Shadowlands

It's been a while since I've seen anything that can move me on TV. I used to crave epiphanies from Hollywood flicks; Disney cartoons were to me what Aesop’s fables were to Greek children. I've learned to believe in dreams from little nemo, to seize the day from dead poets' society, to have faith in love from Romeo and Juliet, and so on.

And then at some point I grew sceptical.

It's a lot easier to be sceptical in this world, I assume, as a laugh and a scoff can turn even the sourest of disappointments into a forgivable joke. I heard once that clowns wear a permanent smile to mask their sorrows from the world because there's no room for sad clowns in the world.

I suppose at one point we all turn into clowns.

At some point inevitability abandons us all and we suddenly stop running around and the questions start coming. All of a sudden we needed a purpose, a role, an identity. All of a sudden we wanted to map a track and build a yellow brick road leading to our own personal Oz.

And thus with it comes the need to find a niche that fits you, but most of the time you don't bother creating a new one (the idea seems rather self-indulgent in itself), you simply try to fit within the mould that existed. Sure, certain variations are acceptable, but the general idea is to follow certain ground rules. Being secure and confident and happy is one of them. When you meet a person for the first time, you set your countenance into default mode, and this usually includes a polite smile, a calm composure, and a welcoming tone of voice (assuming, of course, that you, like most people, still believe in the value of civility). You might have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, fell down a flight of stairs, got bitten by a dog, and fell into a puddle, but when you meet someone for the first time, you try to smile and shake their hands and not make a fuss. Because it's not really their fault, is it? They didn't know you had a rough day. They had nothing to do with it, so why rain on their parade?

Of course, if everyone was like that then we'd have a very happy society made up of very unhappy individuals.

So then you factor in pride (or you can call it an innate, instinctive sense of self-preservation, if it makes you feel better).

You see, you know that these people exist, the people who are unhappy and yet still put on a smile. But it would be a shame if you were one of them, wouldn't it?

So you look for a remedy. You anticipate sadness by constantly hunting the reverse. You try to codify happiness. You subconsciously construct within yourself through your own values and through your observation of the world through your eyes what you believe to be the source of happiness. A successful career, a good health, a comfortable life, a room with a view, a promise of heaven and salvation, a gold medal, a word of praise or thanks, a sense of social and financial security, whatever it is you choose to include, in the end you end up with a customised framework of happiness and then, be it subconsciously or deliberately, you begin to pursue it. And you start walking purposefully.

But you're not the only one walking, are you? That yellow brick road is not a one-way freeway; it is an overlapping, bottlenecked, jammed up maze filled with people trying to get to their Promised Land. And although they say you shouldn't measure yourself with others as yardsticks, sometimes you can't help but compare yourself, can you? I mean, these people are right there in front of you, on your left, and on your right, and, since you're blessed with peripheral vision, you can't help but compare.

Because nothing makes your glass feel fuller than an emptier glass beside it and nothing makes your glass feel emptier than a fuller one next to it.

And sometimes you can't help but think that it's not even about how much you put into the glass anymore; some simply start the journey with a gallon while other were given teacups. But a part of you (that self-preserving morsel) refuse to believe that. You must at least carry enough to get to your destination, and if it turns out you don't, you're simply not walking fast enough or you're wasting your water along the way. You cling to the idea that although the world might seem to be unfair, in the end you'll get your fair share if you keep at it (whatever 'it' is according to you). If it works, great but if it doesn't, surely it's not the end of the world.

If you get to the end without reaching your destination, you change tactics. Perhaps the end is not the end. Perhaps there's something better beyond the end. And then you try less and pray more.

If you get to the end before reaching your destination, if somehow along the way you genuinely felt that you've found happiness and contentment and a sense of fulfilment, you also change tactics. Perhaps there is more. Perhaps the end will give me more so I should want more. And then you lose that contentment and look for what you've already found because you simply believe that something better must be waiting around the bend.

In the end we all just keep going until it finally occurred to us that all this sprung from that set of ideas we constructed ourselves a long time ago, and that when all is stripped away, really, the point is the journey you've been walking on all along, not the destination (here come the clichés - but I'm taking off that mask now anyway so screw conventions and hail clichés).

The point of all this rambling is that the movie made me realise that I need to keep in mind that the pursuit of happiness is a huge part of happiness itself. The toil, the pain, the waiting, the wondering, the ebb and flow will all culminate to form your own personal happy ending. And understanding that will let you appreciate your journey in all its colours, not just the pastels. It all comes down to perception in the end. I think so anyway.

- drying my tears after "Shadowlands".