Life is supposed to be meaningless, but people can give it meaning through social behavior. It’s hard to remember if it was Fromm or whoever who said this, but the phrase itself speaks volumes about what life is all about.
We often get caught up in thinking, what is life? What are we doing? It is a feeling of uncertainty after facing a setback or a blow. When we commit ourselves to thinking about such issues, we find ourselves unable to face the whole of life.
Some people are too preoccupied with accomplishment, which can be an external pursuit of material things, the acquisition of fame, or an internal emotional fulfillment. When all of these gains are placed on a person, their life is considered fulfilling, but can this fulfillment be filled? It seems not.
The difference between humans and animals is that the two basic attributes of humans, hunger and sex, are and always will be unsatisfied. Animals, on the other hand, can satisfy this attribute. Therefore, people will do more and more within the expanded range of this attribute to eventually change their environment, whereas animals obviously will not do so. Animals adapt to their environment. This is why depression arises in humans.
Today’s movie tells the story of such an altered environment. The film is called “Hope Gulch”, and it is about an elderly couple who have not given up hope in life, but still choose to find their own happiness in their old age. This happiness speaks of emotional attachment rather than physical pleasure.
The story of a controlling old woman whose husband has been defiantly defending his marriage for decades, suppressing his emotions in order to obey his wife, but this suppression eventually turns into unbearable hysteria.
The resentment that slowly built up eventually exploded after decades of being with his wife. The husband falls in love with someone else for the simple reason that there is no pressure to be with someone else, he doesn’t have to worry about doing wrong, and he is happy. This happiness was something his wife could not give him.
So the husband decided to leave the house, to leave his wife whom he had been with for decades, and to pursue the happiness in his life again. However, when the husband suddenly left, the wife was completely devastated.
She could not accept that her husband, whom she had been with for decades, was leaving without saying goodbye, and she was not even prepared for it. However, this did not change her situation, and her husband would no longer accommodate her. And so, a story of exploration and relief began.
To view the behavior of several people from one perspective is in itself tinted glasses. The recurring panoramic viewpoint in the film is meant to teach us understanding and respect. To respect the choices of others and to let go of our own attachments. Perhaps the betrayal of one’s husband, whom one has been with for decades, is intolerable from a woman’s point of view. Some people think that they should at least tell him in advance, the same way the old woman in the film thinks.
But does this solve the problem? It seems that you can’t, and that the reason you say so in advance is to prepare yourself, when the time to do so is really just a matter of getting past your thin side. Won’t the wife be decades away from understanding her own problems? No, neither forewarning nor advance notice will do much to resolve the conflict in the wife’s character. Therefore, the request for advance warning is actually a last resort for the wife to save her honor.
Is it right for the husband to do this? Obviously, when you first see that kind of attitude from your wife, you will think that the husband’s behavior is too hateful. But what is the truth? This is not the case, or not entirely so. The husband is relieved to begin with, but this hurts his wife even more, because if he had a clear conscience, he would not have come after her in the end and asked for forgiveness.
The reason he did not warn her in advance was simply because he no longer believed that she could change her lifestyle, and this desperation was the most damaging of all. Thus, the husband finally felt the need to leave, and was extremely determined to do so. In the meantime, the hardest person caught in the middle was his son, and he couldn’t exactly take sides in favor of one or the other, he could only try to make both of them happy.
What the husband’s new wife said made a lot of sense. Before there were three unhappy people, but now there was one left. I believe that after the wife heard this, there was none left. This is the best ending. Life is made to be lonely, and the best way to get rid of our loneliness is to find ways to be happy, and much of that can be done with the number of people who support us.
Getting more and more people on your team and then living your life in that way can itself make you happier. It is on this basis that marriage becomes meaningful and more attractive.
But marriages or lifestyles always break down because fewer and fewer people approve of the way they live, and when that approval becomes disapproval, our lifestyles change completely, as shown in the film.
Finding a suitable way to live your life or to relieve your loneliness is what life is all about. Desire itself is a gulf that is hard to fill, and shouldn’t we make it simpler and simpler. When there are fewer desires, there may be much more happiness.
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