative than in Harold’s fate.
Professor Hilbert: You were right. This narrator might very well kill you, so I humbly suggest that you just forget all this and go live your life.
—Harold: Go live my life? I am living my life. I’d like to continue to live my life.
Professor Hilbert: *signs* I know. Of course. I mean all of it. However long you have left. You know, I mean, Harold, you could use it to have an adventure. You know, invent something, or just finish reading Crime and Punishment. Hell, Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.
—Harold: What’s wrong with you? Hey. I don’t wanna eat nothing but pancakes. I wanna live. Who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living…chooses pancakes?
Professor Hilbert: Harold, if you’d pause to think, I believe you’d realize that that answer’s inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led…and of course, the quality of the pancakes. You don’t understand what I’m saying.
—Harold: Yes, I do. But you have to understand that this isn’t a philosophy or a literary theory or a story to me. It’s my life.
Professor Hilbert: Absolutely. So just go make it the one you’ve always wanted.
This really is a beautiful movie, about a man who was living a painfully ordinary life. When something extraordinary occurs in that nearly lifeless existence, he chooses to turn his life into the one he wants. And when the time comes to make a much harder decision, he chooses life once again, in a profound way.
Choosing to live the life you always wanted isn’t easy. For one thing, some of us can’t define for ourselves what that even looks like. And when we think we do know, that just leads to more work, more effort and sometimes even pain. And, you know, I like pancakes; pancakes sound pretty good, right?
What I think is there are plenty of people out there choosing pancakes.
These last few weeks, I’ve been aching to get a tattoo of the word “choose”. Because I do – I choose every day, every hour, every moment. I choose what kind of life I want to live, what kind of person I want to be. What physical and spiritual nourishment I put into my body. I choose how I treat myself and others.
I am constantly choosing who I am.
I don’t always choose well, but at least I stopped ordering the pancakes.
.
So, what do you think?
Can it be as simple as choosing to live your life to the fullest – at least within the limits of your capabilities?
Or is it way more complicated than that?
♦
I Exercised! ……for maybe five minutes
Oh, my friends… I’ll have to fight hard for this one.
On month eight of twelve, I finally pulled out my tiny trampoline to start fulfilling my exercise resolution. Should I tell you that I didn’t even do that until the third week of August? Yeah, I think I’ll keep that to myself. Should I tell you that there are various items sitting on it right now, that I dumped there when I came in the door, and that it’s been accumulating detritus for a week? I don’t think I’ll tell you that, either.
In August, I realized that I want all these things for myself, and yet I don’t have a plan for getting them. I set these goals, these resolutions, but I never took the time to map out how I would reach the end of this one-year journey, what steps I would take to get there. In one case, that didn’t matter: I wanted to take a photography class, so I found one and signed up. But the rest of the goals I wanted to accomplish do not fall into that one-and-done category. The rest of my goals required thought and planning and…well, more goals, defined steps to get there.
Simply thinking about my big goals hasn’t provided me with the concrete guidance I need. Thinking about a goal gives me an overall idea of what I want and how I might accomplish it, but when it’s time to do the work, I am left to meander here and there, finding my way to the end any way I am able. It’s like following pathways in the woods: some are real, some are dead ends, and some just lead you around and around to nowhere.
There’s another drawback to just “thinking” about what I want: I’m noticing that I spend too little of my thought-life in the present. Particularly with the resolutions I’m not successful with, the ones that are more difficult for me motivation-wise. I spend most of my time in “if only”. If only I had stuck with my healthy eating in April, where would I be now? I’d feel so much better; I’d weigh less; I’d be happier with myself and with my body. If only I had kept strictly to my budget, I’d have more money in the bank, I’d be this much closer to paying off that last credit card.
If I’m not thinking about the past, then I’m “could-ing” myself into the future. By this time next year, I could have this much money in the bank. By this time next year, I could be at this weight. The thing is, when I’m concentrating on the “if only’s”, I am less happy, less motivated, and it’s even harder for me to keep going. Because I’m concentrating on something negative, on what I didn’t do or what I wish I had done. Those thoughts and feelings hold me back as much as anything else, because they mire me in my failures.
I fully believe in visualizing yourself attaining your goals, but if all you’re doing is planning and thinking about the future, then the present slips beneath you unnoticed. All your excitement and your hope is focused on some vague point down the road. It seems to me that it would benefit my journey more if my excitement and my hope were centered around my next step. Anything that I can do to make my next step easier and more natural, then that will make my end goal that much more possible to achieve.
At this point I’m just going to keep plodding away. I know I’ll continue at least three of my resolutions into 2013, and I’ll use the experience I’ve gained so far to build on next year. I can’t continue just “thinking” about what I want to do – or should do, or might do, or will do in the future. So, I’ll spend the last months of this year putting together a real set of goals: not just a final destination, but the steps I’ll take to get there. No more wandering down forest paths – I’m going to make myself a map. That way, I’ll know where I’m going, I can accurately measure my accomplishments, and I can focus on the steps I’m taking RIGHT NOW .
♦
Items of Interest:
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steadily skipping stones 