The Life of Pi
The immense beauty of this film touched the superficial grandeur of living on this small habitable planet. It truly is wondrous. What it so effectively conveyed in its viewing is the immensity of Life. The richness of its fecundity, and the ferociousness of its right to life. In an boundless ocean, the law of evolution, and karma make its self so well known, through the interdependent chain of events that create the desire for survival. Through our daily events we quickly forget that majesty that makes its self known through out our daily breaths, the majestic splendor that carries one day to the next in our simple lives. Pi- Piscine, an ordinary “pool” boy is forced out of the contained waters of his life into the wide seas of the Pacific.
I stepped out of the theater, already desiring a soundtrack to keep me a fresh with this vigor that would help me meet “God” as directed. Or narrated as such. Binding time with my friend, pulled into the intimacy of our shared experience of the film to have a drink and further revel in the mystery of “fate” in the story that has to be told, has to be shared, so that the human spirit may endure. My friend already with a DUI, kindly turned down, the invite to continue in a cheerful spirit. Instead, I mustered myself to have some coffee at a nearby coffee shop where warm and pep may bring me home. Within minutes of the appreciation of my mood, a well dressed afro american youth came in the coffee shop asking for money. He stated he was homeless, and lost both his parents recently. I tried not to get in to the details of his parents death, but he was urgent, and in desperate need. I following just his story, pressed him on. He blurted out that he needed a bus ticket to Tennessee, to be with the rest of his family. Knowing that what a bus ticket costs to Tennessee, knew that with in a days time if he was resourceful he would be able to acquire the amount. But for some reason my body couldn’t respond to his antics. His urgency and his need. I may not be a good reader, but I felt that his story wasn’t exactly what it was. I left him something, but was not going to go all the way with what he was asking. I left for home, guilty of my cup of coffee and snack to tide me down. I even had the intention to give him my snack, but the second half of his story rubbed me the wrong way. If my heart isn’t into it, and if the sense of pity is what is driving, than it is usually not sensible to give. I later further learned this when another homeless man at the stop I get off, with a black eye was sitting aimlessly on the steps. Out of pity and remorse of the first experience, decided to give him some money also, but he handed the money back to me. He then started telling me that he chose to be homeless, and that most people in this area that are know where to go and where to acquire what they need. If a homeless person asks you for something, it is best to just give them a direction to an place that would be able to take care of them. Pity is a strong emotion.
Pride can be a stronger one.
I saw Love on the train that got me home.
It was young love.
Two young men willing to bare it for 15-20, simply enjoying each other, because their emotions where stronger than the memory of where they were. It was obvious there were a few uncomfortable people on the train, and the thoughts of pride, envy and contempt swished fro the corners of the saliva on peoples tongues as they decided to swallow it, and just get home. Proud for a brief moment or two, I remember how when I was once there age may have done such, or when on occasion while walking down the street do put my arm around my boyfriend and squeeze him for a few steps. Still punched from the movie, a smile on my face, barely hid in my scarf, and I ran into homeless man number two.
There are a lot of things that one must fight for, whether they are the unalienable rights of liberty or the pursuit of happiness that make us who we are. The sad thing about this day and age is that these rights are so alien in the way that we pursue them. Our indifference, and self possessiveness, curtails our everyday interactions that connect each of us together in the interdependency of our existence. We fight for that right so strongly, breaking Karmic chains, even to extents that would dehumanize, and even alienate each other. Living these parallel existences not cognizant of the simple facts of our intertwined lives bound together. We claim our lives as our own, and we forget where we came from what we have evolved to.
Pi reflected in the tiger a soul at first, in the end, he saw the tiger heartless, cruel and inhumane, leaving him behind with out the simple acknowledgement of the survival. A bond tore asunder. As if he did not exist. However, the bond still remain in Pi’s heart, mind, and soul for the rest of his life, as he recounts the story, touching the humanity in our souls. One cannot but leave the theatre, looking back acknowledging to Pi, that we are all in this together.
Categories: Movies
Edwin Alvarez 