DOING WHAT WE CAN
As if it's fated to be I saw 'Big Fish' today and I can honestly say no film better illustrates the point of my last post. I can heartily recommend it to anybody who shares my world view. long with several others I have seen over the years:
Citizen Kane: If only for the line, "I don't think one word can explain a man's life. It's just a piece of the puzzle. The missing piece." Film buffs will tell me I misquoted that but it shows how a person should be judged by their whole life.
Ed Wood: Brilliant film about a guy who just LOVED films! (Co-incidently also directed by Tim Burton, like Big Fish)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Talking to my brother I mentioned my blog and he raised the point that most blogs seem to hark on about wierd stuff written by self-obsessed people. I'm not claiming that this blog is any different, merely that within my incoherent ramblings I hope you see that what I say is based upon a deeper 'loving-kindness and that I care for others. Caring for others seems to be one of the few things that always makes sense in this world. Sure, you don't always get it right. Nobody's perfect or omnipotent. But a phrase springs to mind; "To do what you can".
"To do what you can"
Examine that further and you see it is existentialist in it's deeper meaning. We seem to spend so much of our lives doing what we feel we have to (excluding those people in the world forced by repressive regimes or oppressors of all kinds). Yet we are masters of our own destiny, who really forced your hand? No one, you are doing what you do of your own volition. We should use that responisbility to 'do what we can'. We are not omnipotent therefore the phrase does not ask us to be.
This has of course all been said before by people far wiser than I. A useful metaphor I read in Lama Surya Das's book is:
"Do you have your hands on the steering wheel of your life? Or are you clutching the rearview mirror wondering why you're spinning out of control?"
In other words, are you in control or are you looking back at the past while your life speeds out of control and quickly away?
If this blog is about me, then this is one of the metaphors which has helped me on my first steps to becoming 'the best Peat I can be' (TM). I have many phrases which I recall when needed to remind me of the path I have chosen and to stay on it. One day I will explain further, but out there is a big wide world, times-a-wasting and adventure awaits!
Take care,
Peat.