I was watching The Last Samurai the other night and was caught up in the words and symbolism of the film. I've seen it a couple of times before and the idea of Tom Cruise as a Samurai is pretty ridiculous if you don't allow yourself to get caught up in the charade. I got caught up into it. There were a few scenes and lines that stick out with me. The one line in particular is when the Samurai chief Katsumoto asks Cruise if man can change his destiny. Cruise says, "I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed." Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Learn and you will grow.
We don't live in a very honest time anymore. Words are merely that, sometimes I wonder if it is all fiction. We tend to do what feels good at the moment with no consequences or recourse and worry about hurt feelings later. Only if we are caught. It's not quite an honor system. I think if we went by the honor code in school we would all give ourselves A's. We "tried" hard. That should count, right? We gave it "effort." So for our effort we should be rewarded even though we didn't get the results. That's our instant gratification world we live in. We want the fame, the wealth, the love, and we want it in the past tense because it should be happening..now!
What is truth? Is it what we decide it is at the moment? Is it what feels good to us today? Does it change to our ever changing moods and whims? Can we go back and say we "tried" therefore we accomplished? Maybe schooling nowadays teaching us that it's only effort that counts anymore. That if we try and fail we are still winners. No we are not. Let's be honest. We are failures. If you don't succeed try again. Sure, but try better. Change what you are doing. Don't do the same thing and then be surprised when it doesn't work. We either adapt and move on or we are toast. There is no award for repeated failure. No matter what they try to sell us.
Maybe people just need constant ego stroking. Maybe people can't handle the effort of making something real so they build up all these so-called "walls" that only the things they want to hear goes through. I am not sure. I know that where we are today as a country and as a society is due to immediate gratification. Maybe it's televisions fault, the Internet, our teaching system, or ourselves for blaming anything other than our own efforts. We look for excuses instead of accepting responsibility. We are all culpable.
I don't begrudge people falling out of love and moving on with their lives. I do begrudge lies. Nobody wants to feel guilty though. They want to continue the mirage that it was not their fault. They want a clean conscience to wake up to. It's fine, accept when you are wrong, admit it, be honest, then it's clean. Or carry that guilt with you like backpack full of bricks. One lie begets another, and then another. Pretty soon you are writing fiction novels. Don't worry baby, yours won't outsell mine.
