Movies, especially Disney ones, often have something for the audience to take in. I think it’s the same with books. Each give us a different perspective to consider, and each could also possibly change the way we think about something altogether. Usually, there’s a moral to the story. When I was in grade school, my teachers assigned worksheets that made us, the students, dissect each book we read and movie we watched in class and for class. We’d spend so much time trying to figure out what the setting, plot, theme etc. was. And the theme of the story was never really something simple; the teachers I had taught that answers in life weren’t and aren’t simple. Life lessons are never simple to learn, but the lessons you’re supposed to learn are rather easier to identify in the end.
And they don’t even have to be super complex, requiring a short answer response consisting of two to four sentences. For example, the theme in Warm Bodies appears to be that love conquers all. Other life lessons may not even have to do with school or work or play or making money; they can even be epiphanies.
These are [some of] mine. You can disagree. I agree to disagree. These are merely things I have learned and realized.
- It really hits home when people who went to your school die. I don’t know why, but it does. Although I may not know those who passed away, it still hits home.
- When you listen, you learn. When you make a mistake/fail, you learn even better. Experience is wisdom, and wisdom is much more powerful than knowledge.
- Things don’t “get better”, and the world has not “gotten worse”. We have the Internet, which opens up many more doors to violence. The media spends more time featuring tragedies. Life doesn’t get better; those living simply grow stronger, which helps them deal with things better.
- Strength is a matter of opinion, self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence. Only once’s self can decide whether they are strong. Those around cannot genuinely determine for a fact that the other is strong. The opinion relies on the feeling felt by the person himself/herself and no one else.
- Friends will come and go, even if you don’t want them to. Many times, they may leave because they dislike a quality about you. You don’t have to allow them back in in the “friend zone” if you don’t want to risk getting hurt again. That neither makes you mean nor means that you can’t have a relationship with them. You can have a relationship with them without being friends. They’re called acquaintances.
- There’s nothing wrong with fighting those above you in order to protect what you believe in and what you believe is truly right, even if the people you are fighting are those who raised you. Even authorities are wrong at times.
- When you think too much about something, you tend to lose sight of what is right in front of you.
- It’s okay to brag about being a family member’s/person’s favorite. Just don’t be annoying.
- It’s better to have a free mind than a caged one.
- Parents should not use paranoia to assist in raising children.
- Just because you share blood with someone doesn’t mean that you’re family with them.
I had no idea how to word #11 for the longest time until The Fosters’ “Vigil” episode aired.
“You don’t know what it’s like to not have enough — to wonder why the people who were supposed to love you more than anything didn’t.” — Callie, The Fosters
There’s never been a show that has actually made me feel like someone could truly understood how I feel in the family boat. This episode really hit home hard, but it was still really wonderful in picking up some pieces and putting them back together.
“DNA doesn’t make a family. Love does.” — Lena, The Fosters
Any that you’ve learned?
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Comments on this post
Agent Q
Loved this list! 🙂 I can totally relate! What’s funny about these points is that they make sense even without being told to us explicitly. However, we can’t fully register them until we are shown their “real-life” [i.e. books] application.
Robin
I couldn’t agree more with #11.
I also agree that the world hasn’t gotten worse; we just have so much technology and communication that we hear about everything. I think children are being exposed to adult concerns (such as whether they will ever find true love) at earlier ages….most of them are experts at using the Internet before age 13.
Sara
This is a wonderfully powerful post. Maybe it’s because I’m older, but I could identify with almost every one of these wise life lessons.
Also, number eleven hits me hard, too. You did a great job of summing up the feeling. I spent a lot of years in emotional pain about my lack of closeness with my family. While there were reasons, I saw other people, who also struggled, but chose to maintain their family connections. I couldn’t. I finally had to just let it go.
Sometimes your wisdom for one so young just amazes me!
Tiff
Hmm, I don’t believe you’ve used the term “friend zone” correctly. It’s pretty much used in the context of when someone (person A) places a person (person B) who is interested in person A in a zone of which no romantic relationship can bud as it is a zone of purely platonic interests. For example:
Joe is Jane’s classmate. Joe & Jane study together a lot, but Jane places him in the friend zone because she has a boyfriend. She is not interested in Joe, but Joe is very much interested in her.
My high school friend died & I was really close to her for a number of years, so yeah, it hits home. It makes you realize the brevity of mortality.
All movies & books have some sort of audience & the writers always try to embed a message in them, especially books. Movies are obviously entertaining, but many of the writers don’t just try to write a script about things blowing up (there are some movies that are like that though), there’s usually some underlying message. With Godzilla, there were plenty of messages & stabs at policies.
Warm Bodies was a modern Romeo & Juliet love story. If you recall from your English class, Romeo’s bff was Mercutio (in the movie, his name is M). Romeo = R. Juliet = Jules. I prefer Hamlet to R&J out of Shakespeare’s works, but I did like the Warm Bodies interpretation of it because it wasn’t this whole long thing of miscommunication, it was a happy ending & hey, everyone loves a happy ending!!
Life CAN get better & it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily stronger. Everyone’s life is different so for many it gets worse, for some, it stays stagnant, for the few, it gets significantly better. Life is also what you make it. If you’re given a bad hand, you can fold or you can try to make the best of it. It’s important to stay positive even during the worst of times. You’re always welcome to cry your heart out & feel sad, but think of one or two positive things so you feel a little better. Your body temperature actually changes according to your mood, so stay positive to stay healthy! (not saying being positive all the time = cancer free; it just helps a little)
Liz
I wrote this like last year. 😡
But my definition of the ‘friend zone’ is more along the lines of literal ‘friend zone’, not necessarily as a romantic thing. It’s taken and defined more literally. It also fits this description/explanation rather well… I understand people try and try to make me actually get and understand what the ‘friend zone’ actually is, but my brain doesn’t understand the concept of not at all having a friend zone for people I want to pursue. Because for me, everyone is in the friend zone that I want to keep near.
I don’t really know how else to explain it other than saying societal things that work for others don’t work for me — because they don’t. It’s not… it’s not at all related to anything romantic or non-romantic at all, at least not for me. ‘The friend zone’ is how I describe people I consider my friends. Because when I use the term ‘friends’, it’s meant more loosely.