MEANING of LIFE
spark, meaning, purpose
Happy new year! The first movie I watched this year was Soul. I highly recommend it! The well-structured storyline, beautiful music (soul/jazz music, correspond to the theme perfectly), detailed-orientated animation, 2D/3D design of the characters (the designers are genius) — with the combinations of the above, the movie is a blockbuster in my opinion.
Spoiler alert — the following content may spoil the movie a little bit so feel free to skip this section :)
*****************************************************************
The movie talked about some interesting concepts - a spark in your life, the meaning of life, The Great Before (rebranded to The You Seminar), The Great Beyond, and so on. Do you think life is meaningless if you don’t do something that you dreamed about? Dez, the barber, was really good at his job and loved doing it, however, his dream was actually being a vet, he could only afford to go to the barber school due to the financial difficulty when he was young. Did he live a life with regret? No, he still loved to be a barber, and he could meet some cool and interesting people as a barber which made him satisfied with joy.
Have you tried to search what’s the meaning of life? Having a relationship with God; obey and wait passionately for His will; love one another, being truthful with love. These are the meaning of life to me personally. They are also a constant reminder to me to put them into practice in my daily life.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. — 1 Corinthians 13:1–3
What’s the spark in your life? Does spark equal to purpose of life? The movie mentioned, “a spark isn’t a soul’s purpose”. Joe, the main character, thought that Jazz music was his spark, that was the reason he lived. After the journey with 22 and helped out 22 to get an earth badge, he started realizing that life was still meaningful even though you didn’t do something that you dreamed about. In addition, we gotta live every minute of it.
*****************************************************************
I was reading a book called When breath becomes air recently. It was talking about the journey of a neurosurgeon battling stage IV lung cancer. In part one of the book, Paul (the author) tried to find “what makes human life meaningful”, so he studied philosophy and literature, and he also studied neuroscience and worked in an fMRI lab to understand how the brain could give rise to an organism capable of finding the meaning of the world. I was curious about what would be the meaning of life for Paul? Did he find it? Maybe he’ll talk about it in the later chapter :)
After visiting a home for people who suffered severe brain injuries, he started realizing that the brain gives the body and organ to have the ability to work but sometimes it breaks. In the early stage as a medical student, he worked in the graveyard shift in the labor and delivery ward for two years, and there were points that the doctor needed to make a life-death judgment call, he realized that intelligence wasn’t enough; moral clarity needed to be involved as well — any decision would lead to an irreversible result. Reading this part got me thinking — how fragile and vulnerable I am as a human being and how much pressure the doctor has to carry.
I couldn’t help but relate this book with the movie Soul. They both encourage us to experience life joyfully and to think about what’s the meaning of it. I’d like to encourage every one of us to love one another just like how God loves us, being truthful with love, pray without ceasing, and repent with humbleness in this new year of 2021 while we are searching and experiencing every small bit of life.
Stay safe and healthy!
