Titanic Love

I spent the larger portion of yesterday on various home improvement projects. Finished the grouting in the upstairs bathroom, cut 2x4’s and installed in the open wall in the Entertainment Room, cut out the drywall for the hole, drilled it in place, put on the first two layers of putty, nailed together the bathroom shelf, and cut the back piece for it. Once I finish putting up the shelf and going over a few other minor details the room will be done, the second room in the house that’s been completely redecorated from top to bottom.

I finished out the day sitting at the computer writing, catching up on e-mail, modifying a blog, and chatting with Sophie shortly over FaceBook, while all the while watching Titanic.

It’s probably not very “manly” of me but I love this film. From a cinematic perspective it’s absolutely amazing. The love story is obviously what gets most people in the heart chakra and me, I’m a sap for a good script, which it was.

I must have watched the film 10 times now. Each time it’s a slightly different experience, of course, as years go between each and I’ve always had a relationship end then some healing-breathing time before watching it again and dreaming of my Jack to come save me (I’ve played Jack’s role all my life and keep getting metaphorically killed so I tend to think of him as a lucky bastard, frozen at the bottom of the Atlantic, there for Rose to have warm thoughts about for the rest of her life--while I'm alive and pretty much ignored--no romantic feel good closure for me).

I’m rambling. Forgive me. It is late.

The reason the movie works is that Jack dies at the end. He’s the perfect love lost. If he had survived where would the story go? Do they get together and tough it out in New York? What a boring ass story that would be. Who wants to see two struggling newlyweds doing their best to put food on the table? But you know the saddest and most realistic ending? They both survive, get back, hide, but are then found, Rose gives in to the pressure of her mother, the rich, etc., pushes Jack away, her inner fire dies, and as a result he goes off in search of people who’s life paths aren’t defined by others. That’s not what anyone wants to hear but that’s what would have happened.

(Maybe it’s pompous for me to suggest that but as a side-note it was “written well” as in to say the characters were very real as were their motivations, choices, and behaviors, so that would have to follow through along with the ifs...)

Anyway, I love the film, always have. It hits me on two levels.

The first is the one that made it a record money making film, the story of young love lost. Everyone, including myself, dreams of having that experience, keeping it, making it stay and grow and be, to find that person that loves us completely and brings out the best of us and makes us feel complete. It works because we want it, need it, are starving for it so much we’ll fork out more and more to see the film two, three, four times in the theatre (I’ve heard of people going up to ten times while it was out!).

The second is one very few relate to, that of the true lover, the Jack of the story: “You jump, I jump,” he says to Rose, and he means it, he absolutely means it. There aren’t many people, men or women, who have that kind of passion about life and those they care about. Sure, we know of people who appear that way, but it’s a facade, it’s short lives, and after a few days or weeks or months it fades to expose the nakedness underneath.

Think of yourself for a moment. What are you? What is the deepest, most subconscious motivation in your life that influences nearly everything you do, choice you make, friend you make, partner you take, promise you break, everything, everything, what core subconscious drive is dictating nearly your entire life?

                        Money?
                        Power?
                        Attention?
                        Fame?
                        Sex?
                        Love?
                        Compassion?
                        Perfectionism?
                        Curiosity?
                        Manipulation?
                        Control?
                        Justice?

Lets engage in a mental exercise.

Imagine that you met someone who spent their entire life practicing Money. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Warren Buffet.

Imagine that you met someone who spent their entire life practicing Power. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Adolph Hitler.

Imagine that you met someone who spent their entire life practicing Fame. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Brad Pitt.

Imagine that you met someone who spent their entire life practicing Sex. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Ron Jeremy.

Imagine that you met someone who spent their entire life practicing Love. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Jesus.

Imagine that you met someone who has spent their entire life practicing Compassion. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Mother Theresa.

Imagine that you met someone who has spent their entire life practicing Perfectionism. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Steve Jobs.

Imagine that you met someone who has spent their entire life practicing Curiosity. What name comes to mind? For me it’s Nikola Tesla.

Imagine that you met someone who has spent their entire life practicing Manipulation. What name comes to mind? For me its....

Well, I think you get the point. It’s what’s at our core that motivates us to do whatever we’re doing and we can either accept it or change it or choose something different.

How does this relate back to Titanic?

Jack spent his whole life practicing two things, as Yo-Yo Ma to his violin, as Martin Luther King, Jr., to his social justice issues, Jack was in the constant pursuit of passionate exploration and love of beauty. We look at Jack and think he’s just this guy and he just happens to fall in love with this girl and say all the right things but it’s more than that. Despite his age he was already wise in ways most will never achieve and yet he had this insatiable desire to love, love, love, and encourage passionate loving wherever he could even if it was between himself and a little kid dancing in the lower areas of the ship.

Love.

Imagine you met someone who had spent his entire life focused on love, as if they breathed it, as if nothing else in the world mattered as much as love to them, as if they couldn’t survive without it. Imagine they’re the Einstein of love and what it would be like to have them help you with your maths tests! Would you even notice? Would you say yes?

The reason I bring this up is to illustrate the point that while most of us like the movie for the first reason (expressed above), we don’t seem to get that to have and keep that kind of love in our lives we have to be a part of it. Here’s how it works, or more directly, here’s what’s necessary:

        1.        Two people willing to trust the love is real and jump in with both feet.
        2.        At least one of the person has spent their life tuning and practicing their lover’s harp.
        3.        Through good and bad they stick together, have the desire to learn, recognize shit happens, and are always deepening the relationship and level of love. Nothing gets in their way, not fear, not social pressures, not anything. They do what Jack and Rose did: they believed in each other.

I don’t think people understand that. Sure, most humans will get married and at least 50% will have fairly decent marriages that will last the test of time, but most won’t be amazing or anything to write home about. I can’t imagine being in a marriage like that. I want to be in a marriage with someone who, like me, is ready to jump in with both feet and do all three. Like Jack said, “You jump, I jump.”

I’ve spent my entire life tuning and practicing my cello and though some have heard my music no one has yet recognized the awesome power of it if only it was given one simple nudge, a magic word, listen, listen there, wait, what is it I hear?













Until that miraculous day I wait here with my instrument in hand practicing for that day someone will ask to join in this beautiful, life affirming song.