The Pursuit of Happyness

I watched that movie recently. Very good, although for some reason I thought it would be sadder... maybe it was? Hm... at any rate, I thought it was a good movie and one of my favorite parts was a joke that the son makes in the middle of the movie: "A man is drowning and thinks to himself, its okay, God will save me. As he... drowns... a boat passes by. The man inside the boat asks the drowning man if he wants some help. The drowning man says, "No thanks, God will save me." The man continues to drown when another boat passes by. Again the drowning man is asked if he wants any help. Again he refuses saying that God will save him. Well... the man drowns and in Heaven, the man asks God, "Why didn't you save me?" God replies "You idiot! I sent you two big boats!"

I've heard that before and I thought it was very clever. And I always sit there and wonder, what if that were me? Standing in front of the Almighty in that situation. How would any of us do? And yet sometimes I really wonder what to do. I'm impatient and so sometimes I think I have to learn to wait, but other times, is action the correct course? Its such a hard line to draw.

The other thing I've been giving alot of thought to is hurting others. The more I live the more I have to learn to understand that hurting others is sometimes just a condition of living. I would really love to never hurt others, but somehow even Saints must have hurt someone, somewhere, at some time. Here's the dialogue for an episode of Joan that reminds me of this:

Episode 10: Drive, He Said
"I don't want to drive... WHY are You making me?"
"Most young people want to drive... Why are YOU so hesitant?"
"Well You know everything, why don't You tell me?"
"Perhaps your mother is correct, you're afraid of hurting yourself, of ending up like Kevin."
"Hmph- yeah... maybe she's right."
"Balderdash! You've always been a headstrong, brave child, not overly concerned with your own wellbeing, a trait you inherited from your father. What you fear is hurting someone else. You fear that one instance of bad judgement might entail consequences. Consequences like those..."
"Like Kevin? That's- that's why I don't wanna drive. Isn't that - isn't that a pretty good reason?"
"Being an adult isn't merely about risking your own wellbeing- it means risking others: in cars, in love, in family... hurting others is always a possibility. That's what's difficult about being an adult. Facing the harsh fact that you may hurt others- even when you don't want to."

Thinking that we must risk hurting each other makes me really sad. Sometimes I would just rather not get to know anyone and that way I wouldn't get hurt, and neither would anyone else. But then I think, I wouldn't really be living then, would I? Separating yourself from the rest of the world isn't what God created us for. I honestly wish I could live simply in a world where everyone could be happy... Heaven, yeah. Someday, but for now, I guess no matter what, we always have to hurt each other, even without wishing to do so.

Happyness, sadness, pleasure, pain... What mysterious qualities of life. But I suppose that a life well lived has to be filled with an equal amount of these?