April 10, 2007

• 

  The Aviator

  I watched The Aviator today, which was actually surprisingly good. Not very fast paced or anything and its quite a long movie, but interesting nonetheless. I wouldn't count it as textbook fact when it comes to the life of Howard Hughes, but I can understand the need for artistic license when it comes to cinematic adaptations. Cate Blanchett was great as Katharine Hepburn, but I have to say that Kate Beckinsale was incredibly sexy as Ava Gardner.  Normally I would insert a life lesson here, but to be honest, I just liked watching it for entertainment value and I didn't take away anything of significance from it. Or maybe it's just that I'm really tired of learning life lessons right now. The way Scorcese depicted Howard's descent into severe OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) was interesting, and likely not how it actually happened, but gets the point across clearly within the limits of the movie. My favorite moments, though, were not his gradual decline, but rather the highlights of his career, when he accomplished his greatest feats. And of course, I enjoyed all the Ava Gardner scenes.

  "Faith consists in believing
  when it is beyond the power of reason to believe."
  -- Voltaire

  Sometimes it's hard to keep going on because your reason, your logical mind, tells you that it's impossible and fills your head with all the potential negatives and what ifs and maybes that could come true. "You have no proof," it says to you, wanting some kind of evidence that you should continue with your current course of action. That is where faith comes in. Faith is believing in something despite a lack of proof or evidence to support it. Sometimes when you have no proof that you're right, that you're doing the right thing, that you're going the right way, or that things will eventually turn out for the best, you need to have faith that despite the fact that you can't see it, somehow, some way, things are unfolding the way they are for a reason beyond your ability to see or understand from where you are now.

  "In April, we cannot see sunflowers in France,
  so we might say the sunflowers do not exist.
  But the local farmers have already planted thousands of seeds,
  and when they look at the bare hills,
  they may be able to see the sunflowers already.
  The sunflowers are there.
  They lack only the conditions of sun, heat, rain and July.
  Just because we cannot see them
  does not mean that they do not exist."
  -- Thich Nhat Hanh

  

  • 10:42 pm
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