In Praise of the Ordinary Life

This weekend I watched the latest installment of Michael Apted's "Up" films, which are a series of films that began in 1963 and have continued every seven years since then. 1963 began with a large group of seven year old children and Apted has gone back to these individuals every seven years basically to say, "How are you doing?" The initial idea behind the films is that a child at seven is essentially who they are - the fundamental essence of his or her personality is formed and that will not change a great deal as their life continues. I find these films immensely fascinating, not because of any extreme dramas, but because of their ordinariness. These are men and women who are doing nothing more than living their lives, trying to make dreams come true, having to let many go, and doing the best they can do to cope with all of the twists and turns life has handed them over the years. In their normality they are incredibly inspiring, because they remind me that we are all just trying to make our way, and that life does not need to be a grand existence in order to make a positive difference in the world. All of the individuals who have stayed with Apted over the years and allowed him to take an intimate peek into their lives have given the rest of the world a tremendous gift - their very real, very flawed, very beautiful lives.

The final interview was with a man named Neil, who, throughout the years, has perhaps been the most compelling of all the participants because of his struggles and hardships, at times seeming on the brink of a psychological breakdown. At the very end of his interview - and the film itself - he said something I found to be a very poetic, quiet, lovely reminder of what life is really about.

“I was just sunbathing and a butterfly landed quite close to me – beautiful wings, deep red colors and white circles on them – and these creatures don’t last very long, but it landed very close to me – it didn’t seem frightened – and it just seemed to delight in opening and closing its wings and just actually being beautiful for that period of time, enjoying the sunshine. And perhaps there isn’t actually anything more to life than that – than just being what you are, realizing that life goes on all around and there are millions of other living creatures who all have to find their parts as well.”
-Neil, 49 Up

Comments

Oh Christine, that's really beautiful...thank you so much for sharing this with us! We're so busy trying to do that we forget to just be and that it's simply, enough!

Posted by: Kate I | November 28, 2006 at 05:45 PM