Mastering Life

In the film Julie and Julia, we are provide with an interesting contrast between the story of Julia Child’s start in the cooking profession and blogger Julie Powell’s one year challenge to cook every recipe in Child’s first cookbook. Child, married to a career diplomat and living in Paris, begins her adventure by seeking to engage her mind and time doing something she loves – eating good food. Julie seeks to prove her worth to herself and her friends, also by doing something she loves -- writing and cooking. It takes Child over seven years to write her famous book and many more to get it published. I found this reassuring given the ten plus years I have spent producing my film series. Julie becomes a stunning success after only a year. I felt dismissive.

Clearly, I have some judgments about Julie that bare examination. Julie was motivated by EGO, the desire to prove herself to her friends. She piggybacked on the work of another and she was an overnight success (ok, over-year success)! Child, in contrast, was motivated by her sheer love for food, was amazingly courageous in bucking gender stereotypes and praise-worthy for her many years of perseverance in writing and publishing her book. She was also played by actor, Meryl Streep, and thus irresistible. Reexamining my judgments I realized that neither woman is better than the other and both have something to teach us about life mastery.

1. Ego: How many of us are not first motivated by a desire to prove ourselves to others. The lesson from both women is to select something that we love to do. Julie shares her struggles with her ego -- her insecurity, her disappointments, her self-absorption and the near destruction of her marriage. We can identify and learn from her missteps and forgive ourselves as we can forgive her. Child, on the other hand, shows us how to stand up for our work, to resist compromising for the sake of acceptance (i.e. being published). Is this ego or not-ego? Was she so full of herself and her book that she couldn’t make the requested changes? Or was it love of her work and those who helped her that would not allow it? She won in the ends. Her book was published in its entirety. So we are grateful she resisted and can learn something about defending the integrity of our own creations.

2. Piggybacking: What artist does not learn from the work of other? It is where inspiration and ideas are birthed. Can any one look at their own creations and truly say they owe nothing to any one else? It is impossible. Of course there are limits. When is it piggybacking, when is it plagiarism, and when is it copyright infringement? It can be a confusing line that, rest assured, our copyright industry protects and expands with vigor. Julie was piggybacking on Child’s work. Child was piggybacking on her teachers. They piggybacked on those they learned from and so on and so forth back to that first caveman who discovered cooking over fire. Each one put something of themselves in the new creation that makes it truly unique. Of course sometimes they don’t, but we’ll let the courts decide.

3. Instant Success. Why degrade instant success? Struggling for years has nothing to recommend for itself. It is simply a belief one clings to in the long years of uncertainty and disappointment. “Got to put in the time!” It is a belief that can undermine us and hold us back right along with thoughts about being unworthy, not good enough and undeserving. Instead of dissing Julie for her relatively quick success, we should be celebrating her and trying to copy her. Of course there is also a lot of serendipity and luck, not to mention good connections involved in achieving what we traditionally think of as success, i.e., fame and fortune. Perhaps we should reconsider the meaning of success.

When it comes to the end of our lives, what will we remember as being most important? In a blog post at Inspiration and Chai we are told of five regrets that recur among the dying: failing to live a life true to one’s self rather than fulfilling the expectations of others, working too hard, not expressing one’s feelings, losing track of friend, and not being happy. Might a truly successful life be better gauged by how few of these regrets we have in our final hours? So, how are you doing?

Meaning of Life

Eddie, an 83 year old war veteran and a very sweet guy, discovers his life's purpose only after he dies, in the film, Five People You Meet in Heaven. Eddie, played wonderfully by John Voight, begins his tale at the end, shortly after he dies. We follow him into the afterlife where he meets five people, one by one, who help him review his life and discover things he did not know. In a series of flashbacks that jump back and forth in time, we piece together the story of a difficult childhood, a promising future, a traumatic war event and the consequent loss of a life dream. The story is neither predicable nor formulaic. It is a complicated examination of a human psyche, with many unexpected twists and turns. Except for the heavenly music which might be off putting for some, the film is definitely worth a look.

In contrast to the hero in Ikiru (the film discussed in my last post), Eddie believes most of his adult life that he has failed to live up to his potential. He discovers, however, that life is not always about what we think it is. Both films examine what it means to have lived well. Interestingly, they come to a similar conclusion -- it is by helping others that we find our deepest satisfaction. In Eddie's case, as the maintenance man of Ruby Amusement Park, it is about the special kindness he showed to the children who visit the park. It is the close attention he gave to the rides to make sure they were safe. And ultimately, it is about his final act of selflessness to save a child from a broken ride. The sacrificial rescue is completely in character. It is who Eddie is -- the big guy who helps the small and the weak. His story is also about forgiveness, but you'll have to see the film for the details.

Both films, Ikiru and Five People You Meet in Heaven, asks us to consider the meaning of our own lives, how well and fully we are living and whether, given a sudden and unexpected death, we would measure up. It is about living heartfully and courageously though not necessarily in a big or flamboyant way. This subject is very dear to my own heart. It is one of the reason for making and sharing my film series, Secrets of Life and Death. They are films about preparing for death, yes, but also about what death can teach us about how we live our lives, about life's impermanence and unpredictability and what is truly important.

Like Eddie, we do not always know the impact of our actions. His story reminds me of another story told by Rachel Naomi Ramen in her book, My Grandfather's Blessings. It's about a business man, George, who thought his life had been a waste. He had two ex-wives and five children whom he knew nothing about because he spent his life building a business and making money. Diagnosed with lung cancer, he now lamented his choice. Rachel, his counselor, knew that he was the inventor of a medical device that enabled people with a chronic disease to live an almost normal life. One of her patients, Stephanie, was a grateful user of this device. Rachel asked Stephanie if she would be willing to write an anonymous note to the man explaining what a difference his invention had made in her life. Stephanie went one better and asked Rachel to invite him to her house for dinner. George agreed, but when he arrived he was met, not by just Stephanie and her husband but by her whole family -- parents, aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, her husband's parents and many friend and neighbors, the whole community that had sustained Stephanie in the years she was an invalid. They had come to share their stories, the part they had played, basically the story of Stephanie's life from its many angles. At the end of the sharing, more than three hours, Stephanie told George, "This is really a story about you." Later, back at her office, Rachel asked George how many devices he manufactured every year. "Close to ten thousand," he answered softly. Then he said, "I knew the numbers, Rachel, I had no idea what they meant."

Share your story. Who has been a blessing to you? Whom have you blessed? What can you do for someone today?