Buttons

Last night we finally got around to seeing the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I thought it was a great movie. The special effects of him being an old man and then a young boy were quite astounding to me.

This movie is LOOSELY based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Usually I like to read the book/story before watching a movie and I like Fitzgerald, but in this case I hadn't gotten the chance. I did read the story this afternoon though. You can read the entire text on line from the University of Virginia. I almost always like the original books more than the movies they are based on, but not in this case. I thought the movie was better. It really had to be adapted quite a bit in order to make it into something that anyone would want to see.

Anyway, I really liked some of the quotes from the movie, so I am copying them here:

"Benjamin Button: For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

"You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go"

"Benjamin, we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

"Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss."

"Benjamin Button: Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people — dance"

I was definitely crying by this last line. I was crying because everything does change, everyone does die, because life is so beautiful, life is so fragile, life is so diverse. Because all these things and more, I cried. I think that is what made this film so moving to me. And even though Fitzerald's story wasn't his best work, I think he secretly knew something when he gave Benjamin the last name Button.

I love buttons. They don't have to be on clothes. Actually I like when they are not on clothes the best. I love when you can see the diversity of a bunch of old buttons all together in a jar. There are a couple of great antique shops that I go to that have a great collection of buttons. Even though they have lived past their purpose... maybe the clothes that they once were on are now out of fashion or they somehow got separated from their brothers or sisters on the shirt or dress they once belonged to... they still have an interesting place, even if its just the fact that they make me smile when I see them.







So perhaps Fitzgerald had a thing about buttons too. Although this may be stretching it, buttons (like people) have a purpose, they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and although they have a limited time of usefulness (they get old or un-necessary), their 'lives' can still have meaning and add beauty to the world past their point of purpose if there are those that were willing to appreciate this beauty.

The Creation of Value or The Meaning of Life or 42

In a previous post, I was commenting that I had been thinking of the concept of value recently. Then, the other day, I picked up a book entitled The Creation of Value by Irving Singer, who is a professor at MIT. The book is quite good and I thought I'd copy some of it down so that I can look back at it. I usually do this in a journal, but now that I have a blog, it will be so much easier to find where I write down these random things. I can find most of it again in google books.



There are some pages not included in this preview however, so here are some quotes/notes from those pages:

1. Throughout history educated people generally assumed that philosophy, like religion, is capable of elucidating the meaning of life. In the past, philosophers often made this attempt. But the twentieth century has been quite different. Questions about the meaning of life have been dismissed or neglected by many of the greatest thinkers in the last hundred years. Even if they were right to do so, we must nevertheless wonder why it is that human beings are both attracted to such matters and constantly baffled by them.

2. A healthy person does not brood about the meaning of life. He gets up in the morning and throws himself into activities that involve his energies and provide personal gratifications.

9/10. Peasants - Without much schooling and without systematic thought, they had learned how to live in manner that eluded him. They acted out of faith rather than reason, and he concluded that only faith comparable to theirs could make life meaningful. This helped him toward religious feelings he thought he had outgrown.

14/15. Above all, we must ask ourselves whether we understand what the original problem was. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Once you know what the question is, you'll know what the answer is.



21/22. Nietzche - amor fati (love of destiny, or things as they really are). This attitude entails a heroic and healthy-minded acceptance of reality even though it is horrible and wholly destructive to everything that participates in it. The worst parts of existence also belong to reality, and he has determined to love and therefore accept it all completely.

I just realized the google book ends on page 34, so there is far too much to fill in here and probably not right to do with regard to copyright. Here's one last quote though from page 103:

John Stuart Mills: People can be happy only if they "have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end".

Unwritten

From an article by Robert Butche:
'Life has two different meanings: the period between birth and death; and the experience or state of being alive. The first is a physiological state of existence only partially under our control. The latter is a state of consciousness that is part historical, part now, and part future. What we do with our life is entirely of our own making.'

From the moment of our birth we are in the business of life. At that instant we are an unwritten book waiting to be filled with discovery, mischief, activities and challenges. For some of us our arrival is a moment of great joy for those present, while for others of us it is either a non-event, or unwanted, or to be concealed. But there we are giggly, gurgily and infantile — without a clue as to what our life will be, or the slightest notion of what life is about.

Some of us will make of our lives a fine journey — filled with joy, achievement, love and satisfaction. The rest of us will find living difficult at best, suffer from oppression, or deprivation, or simply fail ourselves and those we love.

There was no graduation ceremony from fetus to human. No one told us about the business of life. No user manual was offered at our birth, no heart-to-heart talk with our parents about our place in their lives or their’s in our’s. But arrive we did. At that moment, the business of life had begun.

Little do we know when we arrive that we are the masters of our own ship. Being infants we’d have no basis of understanding, but even in childhood discovery of life’s mysteries and demands will remain largely obscured. No one is likely to step forward to explain to us that we, and we alone, will determine how we shall use our physical existence to traverse a life path that realizes our potential as conscious, thinking entities.

Unfortunately, no one explained the rules of life to us when we arrived here. We grew up absent any clear concept of the opportunities and pitfalls that would intersect our lives. Nor had we a rational way of thinking about them, planning for them, or even recognizing them along the way. If only there had been a clear set of instructions permanently affixed in our brain we could have related what we experienced in our lives with far greater understanding and wisdom. For example, what if we knew, even as children,

Life’s Unwritten Rule Book

Here are some of its most important rules.

Life will be what we make of it.
Everything said to be good for us isn’t.
Even those we most trust and respect sometimes lie, betray or damage us.
There never was and never will be a free meal, free sex, or free anything.
Others are prone to tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to know.
We are responsible for our own happiness, joy, and satisfaction.
Life is a solo journey during which neither friends, family, lovers or spouses fully share our needs, wants, attitudes, beliefs, or values.
Successful lives are the product of the quality of our journey, not the illusion of destination.
Someone else’s definition of success may not only be wrong for them, but wrong for us.
Money, power, prestige and status are not directly or permanently related to happiness, success or fulfillment.
Most people are lost and confused about who they are and what they want.
We cannot succeed and will never be happy marching to someone else’s drummer.



Business, even the business of life is about transactions in which we trade some part of ourselves for something essential to our being. Every event, word, deed, action and activity of our life thus becomes a transaction that defines who we are, what we bring to the game, and where we are in achieving our goals, aspirations, or destiny. Each of our transactions is permanently recorded in the book of me, and each one results in the activities, actions, events and outcomes that frame our existence.

It is our own book of me that tells our life story — all the better that someone explain to us early on that everything we do, achieve, accomplish or fail at will define what our life. All the other stuff only served to fill time, misdirect our attention, or subvert our character.

Happiness, satisfaction and eternal peace do not result from any business beyond our own lives, for money, power, looks, influence and ephemeral success are transitory, ephemeral, unsubstantive and fleeting. All the things we were told would give our lives meaning fall to the side along life’s path.

Since the history of our life will be with us forever, the life path we choose and how we manage it is the only measure of our accomplishment, maturation, fulfillment and satisfaction. None of us will take our worldly possessions with us, but each of us will take with us our own book of me. For those who are religious, the book of me is a record of how we lived and accomplished for mankind–and our qualifications for a final place of rest. For the rest of us, the book of me is the final scorecard, the final chapter and the summation of our short visit to consciousness and realization.

Well, you get the idea by now that life is what we make of it. There is no single thread of success, and there is no single path to enlightenment. For each of us, comprised as we are by genomic elements nearly as complex as the cosmos, are unique on this planet. There are, nevertheless some universal truths, reliable methods of inquiry, and time honored mile posts we can use to guide us along or near that life path most likely to fulfill our dreams and satisfy our thirst for living life to its fullest. Love, relationships, friends and family are central to everything we do or accomplish on our own short visit to a very small planet.

And now, a favorite song and video (I particularly like this version with the old books :) )



I have two college roommates who both had babies born prematurely. One was born at 1.10 lbs. and the other at 1.5 lbs. One of those babies is a healthy 'almost 5 years' old now. The other was just born this fall. Those lives almost didn't get a chance to be written upon or to discover what this crazy life is all about. Fortunately, because of today's technology and quite a few prayers, they will.

Here is the online address to help support my friend's team for March of Dimes:

http://www.marchforbabies.org/s_team_page.asp?si=&SeId=1308282

This walk will be on April 18th in Worcester, MA.