I need to disclose that I’m not a dying man, so I cannot speak from first hand experience about what it feels like to be a “dying man” that I am referencing in this article. I am referring to the dying man in the old Japanese movie, Ikiru.
The closest I’ve come to being a “living dead man” was surviving the decades-long depression that I had, which started in my childhood. Although I’m not sure that the movie Broken Flowers‘s Don had depression, his numbness and apathy about life was familiar.
What do these two movies have to do with the way we think about our career and our life? Well, if you watched either of these two movies, or better yet, both of these movies, you may come to the same realization that I did:
We all may, at one point of our lives, live as Don Johnston did. We may inhale oxygen and not breathe. We may have many lovers and not love. We may make a “succe$$ful” living and have no life.
We all will, at some point of our lives, die as Mr. Watanabe did. We may not die of stomach cancer. We may not find out in melodramatic fashion that we only have six months to live. But we all will die.
The beauty of an expression medium like the movies (or, for cheapskates like me – DVD movies) is how we can examine our own lives as we only can through the eyes of another person.
When I looked at how Don Johnston sat on his expensive leather sofa, watching his expensive TV in his expensive house, I thought about how my choices affected both my outer life and inner life. I asked myself if I had ever lived like that, and if I am now living my life like that. I was determined to remember that even the nicest looking professional life will not conceal or compensate for a broken personal life.
And I don’t want to wait for a pink colored card to drop into my mailbox to remind me that my life had gone on while my soul had long checked out.
Then there was Mr. Watanabe, a reliable, responsible, and self-denying middle aged man who had sat in the same chair, stamped the same documents, and passed the same buck to the engineering department for 30 years. He worked in government’s “Public Affairs,” which was a place where everyone busied themselves for long hours without getting anything done.
I looked at how Mr. Watanabe became a meek stranger to his son so that he couldn’t even get a moment to tell his son he was dying, how Mr. Watanabe didn’t know how to have a good time in the short time he had left, and how he grasped onto the company of a young coworker who exuded Liveliness in stark contrast to his Lifelessness. I asked myself if I would ever become a stranger to my loved ones and if I would have to look to someone else to remember what being alive felt like. I’m still learning how to have a good time and enjoy myself, and I don’t want to forget again.
And I don’t want to wait for a grim reaping X-ray to remind me that I should have used up my life to do what I like to do and to help however I can help… WITH GUSTO!
You may even come to the same conclusions as I did at the end of these movies:
It’s never too late to start living.
It’s never too late to start risking.
It’s never too late to start believing in something.
It’s never too late to start standing for what you believe.
Originally published: Aug 24, 2006 @ 9:13
