Marriage - A Life of Quiet Desperation?
At last I watched that DVD I bought a few weeks or even months ago and hadn't got round to watching.
No great headlines.
Not a great blockbuster.
Just one that looked interesting off the supermarket shelf.
An apparently average American film that has, however, left me deep in reflection.
Susan Sarandon in her role says "Why do we need a partner? To act as witness to our lives.
To say we existed and who reflected who we were.
" That set me off reflecting on my life and my philosophy and has left me feeling deeply pensive and reflective about the nature of partnership.
How many people isolate themselves from partnership, leading solitary lives and frightened lives just in case someone hurts them - again? How many people leap into partnership and, repeatedly, in their desperation to have a witness to their lives, choose the wrong person for them? And how many people live in quiet desperation, needing a witness, any witness, just to assure them that they exist? Lives of quiet desperation where the heart cannot sing nor the mind be free to express itself.
Are you suitably pensive at this stage? Can you see yourself in any of the descriptions? I've seen dozens of people who fit any one of these descriptions.
Marriages that have worn out and yet survive in familiarity and complacency - just waiting for one or the other partner to find excitement with someone new.
Partnerships that are so volatile that they burn out and die out like the final display at a fireworks show.
And people who are so scared or stagnated at the prospect of having any kind of involvement because they have got used to nothing moving or changing in their lives.
How have we, as a human race, become so inflexible and unprepared to change and learn and move with our hearts? Has our nuclear society really placed so much routine and responsibility on us that we can no longer find our own hearts? What would we be doing if we listened to our hearts desire and had the courage to follow it? Big questions.
Ones that may take our lifetime to fully answer.
But questions none the less that we will be foolish to ignore.
If we want to feel deep fulfilment in our lives, and avoid living a life of quiet desperation, like lady Havisham's Dickens 'Great Expectations', we need to pull off the veils and cobwebs draped over our hearts and minds, and allow ourselves to step into the new.
And stepping into the new shouldn't be so difficult for us..
..
but it is.
Courage, tenacity and preparedness to face the unfamiliar will give us the tools to open our hearts and minds to new learning, new experiences, and new ways.
And we need others in our journey to help us open those hearts and minds.
We need the encouragement and the belief of others that we can, after all these years, still grow and become who we want to be.
And we need to make sure that the people we have around us are people who can help in that way.
No great headlines.
Not a great blockbuster.
Just one that looked interesting off the supermarket shelf.
An apparently average American film that has, however, left me deep in reflection.
Susan Sarandon in her role says "Why do we need a partner? To act as witness to our lives.
To say we existed and who reflected who we were.
" That set me off reflecting on my life and my philosophy and has left me feeling deeply pensive and reflective about the nature of partnership.
How many people isolate themselves from partnership, leading solitary lives and frightened lives just in case someone hurts them - again? How many people leap into partnership and, repeatedly, in their desperation to have a witness to their lives, choose the wrong person for them? And how many people live in quiet desperation, needing a witness, any witness, just to assure them that they exist? Lives of quiet desperation where the heart cannot sing nor the mind be free to express itself.
Are you suitably pensive at this stage? Can you see yourself in any of the descriptions? I've seen dozens of people who fit any one of these descriptions.
Marriages that have worn out and yet survive in familiarity and complacency - just waiting for one or the other partner to find excitement with someone new.
Partnerships that are so volatile that they burn out and die out like the final display at a fireworks show.
And people who are so scared or stagnated at the prospect of having any kind of involvement because they have got used to nothing moving or changing in their lives.
How have we, as a human race, become so inflexible and unprepared to change and learn and move with our hearts? Has our nuclear society really placed so much routine and responsibility on us that we can no longer find our own hearts? What would we be doing if we listened to our hearts desire and had the courage to follow it? Big questions.
Ones that may take our lifetime to fully answer.
But questions none the less that we will be foolish to ignore.
If we want to feel deep fulfilment in our lives, and avoid living a life of quiet desperation, like lady Havisham's Dickens 'Great Expectations', we need to pull off the veils and cobwebs draped over our hearts and minds, and allow ourselves to step into the new.
And stepping into the new shouldn't be so difficult for us..
..
but it is.
Courage, tenacity and preparedness to face the unfamiliar will give us the tools to open our hearts and minds to new learning, new experiences, and new ways.
And we need others in our journey to help us open those hearts and minds.
We need the encouragement and the belief of others that we can, after all these years, still grow and become who we want to be.
And we need to make sure that the people we have around us are people who can help in that way.