Archive for the ‘The Human Condition’ Category
12 Years a Slave vs. The Wolf of Wall Street
Two Films filed under “Difficult to Watch”
One film I can’t stop thinking about. The other, I wish I could.
I’ll admit straight up I never finished The Wolf of Wall Street. I tried thrice. But every time I picked up where I left off, it felt like I was shimmying through a hole in an outhouse and dropping into the muck below. The movie has a corrosive effect. It’s a nudie, sex- and Quaalude-filled downward spiral of lies, idiocy and bad behavior borne from naked greed. Evidently a true story and maybe even the movie excesses were not far off from how it actually played out in real life.
Then there was 12 Years a Slave. Also difficult to watch, but not corrosive. It was difficult because the filmmaker helped me empathize with these intelligent people living in the degrading and inhumane deep South. Their courage was breathtaking and heartbreaking and deeply affecting. Solomon Northrup, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is an honorable man stolen into a dishonorable system. In 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen brings alive a terrible period of our history. The result is clarifying and worth the discomfort: we need to recover our sense of shame at ill treatment and still—even today—we need to recognize the inherent dignity in being a person.
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Listening has an Ugly Step-Sister: Waiting
Surprise: She Has a Lot to Say
The problem with listening has always been the other person talking. When will they stop talking so I can talk about myself and my interests? You know—the important stuff.
And so we wait.
Turns out there are lots of opportunities to wait in life. Beyond waiting for our turn to talk or the sheets to dry, there are lines at the grocer, lines for on-ramps, waiting for Netflix to load, waiting to get a job/spouse/house/liver/reprieve/break/two-bedroom spot in the nursing home.
What we do while we wait—that’s key. Some say stay busy. Some say pray (seems a good strategy to me). Some say stay curious. Some say pursue your passion.
And then there is listening
Listening while you wait.
Intently.
Deep in the spinning cogs and meshed gear-works of waiting there is a mechanism that also tunes interest. If I listen intently I may just see my desire shift ever so slightly. I scraped and saved for years for a new car but when I had the money, I realized desire shifted: I didn’t want to spend it on the new car. A used car does fine, and I’ll spend that savings for the other thing that became important in the meantime.
Is this partly how prayer works: deep desire and constant asking followed by shifts in desire and asking that turns to listening?
When we wait we are ripe for deep listening.
What are you hearing while you wait?
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
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