Ridiculous Opinions #200
Well, this is the 200th newsletter for Ridiculous Opinions. I’ve been doing this thing almost ten years now, off and on, sending the occasional missive to what was originally a group of former students, but has since turned into something larger, with family, friends, and complete strangers taking part. I had planned a big, special newsletter with this 200th issue, but it appears that my brain is a bit fried from the school year, so you’re getting nothing all that great from me this week.
See that picture at the top? That’s a photo from our 5th annual UAE Student Film Festival. I love that picture. It’s so rich with detail and it pretty much captures the magic of what I wanted this film festival to become. It’s pretty wonderful to sit in a movie theater, but it’s even more wonderful to have over 200 people watching something that you created. I’m so proud of my students who made movies for the festival this year (and they should be proud of themselves!). A lot of them have signed up for this newsletter in the last couple of weeks, for as of last night, I saw another group of kids off with their graduation.
Which got me to thinking…What’s the point? I mean…what’s the point of all of this? Why do we do what we do? Why do we live the lives that we lead? What’s the point of existence even on this planet?
As I watched Tracey lead her band through the graduation ceremony last night, it kind of hit me. That was the point. That moment from last night, where the band was playing “Seventy-Six Trombones” as the graduates were leaving the auditorium…that was the point of life. Let me explain…
Life is not about making massive amounts of money or having a job that gives you status or a billion items that you’ve purchased.
Life is about joy.
Life is about doing things that make you feel joy and happiness. It’s about blaring your trombone as the whole auditorium is clapping. It’s about seeing your favorite teacher on the way out of the auditorium and giving him or her a hug, knowing that they provided you with a memorable moment in your years of boring school.
Life is about coming home after that graduation ceremony, humming one of the tunes that the band played. It’s about sitting out on your patio on a nice, cool evening, seeing the lights of the city in the distance and knowing that everything is pretty darned good. Life is about eating a cheeseburger at ten at night because you’re so tired and saying, This is a really good cheeseburger!
My point overall is that our priorities have gotten messed up over the years. When you look at that picture at the top of this post, what you see is over 200 people coming together to experience something joyful. How cool is it that a bunch of students made their own films…their own films…and came to a movie theater to watch them as a group. Look at the variety of faces in that picture. There’s laughter there. There are students enthralled with what’s on screen. There are students who are terrified at seeing their own faces writ-large before them. There are people that are sleepy, hungry, excited, and proud in that theater. And even if it was only for a single evening, it was a memorable moment that they will take with them for the rest of their lives.
So, I guess my point with today’s newsletter is this: Enjoy Yourself.
I’m a fifty-year old man who makes comic strips about talking beavers, writes books that nobody reads, and gets a ridiculous amount of joy putting on my incredibly expensive, second-hand headphones and listening to music as if I’m the only person who has ever heard this music before. All of those things bring me joy and help me to have a fulfilling life. And dammit, my life has been ridiculously fulfilling. I’ve got a wife that I adore, two daughters that we raised to be wonderful people, and enough money to be able to get a couple of cheeseburgers delivered to my front door at ten o’clock at night. That’s pretty frickin’ awesome.
So, happy 200th newsletter, folks. Hopefully, you’ll stick around for the next 200. And as you do, I hope that you have the wherewithal to find those little moments of joy that make your life as awesome as mine is.
