So usually I can find all kinds of things to write about on this blog, and I can do it daily, and it’s fun. This week, not quite… Most of the goings on in my life are just not worthy of the blog, or too private for the blog (which is RARE for me because I am really not a secretive person!).
But I do have an interesting little lesson I have learned… The other night, I watched Into the Wild, which I loved because it was beautifully shot, the story was compelling, and I heart Eddie Vedder. Sorry Ben, I’ma get me a I<3EV shirt instead of a BC one.
Anyhow, during the movie, the main character, Alex, is telling people that they depend too much on relationships for their happiness. He says that happiness truly comes from within yourself and from your environment, your world. I kinda sat there feeling like a loser, because for my past lonely year in Incline, my biggest complaint has my lack of good human interaction. So maybe I am just looking for happiness all wrong, I thought.
But at the end of the story, after Alex has spent months alone in the Alaskan wilderness and is all alone and dying, he realizes that happiness only means something when you can share it with someone. I was relieved cause I didn’t need to feel like a loser anymore according to a crazy person’s standards… but also I was touched by his path to this realization. Like I already said, it was a beautiful movie.
So this is a bit pertinent to my life right now because on Wednesday, I packed up and left Incline Village for a visit to lower, more populous elevations. In the past 48 hours I have been blessed with so many happy interactions and fun times with friends, and this is real-life and in-person. Not on the internet or on the phone, but that kind of laughing and joy you can only get when you are with other human beings, feeling and seeing and hearing and sharing and just sensing things together. It’s pretty magical. I am grateful that long periods of loneliness and dependence on the virtual world have given me even more appreciation for all of my relationships. Not to align myself to a nutter who died alone in the Alaskan wilderness but I do relate to his story, perhaps all of us do.
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This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 1:59 pm and is filed under enjoy the blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
stop taking your lessons from movies. that is all.
that’s it.
tomorrow i am blogging about my new black tank-mobile that turns into a motorcycle and my black cape and my FLYING lessons (aka swim lessons)
I knew Kelly would say something like that. You’re so predictable, Kelly.
I liked what you had to say. I think we want to believe that we shouldn’t depend on others to find happiness, and I do believe that it comes from within, but when I think about some of my happiest moments, they were all with friends and people I loved. I know this is all sappy and shit, but it’s TRUE!!! So it’s not that we depend on others to create our happiness, but happiness is created from being with others…or something like that.
Anyway, I haven’t seen that movie but now I want to.
It’s a good movie and an even better book. I for one think the key to it all is you have to be happy on your own, which makes all of your other relationships better.
Thankfully for me I did not need to sit in an abandonded bus out in the bush for 3 months to realize that!
no that is a good point - and i totally don’t get happiness from my interactions/relationships with unhappy friends.
i want to read the book and see pictures of what everyone really looked like.
i thought about saying many other things. so there.
C, while you are down in the “big cities” get someone to videotape you swimming!!!