I went to movie last night with roommate and friends. We saw Alfie. I can’t stop thinking about it. I found it quite depressing. I guess I should have assumed that a story of careless living would carry with it dark moments, but I wasn’t prepared for the whole movie to be dark. This is me being naive – I wouldn’t expect a movie about hard drugs to have a very happy tone – and although Alfie is not about hard drugs – he has a disregard about others that mirrors that of someone on drugs. Well, that might not be fair, because on some level he is unaware of how much he is damage he is doing to others – and how much he is becoming damaged. The movie made marriage seem depressing, and it also made being single seem depressing. I definitely think a lot of people could get a good message out of the story, but overall it was not an uplifting flick. The photography was unbelievable – and all the people in the movie were gorgeous. It was visually stimulating. Maybe it was just too realistic a look at the human condition. Not being a realist myself, sometimes I am jarred by it.
I have two new words that I like a lot. Actually, they aren’t new words, but they are words that most people use incorrectly – or don’t actually know what they mean. Temperance and Prudence. Temperance is not abstaining from things, it is knowing when enough is enough – for you. So everyone should have a different level of temperance, and everyone has to find it for themselves. For some people, temperance is abstaining. It is all about being able to stay in control. Prudence is taking into account the repercussion of your actions – thinking about how your actions are going to affect those around you and yourself in the future. Now, I’m not advocating being Prudent all the time, but I think part of being Prudent is simply being aware of the repercussion, even if you decide to disregard the consequences at the moment of action. Because simply being aware of the consequences adds new meaning to the action and allows you to anticipate and be responsible for the end result. Alfie lacked Prudence. Because it never occurred to him to think about what might happen, when bad things did happen, he didn’t feel the responsibility that would have allowed him to learn a lesson. So he made the same mistake again and again. But Alfie did have Temperance about some things, enough to keep him from ending up on the street without a job or a place to live. He had just enough temperance for self preservation, but not enough to save those around him from destruction.
Okay, sorry, deep thoughts for a Tuesday. I feel better now.
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the thin line between optimism and delusion... 