After returning from Asia, I have been slowly catching up on my shows. Heroes is one of the few shows that Rebecca and I watch together, but I told her that she could go ahead and watch it while I was on my business trip. After watching them myself last night, I now see why she couldn’t wait for me. Those episodes (Unexpected, Company Man, Parasite) are some of the best television that I have seen in a long while.
In the last episode Parasite, there were some great quotes. The classic one for coffee lovers:
Sylar: “You’ve given me hope.”
Mohinder: “Hope is great. What we need is caffeine.”
The one quote that really stuck out was the one by Mr. Linderman to Nathan (and the fact that Linderman is played by Malcolm McDowell makes it even more awesome):
“…You see I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself, whether he wants a life of happiness, or a life of meaning…. Two very different paths. To be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present. No thought of what’s gone before and no thought of what lies ahead. But, a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future.”
Granted, the requirement to decide between happiness and meaning is too simplistic and binary and avoids the issue of ethics and morality. The day after I watched the episode, my Bible reading was from 1 Peter 3:8-12 which provided a good counterpoint:
10″Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.
11He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.
12For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
What struck me more about Linderman’s quote was the description of how one achieves a life of happiness or meaning. For most of my life, I have found myself living much more in the immediate, which I believe is different from the present, since I was not spending the focus to actually relish the moment. My focus was more about identifying problems, finding a solution and moving onto the next. This approach also did not leave much room to dwell on the past or contemplate very far into the future. So, in this sense, I was achieving neither happiness or meaning.
It is only recently that I have been seeking to experience more of the present, as well as spending time reflecting on the past which by its nature forces me to dream of the future. Not coincidentally, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to appreciate the “stickiness” or “messiness” of life and relationships, acknowledging that conflict and struggle make up the majority of life and that solutions are only markers or milestones of what has passed.