Revolutionary Road

If you trust my movie taste, go watch Revolutionary Road. If you want to spend a couple of hours just so you can understand me better (the decisions I made, the roads I took), you will find some answers in the movie too. Of course, you may still end up not gaining insights into my thoughts. But hey, at least you would have watched a good movie.

Seriously, this movie makes me think, and think deep. The movie has said it all, and there is little more I can add. I understand every decisions the couple in the movie made. If you put me into the movie, I would make exactly the same decisions. And this makes me sad.

I fear that I die before I have lived. I fear that my life will be as empty as it is hopeless. I fear that each day goes by like a whimper, just like every other day of every other person. This is my worst fear, and I have never seen it as clearly as I did today while watching the movie.

I always want options in my life, so that I can escape if I feel trapped. When I graduated from college, I applied for jobs while applying for graduate schools at the same time. In graduate school, I applied for law school while I was pursuing my PhD. Upon graduation, I applied jobs in academia as well as in private sector. Right now I am holding the job while applying for business school. Options, my life is always about options. Why, because I do not want to be trapped, that's all.

It is very sad that our dreams begin to evaporate as we get older, or "wiser." People convince themselves that it is the "small happiness" that fulfills their life pursuit, and no one questions the stupidity of having every conversation evolving around the house, the dog, the kids, and vacation, the exotic cultural experiences. Rich people invented them as a tool of class oppression, and everyone else followed (sounds like Marx). As if people intuitively realize the life's emptiness and attempt to fill the void with as many mundane events as possible. But in the end, they are trapped in self-deceit, and are only happy because "they are better at lying (quote from the movie)."

After watching the movie, I had this out-of-body feeling. Something in me just emerged into the air and began to observe the earth like a bird in the sky. Here is this guy in T-station, playing guitar beautifully. Is it the life he always wanted, or he was forced into that and now helplessly doing it day in and day out. The guy in front of me was playing his iPhone, probably some games. Has he already given up all the hopes in life and now just wanted to be like everyone else - normal, peaceful and uninspiring. The young couple next to me, could they imagine what awaits them? Do they know that their life will just be like the one on Revolutionary Road?

I want to believe that I can do better. If I cannot, at least I am giving it a fight. If not a fight, at least I can give it a blog. Here it is. But here is the sad part (drum beat): there is no escape. My dear friends, look at your life for a moment: Is it really what you have wanted all along, or you just have become better at lying to yourself. Just think.

Please do not be alarmed by this post. I almost think it is ironic to post such an entry. If life is in the end futile, isn't every day like a comedy? Please have a sense of humor. It is as dark as my blog will go, and that's why the description to my second blog is "Anti-Revolutionary Road."