Sucker's Mark

Maybe there is a sudden influx of good movies, or maybe I'm a sucker's mark, but finally some films have made me actually think twice about my spiteful life. As a man full of hate and misery, I usually self medicate and try to hide from the world. Now I'm thinking twice.

"The Darjeeling Limited" a comedy about three brothers dealing with their father's death, mother's abandoning of them, and forcing spirituality out of tourism, actually meanders its way to making a point for me. "Death At A Funeral" is a Brit comedy that takes the seriousness out of death, and then replaces it back into our "traditional" funerals that whether adorned with laughter, memories, or religion, actual ceremony should be about living. About the life of the one we lost, and living our own as we choose. I'm always looking for that right thing. Then I watched the drama "Gone Baby Gone" the story of a kidnapped child and all the repercussions that surround it. I can't say too much without ruining the movie, but what is justice, and what is truly right and wrong are debated throughout this movie in a manner I have never before seen.

All of these movies have one major point in common, a poignant climax. All movies build to a climax, a point in which all things come together while falling apart and we all learn a lesson. The difference with these movies, is that the lesson is not fed to you. In the end, you have to decide whether the actions were right, wrong, pointless, fruitless, heroic, evil, and left for you to decide the fates as you would see fit in your world.

This brings me to the point of why I am attempting to write about this series of events. As I personally struggle to decide my future, direction, and ultimately my fate, I must assess things as I see fit and not the way the world deems them to be. Maybe I haven't made the right decisions in my life. I know I have many regrets. But I know I have to make a decision, and the decision is my own. The problem is that it is easy to watch a moment in time through the movies in which something miraculous happens and life changes forever, but those moments don't just happen in life. You force them, or you stay motionless or worse, just treading water. I remember in my youth the Bible basically saying, it is better to be hot or cold, than lukewarm.

My decision comes soon, it has to, and whatever decision I make, it will be mine. And that in the end, will make it right.................for me.