Memoria II

I've been speaking to a couple of old friends in the past weeks. Most of us are around the same age and if there is one common tread between all those conversations is the question of what achievements have we made or what direction are our lives heading in.

Sometimes I think back and wonder when was it when we were growing up that our dreams and wishes for our futures got beaten out of us. I'm one of the lucky ones if I think about it. The one thing a number of friends are envious of me is that from a very young age, I knew what I wanted to do and have spent my whole life doing it. Although as I grew older, different aspects of myself came to light and I have altered my direction but it hasn't changed what I wanted since I was 7, 8 years old. I am one of the lucky ones whose dreams and talents fell together in the right place.

Maybe its because of the schooling system many of us grew up in. For all its successes, it has failed to prepare many of us for what life would be like outside of school. The real world is different from the world within the safety of a school. Knowledge without wisdom is nothing but a waste of knowledge.

I listen to the stories that my friends tell and I think back to conversations we had many years ago, when we were teenagers and the world before us was new. Something changed. The hopeful tones have become voices of regret and unfulfilled wishes. It breaks my heart when hearing it. Many people say the transition years are when you leave childhood and enter your teens, I think the real transition years are when you leave your teens and enter adulthood. The idea that as a 21, 22 year old person, you will have to know by then what to do with you life is just a scary thought for many of us. It truly is the first time in many of our lives we have to take responsibility for our lives and our futures; we are left without a safety net, without someone to blame. No matter how prepared you may think you are (and the truth is, most of us are not), its still scary.

Maybe this is why there are so many movies made about this subject, off the top of my head I can think of at least a few that have touched me; Clerks, Clerks II, Garden State, Dead Poet's Society. There is much to be learnt from these films; reflections of real life presented on the big screen (or the TV screen) for our benefit. Lessons in life and nuggets of wisdom hidden within the layers of laughter and tears that a film brings.

Its not difficult to understand why - As film students, we were taught when we wrote our stories and screenplays that one of the most important element is character development and one technique in story telling is for your protagonist to discover the difference between what he or she wants and needs. Its the same with real life. The reel echoing the real, as I would call it.

In an episode of Scrubs (I believed it was titled My Old Lady), J.D. was trying to convince and old lady to continue living by giving her a list of things that everyone should do once in their life. Much to his surprise, she has done everything that was on his list. Instead, she turns the question around and asks him how many of those things has he done or in fact how often has he done nothing and just sat in the sun.

We are told from a young age that we have to move from point A to B to C and so on and so forth. When we were children, we went where we were told to go. But now, we're older, no one tells us where to go. Many of us stop and stand still. It's like what Randal says in Clerks II, "I think the world has passed us by a long time ago." The question many of us face is simply this: So now where do we go?

There is a line in the screenplay for Dead Poet's Society that was cut from the final version of the film and it goes something like this "Do not be afraid to build castles in the air. That's where they should be. But rather, now build for these castles, foundations upon with they can stand."

Its time to dream again. And to believe that dreams do come true.