One of my all time favorite spiritual films is American Beauty. Just a really amazing piece of spiritual cinema. I could just about pull every line out of that movie and make it pertinent to seeking and changing a life course. On this occasion I choose the opening narration sequence by Lester played by Kevin Spacey because I think it adequately sums up the type of assessment and awareness needed to embark on changing the course of life.
Who actually does the changing is a whole other story but it’s a good starting point for any seeker wishing to go beyond the mundane and ordinary that we term “normal”.
Over to Lester:
“In less than a year, l’ll be dead
Of course,
I don’t know that yet.
And in a way,
I’m dead already.
Look at me:
jerking off in the shower.
This will be the high point of my day.
It’s all downhill from here.
That’s my wife, Carolyn.
See the way the handle on those pruning
shears matches her gardening clogs?
That’s not an accident.
Man, I get exhausted just watching her.
She wasn’t always like this.
She used to be happy.
We used to be happy.
My daughter Jane.
Only child.
Janie’s a pretty typical teenager:
angry, insecure, confused.
I wish I could tell her that’s all going
to pass, but I don’t want to lie to her.
Both my wife and
daughter think I’m this gigantic loser.
And they’re right.
I have lost something.
I’m not exactly sure
what it is,
but I know
I didn’t always feel this…
sedated.
But you know what?
It’s never too late to get it back.
It’s the weirdest thing…
I feel like I have been in a coma for the past 20 years
and I am just now waking up. “