Stranger Than Fiction

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, and there's this little speech he would give about drama that I think relates very well to the discussions we have in class, and Stranger Than Fiction.  You can read it here.

To paraphrase, people expect their lives to be similar to stories they read, and this gets us into all sorts of trouble. While, as Dr. Sexson has said, we are all stories (Harold Crick makes a journey of discovery to find out what story he is) we sometimes don't like the story that we find ourselves in.

This can lead to problems. We don't think our story is exciting enough, maybe it's too exciting, but for one reason or another, we can sometimes become very discontented with the place we find ourselves. Harold Crick experiences this, and when faced with his eminent demise, he begins to live "the life he always wanted".

It is rather unfortunate that some people spend their entire lives asleep, waiting for the big event, waiting for things to happen to them--waiting for that plot. We fail to realize, as Eliot says, that we "are the music while the music lasts".

But, as Harold learns in the end of the film, it is not the big things that save our lives--it isn't bulldozers destroying our apartments that make us fully conscious and aware of our existences--it's tiny little things that barely make a blip on our radars.

I am not presumptuous enough to say that I am tuned into the universe, or I am fully integrated into my own being, but I have a small list of things that save my life, almost every day:

Grover Bridge jumping, letters to Jules Feinberg, the word "poopbooger", chainsaws, toothpaste, peanut butter (from the jar), buck and rail fence, mustaches, the platypus, highlighters, post-it notes, hot dogs, giving blood, puppies and babies (in the same category), blue mold, poorly dubbed movies, daydreams, dust bunnies, funny hats, ties, newspaper clippings, calls to home, sunrises, sunsets, blue moons, wood-burning stoves, jalapenos, carrots, sushi, baseball, Woody Allen, riding a unicycle, burping loudly, frisbees, cooking, Star Trek, Neil Gaiman, cows, wheat fields, skyscrapers, bricks, accents, cookies, and a soaring heart.

That's just a few. I don't get too bored most of the time.