If you didn't watch yesterday's video, here's the link again. It's kind of important to the rest of this.
What excited me about this particular TED talk was the framing. It completed something for me, filled in a missing piece. It was there all along, but I just couldn't see it.
The topic of the talk was, How to live a meaningful life.
I'm not certain it completely made the case for why it is important to live a "meaningful life," but it did clearly illustrate how. And that's very important.
"Meaning," is "why it matters."
Why do you get up every morning? Because you matter. Your life matters.
We lose sight of that as we get caught up in the roles and the narratives created for us, not by us, by the larger entities surrounding us. And there are so many larger entities surrounding us today.
It used to be just your family, your tribe, your church, maybe your nation or your culture. But today it's any number of multi-national corporations with ad budgets in the billions of dollars, who know nearly every aspect of your life with an accuracy and precision that beggars belief, all for the purposes of controlling, or at least influencing, your behavior.
Your life.
But it's also people around us, seeking to fill the emptiness within themselves, not as a part of your story, but as a cast of characters for their own. To be directed and manipulated and stage managed to achieve a result that doesn't achieve an end.
Life is meaningless. We bring meaning to life.
Meaning is made. It's made through action. Choices.
The only power that exists is the power to choose.
But once meaning is made, it should also be conveyed. Shared.
Meaning is a light. How far it shines is often a function of how high it is elevated.
Stories are how we convey meaning. We all have a story.
And we all share a story.
What I loved about this talk was that framing. About choosing to be a part of someone else's story.
We all play parts in others' stories, but often unconsciously. Reciting lines as habituated responses, unconsciously. Unintentionally.
If you're new here, my apologies, I'm going to refer to stories I've already told. Some of them are here.
When I was XO in JOHN HANCOCK, doing all those burials at sea, the paperwork I looked at in my cabin at night was a part of their stories. Just a glimpse. And I realized that I was going to be a part of their stories too. The final scene. Though I didn't exactly think of it that way at the time.
But it mattered.
When I was acting CO at Fleet Training Center, Mayport and my HMC came and asked me to speak at her retirement ceremony, she was asking me to be a part of her story, though again, I didn't think of it as her story.
But it mattered.
How I chose to play my role, mattered. And I don't think I appreciated, at least at first, how much of an honor it was to be asked to be such a visible part of my HMC's story. It was a gift, really.
I did learn later, however, because so many people asked me to do the same for them at their retirement. And these are memories I treasure, even as they fade now, nearly a quarter of a century later.
Part of what made me seek therapy back then was my own crisis. My marriage was failing. My career, at least in my mind, was a failure.
It was therapy that taught me that the "inner voice," is an unreliable narrator. The stories that we tell ourselves are often works of fiction, perhaps "based on a true story."
It's the holiday season, so naturally I watched Die Hard while we were up in Winterfell. Because it's not Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi Tower. Which brings to mind, Alan Rickman.
Which is important, because the 4K UHD edition of Galaxy Quest was just released!
Which is important because it's a story about a story, that created a story that had meaning.
Rickman's character, Alexander Dane, is bitter. An actor who takes his craft and his career seriously. who finds that his seemingly highest achievement is playing a bumpy-headed alien second-fiddle in a cancelled TV series. An achievement without meaning, that only matters insofar as it attracts fans to 'cons and the occasional ad appearance.
But the inner voice is an unreliable narrator. We can't always know how we matter to the people in our lives. Especially someone who lives his life as a performer, before an audience. Thousands of people with stories he can't begin to know.
His performance did matter. It meant a great deal to one person, or being. And Rickman gives a powerful performance of the value of meaning. And for once, go ahead and read the comments. Rickman/Dane/Lazarus plays his role in Quelleck's story, making Quelleck's life, and his death, meaningful.
I always get tearful in that scene, and we miss Alan Rickman so much.
Likewise with It's a Wonderful Life, to keep with the holiday season theme.
When we were in Winterfell , we watched (I do so love alliteration.) Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Brian Lowery's talk made me think about that movie again. Steve Martin's Neil Page and John Candy's Del Griffith.
Neil Page is forced to become part of yet another of Del Griffith's seemingly endless (and pointless) stories. He's compelled to listen to them, but never really hears them. But Neil Page does something far too few of us do today. When he is finally alone, he reflects. And he finally, truly hears.
I get all gooey in that one too.
And since we stopped in Bonnie's diner in Greene and I got that Groundhog Day vibe, I had to watch that again too. (I've seen it more times than I can count.) As this scene opens, Phil is extinguishing the self. Then we segue to another diner scene where we learn that Phil knows everyone's story.
At the end of the movie, Phil has embraced being a part of many of those stories.
We all have our stories, and we are all a part of each other's stories. This represents opportunity. Opportunity to make meaning.
I used to say that service was the best way to make meaning. But it never resonated with me. It felt incomplete, somehow. Artificial.
Brian Lowery's framing feels much more natural, more authentic. Because stories are how convey meaning. And meaning is a light. Maybe the light, that illuminates our purpose here.
To make meaning, and share our stories.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:44 Friday, 6 December 2024