Life in Rifle Range Flats

Thanks to Valen Lim Illustration .

In your mind!

Being John Malkovich (1999)

After years of story telling, after running out of ideas of story telling, they had come up with yet another weird movie! It can be described as a fantasy comedy drama. In the typical American fashion, everybody is yearning for the elusive love, looking here, there, everyone, near and far, in same and opposite sex!
A down and out puppeteer, Craig Schwartz, (John Cusack) is pestered by his uninspiring animal crazy wife, Lotte (an almost unrecognisable Cameron Diaz) to get a job. Using his dexterity skills, he gets a job at an unusual office with a four feet ceiling as a filing clerk. In the course of his job, he discovers a dark room which is actually a port into the mind of a famous actor, John Horatio Malkovich.
One by one, Craig, Lotte and a colleague, Maxine whom Craig has the hots for, use the port to stay in Malkovich's mind for 15 minutes. It starts a comedy of confusion where the sexually deprived Lotte finds new true love in the form of Maxine through John Malkovish's body. Meanwhile, John Malkovich is heads over heals over Maxine and so is Craig.
At the same time, Craig's bosses are some kind of immortals who use people's body as vessel to continue their lives.
An quirky but entertaining one. Not your usual fare.

I'm loving it?

When you are young, you are told to choose the field of study that you like because that is going to be your bread and butter for the rest of your life. You are told to dwell into something that have a passion or aptitude for.

Then you have people who are cocksure on what their calling is in life. They would go at all lengths to achieve the desire. They tell themselves that they were send to Earth for that mission. Even if they were not qualified to pursue their dream, they would try to get in through the back door at all cost. They would oft quote Walt Disney on the powers of dreaming and the power of positive thinking. "I think therefore I am"!

So, does that mean that if you choose some career path that you so desire, you are set to be loving it all through your life come what may. The ups and downs of the profession is no hindrance and all can be taken in all its stride?

I thought people, by nature, are easily bored. Today fashion is tomorrow's junk, what is lovable today is loathed next week, today's match made in heaven is next decade's ugly divorce, today's ally is next confrontation's enemy...

Even businesses reinvent themselves to stay relevant and lure people's interest. Artistes frequently re-brand themselves to be liked. Chameleons to this end include David Bowie and Madonna.

Not every individual has the mental strength to stay true to their cause like Florence Nightingale or Mother Theresa. Even Mother Theresa might have asked herself whether what she was doing was real worth it! Imagine, after weeks of counselling, giving positive outlook on life and averting her from attempt of  suicide after being abused by her husband, Mother Theresa must have felt like pulling her own hair when the victim decided to return to her abusive husband, yet again. Nightingale, with the number of corpses piling up with skeleton staff and limited medical supply, did passion solely keep her going?
As for mere mortals, the candle would eventually burn out, long before it burn itself away....
Most people do the job they do because they have to do something. At least they can do what is expected of them, a full grown man, to bring home the bacon. Maybe, beside the vocation that they are involved in, they are not capable, brave, intelligent or street smart enough to do anything else to bring home their killing!
Maybe the first years of doing something you love will make you go on by your sheer desire and satisfaction. With time, with challenges becoming too few by far, dead ends and frustrations in many forms setting in, you have to find ways to motivate yourself to keep that fire burning inside.

Pearls of wisdom

Thanks CDS for contribution.