The Movie
I saw a movie last night. It was a highly rated one and one whose promotions had been flashing on my screen for a long time. The promotion of the movie never seemed like much which is probably why I put off watching it a long time, not that I watch a lot of cinema in the first place.
Anyway very favourable reviews and excellent ratings on movie review sites got me curious and I did end up switching it on. I was not disappointed. The movie was slow, small budget, but extremely well made. The characters were real, as their situations, trials and tribulations.
The movie had a great cinematic quality as well as authenticity, the two things that are rare to see in cinema these days, which is probably why it a nominee for all major international film festivals and awards.
Before this begins to sound like a movie review, let me get to the point. The point was how the movie ended. It was one of those alternate cinema movies that do not have an expected or a definitive ending. It just suddenly seems to end at one point in the narrative, leaving the viewer to guess, imagine and wonder how the remainder the protagonists’s life will continue to propagate.
There is no clear outcome or culmination of the plot. Therefore, the ending of the movie caught me off guard, I guess as it was meant to. However, it got me to begin to wonder about that ending, as also , perhaps, it was meant to. Why did it end like that? What did it mean? Surprisingly, I did get some sort of a clarity and answer which prompted me to write this post.
The Plot
First of all, a little bit about what this ending was. The movie more or less follows three protagonists each of whom are women of different ages including someone very young in her early 20s, someone in their late 30s and then someone slightly older. These three women come together every day at their place of work where there are involved with different jobs in the same place.
These women come from humble origins and their trials and tribulations are different from each other given their age, personalities and their situation. But one thing that they have in common is that that they have to survive in a harsh and difficult world seemingly at a disadvantage because of their limited resources and the card that fate has dealt them.
The Final Scene – The Perfect Moment
The final scene of a movie is with everyone sitting at a able, on the beach of a small coastal village, This village is the ancestral home of the eldest protagonist. She has decided to leave the bustling, busy and difficult life of the city and move back to this place (perhaps for the remainder of her days). The other two women have gone there to help her move, with the youngest one having another ulterior motive, albeit a romantic one.
Dusk has fallen. The beach is remote and empty with a single table and chairs. The backdrop is that of a beach food shack, lit by the warm light of incandescent bulbs, run by a young teenage boy who is always moving and dancing to the rap music he listens to on his earphones.
The final shot of the movie pulls away from the scene, out into the sea and that was the end of the movie. What I finally understood was that the movie captured a moment some lingering affairs in each of the protagonist’s life had come to some sort of combination and at that point of time all was alright with the world.
It was a moment. It was a perfect moment.
What could and probably would follow would be another series of challenges and struggles with life but at that moment everything person is in harmony with everything around them, the sea, the world and each other. Maybe it marked the change of tides that happened often in men’s lives. Maybe it marked the point where everything changed for the better for everyone involved. Maybe it was a point where hope uprooted despair in their hearts.
The perfect moment – Building block of happiness.
Is that what we are always chasing? Is that what our lives are made of? Small perfect moments that everyone gets to capture, every now and then? Are these moments what give us hope? Propel us forward?
The moments that we think of perfect often are the ones that come with beginnings of something new and wonderful. A first love, the first kiss, the first time (or every time) you make love, a wedding, birth of a child and so many more like a vacation, a solo trip, a great dinner with old friends, meeting someone new, success, making tea in the morning, your first coffee, your after dinner smoke and it keeps going.
Collection of perfect moments. Small ones, and milestone ones. Lasting a few moments or creating a new future. Like the ending of the movie, I am also not entirely sure what I am trying to say here. I guess I am sharing a heightened awareness of what we are always looking for and the way we go about it. The simplest answer to that is ‘happiness’. Simple, but also elusive.
Of course that is not the answer for everyone. Some people seem to be ready to suffer misery as long as they can feel powerful. I think sometimes that they are not aware of their misery.
Can you truly be miserable if you are powerful? Or will that come when power no longer rests with them. If you enjoy power, then by that definition you are not miserable. It is addictive. People crave for it more than wealth. Addictive dependencies are equally tricky, be they be of a substance nature or a psychological one.
And we are always addicted. To good times, to pleasure, to friends, children, partners, lovers, golf, coffee, movies, reading and so on and so forth. If it is not one thing then it is another. Such is the nature of life. One distraction must follow another. One activity to follow another. It is never truly possible to do ‘nothing’. Even deep meditation is doing ‘something’. Sitting still is also doing something. Is it at all possible to be doing nothing?
People will argue this strongly. Why would one want to do nothing..? And they would be right. Doing nothing feels terrible. That’s when people are bored. They have nothing to do. So you pick up a tune in your head, practise a breathing exercise you learnt, make a call, look for a book, head out, cook, work and so on.
Back to the perfect moments.
What is a perfect moment?
Have you ever felt one? It will probably feel different for different people in different situations. The first kiss, a great concert, making love, a wedding, childbirth, making CEO…
Is this what we all work towards? Or at least, is this what we need from time to time? To rejuvenate? To go on? To have have hope? To feel?
Conditions for a perfect moment or… Side effects of a perfect moment.
A perfect moment is one that essentially comprises of certain qualities. Perhaps by understanding what these qualities are we can understand our own needs better and what we need for our well-being.
Happiness
This is the building block for every fine experience, isn’t it?
A sense of peace
Sometimes a perfect moment is about a deep sense of peace. You might have felt it sometime. A sense that permeates deeply and you feel the muscles and tendons in your body relax. Your trapeziums relax and fall and your thoughts settle.
A sense of well-being
A sense of well being both physical and mental usually comprises a perfect moment.
Feeling safe
Fear is a big factor in our lives that takes away from us living freely and fully. A lot of fears go unacknowledged as they are considered to be a part of life. A truly joyous moment has one feeling safe and protected.
Loving and Feeling loved
Is their a more potent formula to creating a perfect moment than love? Love conquers most others emotions at its peak strength. This is why a new love is so powerful and creates powerful memories that last a lifetime. Love enhances most all other experiences by heightening the senses and awareness. It has the power to make us live in the present and drop worries about the past or the future.
Feeling abundance
A feeling of abundance is just a general feeling that makes you feel like there is plenty around you. You have everything that you need, love, material things, people et cetera. A sense of positive will probably always have you stressed out to such an extent. Therefore feel, abundance is also an important prerequisite or after effect of being in a perfect moment.
Being present in the moment
This one is one of my favourites. it took me a long time to understand what being present in the moment actually meant. will come across this being said a lot of times specially if you have ever shown interest in any kind of meditation program. I don’t know whether the people saying it themselves understand the power of these words – present in the moment.
I truly understood what it meant when I finally experienced such a state of mind. There are other description for this state. I also refer to is as ‘dropping the mind’. I think I will write another post about this sometime soon.
Being centred in your present means that at that point you have no worries for the past or the future, you are aware of yourself and your surroundings, you are able to appreciate all those things that are around you and truly enjoy the moment that you are in. I remember this is how I used to be when I was very young. I think we all are. That is how we managed to feel ‘carefree’.
A few examples
How long does a perfect moment last? Was your love making the perfect moment that lasted the whole day? Or was it the perfect 45 minute moment that perfected the rest of the day. It was probably the moment that was perfect. For the perfectness buzz to remain for the rest of the day, they rest of the day will have to go well as well.
A childbirth brings unbridled joy to the parents most of the times, except when it also brings unbridled depression to the mother as a post birth condition. I think its called postpartum depression. Regardless, that moment of perfect joy will bring about several others during the course of the years as well.
And that is how parenthood progresses. From one joyous moment to another. Each one carrying the parents forward on the arduous and difficult journey of raising the child right, which seems to be getting more and more difficult with passing decades. Parents are more vexed, confused and foundering with their responsibilities that ever before. More people are not having children than ever before. But that is a post for later.
Moments are perfect. Small ones. Big ones. Short ones, longer ones. It is these moments that build the rest of your time.
Your wedding day might be the most perfect day you experience. And that will carry you forward with memories and love. But that moment is over. Others will have to take place for the journey to continue. You will look for many other moments to recapture that joy of being with someone. Date nights, romantic dinners, love making as much as you can. All perfect moments.
What happens when the perfect moments stop happening?
So here we are. Going from one perfect moment to another. Small ones and big ones. But what happens when they stop happening altogether? Maybe they stop at home, with a lover or at work?
That is when we begin to get despondent, do we not.. and what do we do? We go out looking for those perfect moments. Maybe we live without them for a while because there are important things at stake like a job, a relationship, a lover…
But very many times we go out and look elsewhere. Relationships wither, lovers change, career moves happen when the perfect moments no longer happen. So can we do something about this?
In an interpersonal space, often advised that one ‘work’ on their relationship. Not to throw it all away at the first hint of discontentment. Well, this is all debatable. At what point does love become too much work? How do you know which the tipping point or when you have tried enough?
I guess one of the answers could be to give those perfect moments one more try. If giving a certain situation time and making the effort to re-create the joyous moments one more time does not work, everybody kind of figures that it may be time to call it quits. Sometimes you just know when you know.
Keep a watch over your perfect moments. Be aware of what they are so you can create them more often. Build on them. Nurture them. Small moments, big ones. Prefect ones. They could be what happiness is made off after all.
