One last, more personal, note about Up. Spoilers ahead in case you haven’t seen the film.
The opening montage of the film in which we see how the disappointment’s in Carl’s life shaping him into a cranky old man really resonated with me. My thought while watching it was that its message is not to put off following your dreams, not to let the little day-to-day things get in the way. My temperament is that of a steady, day-to-day guy, and from time to time I worry that I’m spending all my time just going through the motions and not doing anything truly memorable, the sort of thing I’ll look back on when I’m old and think, “That’s something I’m glad I did.” I also haven’t had any great ambitious goals in life like Carl and Ellie did to go to Paradise Falls.
The later montage shows Carl reading through Ellie’s adventure scrapbook, filled with pictures of their life together. In contrast to the first montage, this one shows how all of the little things, in aggregation, makes up a fulfilling and memorable life. Rather than resonating deeply with me like the first sequence, this one gave me something to think about. I’m still thinking.
The evening of the day we saw the film, I asked Debbi if she’s happy with me even though I don’t go on any adventures with her. She said that we do go on adventures: We went to Hawaii, to Las Vegas, and to Portland, and Disneyland. And I know I’ll remember that Hawaii trip for years to come.
It still seems like it falls short of fulfilling some lifelong dream, though.
Those are just the bigger adventures. We have adventures all the time – whether it is on a hike in Half Moon Bay, biking around the neighborhood, getting together with friends, etc. Everyday is an adventure!
As for having a lifelong dream – I think if you can look back and see that you’ve had a mostly happy life, that’s fulfilling a truly life-long dream! š
Maybe the message is that you shouldn’t allow life’s disappointments to prevent you from enjoying all the little things?
“Going through the motions” doesn’t really sound like you at all. Despite the penchant for puns, you tend to actually think and engage your mind in everything you do; engaged seems like the opposite of going through the motions. Your daily play-by-play might be very similar, but the color commentary varies :<)
I made a “list of places to go before I die” when I was in my teens. (I’ve actually managed to turn over 6 of the original 10 items.) It pretty quickly became clear that the list would always be full, because there’s far more to see and do and enjoy than can fit into any lifetime. There are a lot of different conclusions to draw from that, but the one that I drew was that I should be making the most of the time I have. (In retrospect, I should have added “left” to that sentence; I would have been happier. Oh well.)
One of the things I love about Susan is that she treats each day as an adventure waiting to unfold. This is not something I did before – in fact, one of the reasons I’ve traditionally not enjoyed my birthday is that I look back on the year and wallow in how I didn’t use it well – and it doesn’t come easy for me, but she’s helping :<)