Monday Musings - life in a day

Over the weekend, I watched "Life in a Day" - a movie where thousands of people captured life for them on July 24th, 2010 and uploaded their videos to YouTube where the director then cut and spliced the footage together into a 90 minute film that is pretty amazing (you can watch it on Netflix or here).

For me, there were two standout reflections - how much we miss each day and what it means to preserve our memories.

The detail on some of the videos that were uploaded is nothing short of stunning, capturing so clearly a moment, a thought, an emotion.  It is a beautiful thing for someone to be able to know the best way to compose a shot or even simply to have an awareness of what was happening around them so as to capture it adequately.  It was yet another reminder for me that I often walk around with my eyes pretty much closed - there's so much beauty, pain, joy, life and colour in each and every day and I miss a lot of it because I'm overly consumed with what I'm doing.  I love being woken up and challenged to see the world with fresh eyes - it is truly a glorious world we live in.

I was also challenged about how important it is to capture a moment in time for the future.  Our kids are 9 and 7 and I look at other kids in our community who are 2 and under and I know that Josh and Rachel were that age once, but in some ways it is hard to remember.  Part of me is jealous for the people who did capture a moment in time - especially with their kids - because that's something they'll always have to transport them back to those precious moments.

Since watching it, I have been tossing around the idea of what it would look like for us as a family to capture "Life in a Day" on a regular basis - maybe twice each year on the same date - and to have a record of what we were thinking, what was important to us, who we were spending time with, what we were afraid of, what our hopes and dreams were.  As well as the memories, I'm sure it would also give some pretty interesting perspectives on how at different times we under- or over-estimate the significance of what we're processing.  Good idea, we'll see if it happens...

How can I look at the world with a fresh set of eyes tomorrow?
What is happening in my life right now that is far more or less significant than I realize?
How am I capturing moments in time - both for preservation and for reflection and perspective?

a comforting truth

We watched "An Inconvenient Truth" today. A very disturbing movie. How anyone can remain unmotivated about doing something about global warming after seeing that movie is beyond me. Go to the official website if you haven't heard about it. If you haven't seen it, you should.

One of the things that did stand out to me, though, was a continued reflection from this blog entry about Bobby. Coming away from that, I spent considerable time pondering what would have happened had Robert F. Kennedy not been assassinated and had become President. With Al Gore, it's a very different matter, because he didn't miss out on becoming President because he was killed (obviously), but rather defeated in somewhat controversial circumstances. I don't know the full history (I intend to look into it a bit further), but it looks as if Gore potentially should have become President of the United States in 2000. As I pondered with Kennedy, imagine if Gore had become President instead of Bush...

However (and this is where the title of the post comes from), I find 2 things comforting about that the fact it didn't happen. The first is that if Gore had become President, his fight to focus on global warming (which is decades old for him) would have no doubt been distracted. How could he have continued to focus on global warming while dealing with the 9/11 attacks, for example (regardless of how differently he would have surely handled the last 6 years since then...)

The second encouragement is that Gore didn't just give up, but instead has (possibly) become even more "powerful" in some ways because of the course he's taken. Maybe not from a military or economic (although possibly) point of view, but politically...? I also seem to recall Gore being the butt of a lot of jokes around 2000 about his personality, etc. Look at him now - Leonardo DiCaprio salutes him at the Oscars! There's a fantastic lesson in there about sticking to what it is you are made to do, and not being knocked off course if things don't seem to go right, but seeing the opportunities that are presented to you and taking them.

bobby

Ali and I went to see the film "Bobby" yesterday. It's the story of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, and the story of the lives of the other people who were shot that day. They did a great job of telling the stories of 22 people without making it confusing, and brought those characters together really well at the climax of the film. I personally found myself drawn to the characters played by Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Fishburne - both wise, sagely, reflective men.

Something that stood out to me was the power that words can have, and a musing on whether people are aware, in the moment, that the things they're saying will end up defining not only them, but their times. The Kennedy speech at the end of the film moved me to the core.

I was also struck by the reality that the issues Kennedy seemed to be fighting against seem to be the same issues we're still fighting today - wars where people are senselessly killed, questions over why those battles are even being fought, racism, bigotry, the need for unity, peace. Consider if these words (with a couple of obvious substitutions) are as valid now as they were nearly 40 years ago...

"I think we can end the divisions within the United States. What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis. And that what has been going on with the United States over the period of that last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions - whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or in the war in Vietnam - that we can work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running." Robert F. Kennedy, hours before his assassination.