Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life. — for you are fortunate enough to have made it here — Seneca
On Christmas Day 2020, instead of a Lynx Africa gift set, I received a sermon, although not just from Church that morning. Instead of the escapism of its films like Toy Story and The Incredibles, I was pleasantly caught off guard by the pertinence and relevance of Pixar’s new film ‘Soul’.
The film centres around Joe Gardner, a middle-aged man stuck as a band teacher who believes that his purpose on Earth is to achieve his dream — play jazz at the best club in the city. However, mere moments after he secures a gig there, he is magically whisked away to “The Great Before”, a purgatory world full of souls yet to born. Here he encounters ‘22’, a cynical, near-nihilistic soul who refuses to be born on Earth, believing that only pain and suffering awaits. A desperate Joe becomes almost Machiavellian in using 22 to return to Earth so he can finally start ‘living’ now that he has what he has always wanted. Only later does he discover through the trials and tribulations that occur during the emotional roller coaster of the film does he realise that he was already living long before any achievement.
Such lessons could only bring me back to reality rather than away from it.
Many people, including myself, can identify with Joe’s journey. Numerous goals set for the beginning of a new decade were dashed or delayed without warning by the first COVID strain. For A-Level students like I was, didn’t the skewering of exam results cause irreparable damage? What about the athletes grieving when their years of training was met with the postponement of the Olympic Games? Even worse, what happens when you compare yourself to the people you see online managing to adapt, even flourish in such times?
These are just a few examples of when boxes on our checklists are not ticked off can chip away at our self-esteem. As Joe’s journey shows, we do not feel like we are truly ‘living’ because we have not met our own or others’ expectations, not fulfilling what we believe is our purpose in life.
If 22 had a bird’s eye view of our planet from only this year, I can see why waiting a few billion years to be born can be justified. After all, the pandemic infects millions, confines millions to their homes and kills thousands — mental and physical harm in equal measure.
What prepares millions of people for losing inspirational icons gone too soon? Who could predict your country being on fire, having the grip on it tightened by another or having a chunk of it carved out by a chemical blast? When will there be solutions for the Indian farmers, the Uighur Muslim persecution or division over George Floyd’s death?
Frequent headlines about such events can be emotionally draining and only so many times can we dismiss them with sayings of “it is what it is”.
So how do we move forward in 2021?
This reminder of all these hardships from 2020 is meant to show how much we have survived and thus how we should remind ourselves to ‘live’. We cannot wait for our lives to begin like Joe nor fearfully avoid living entirely like 22. On one end, to live is to be ambitious. This means having ‘skin in the game’, risking a piece of yourself for a much greater reward when there may be outcomes you did not wish for. However, living also means not taking what you have granted; such as our attachments to people we care about, our ability to cut out negative influences or our capacity for further progress. By cherishing these ideas, we can have the courage and humility to get the most out of this year, whatever it may bring. That is called ‘living’.
