Category — Movies

(Disclaimer: this post is NOT meant to offend anyone. It is not meant to bash on ANY religion or lack thereof, and I basically consider it to be NON-religious. I feel the thoughts I’ve presented are not exclusive to any religion or lack of religion. They are simply meant to be thought-provoking, so please… no arguments on my blog, only comments. Thanks!)

I just watched the movie Revolutionary Road, with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (and no, it’s nothing like Titanic). It’s about a married couple in the 1950′s that has it in their head that they’re “different”, that they’re not going to become just like the typical suburban family with two kids and a white picket fence. Yet they wake up one day to realize that that’s exactly what they’ve unintentionally become.

I really liked this movie, and I recommend it, but be forewarned – it is somewhat depressing. That’s all I’ll say, I don’t want to give away the ending… or any of the movie, really, because it isn’t just about the ending. The movie itself is all about the journey this family is on. You should definitely watch it for yourself, but I think I can talk about the premise behind it without really giving any of it away.

I loved how thought-provoking this movie was. It really makes you think about life and the meaning behind it. Or rather, the meaning we give to it. Countless people, myself included, generally have had this idea that there is a “meaning of life”. A lot of people seek that in religion or in this man called Jesus. Other people seek it in the ideas of Buddhism or enlightment. Others seek it in humanity via the idea of humanism. Still others disregard it and simply live life, not really seeking any meaning to it at all. But what is it? Is there one meaning to life?

I was thinking about all of this (yes, I know – how deep and/or cliche can you get, right? pondering the meaning of life?) and started wondering… maybe there just is no meaning to life. Or maybe life is its own meaning. Have I lost you yet?

Does God exist? I’m not going to claim by any means to have the market cornered on that one. I don’t know that any healthy, sane, truly spiritual person really would. Some believe it because they choose to, but as we all know, there is no definitive proof. At least none that is enough to convince those staunch atheists out there. But let’s say he does. I’m also not going to claim to know his agenda or what’s on his mind. Some Christians would disagree with me, but I’m going to put out the idea that maybe it’s not entirely relevant. Maybe, just maybe, God does exist, and he did create us… he did create the world we are in. But what if he left the meaning up to us?

Christian or non-Christian, atheist or agnostic, Buddhist or humanist, what do YOU believe the meaning of life is? What goal do you ultimately pursue? What are you trying to attain with your life? Maybe that’s the whole point of this. Maybe we each have different meanings to our lives. What if the point is… not to search for the meaning of life, but to create it? Here’s what we have – a magnificent world (however it got here) filled with human beings, animals, plants, and all the things that have been created or sprouted up in-between. Now – what are we going to do with it? We’ve each been given a life – is it possible that there is no definitive purpose for it? Maybe the point is simply to take what we have in front of us – all the possibilities that are out there (and no matter what you say, I believe that there are exponential possibilities for every life) and do what YOU want with it. No right, no wrong (and by that I don’t mean the moral definition of right and wrong), no good, no bad, no better, no worse… just find what you want and do it. What if God is sitting up there watching just to see what people do with all the possibilities they have, and he’s perplexed by all of the people spending so much time trying to figure out why they’re here or what the right thing to do with their life is? What if he just wants them to create their own meaning with it? Or… what if there’s simply no God at all? (I’m still here, I promise lightning didn’t strike me after typing that last question.)

In the words of Switchfoot – it’s your life… are you who you want to be?