This is a “psychological” film: the best day is to immerse yourself in your present life. In order to be less dramatic, I will only choose two points of entry to talk in detail: 1.
1. Why do I feel that “this is how life is”? The main character, Joe Gardner, is a high school music teacher who loves the piano, but is still unhappy with his school’s “schedule” because what he wants to do most is perform on stage. By chance, he has the opportunity to perform with a famous female musician in a bar, and it is a big success, and his mother, who once did not support his performance, is also on stage cheering for him. But after the show, he walked out of the bar and stood on the side of the street, lost in thought: Is this it? What will he do tomorrow? A female musician came out and asked him what was wrong. He said, “I’ve always dreamed of playing the piano and made performing my life’s goal, but now my dream has come true. ……” Hearing this, the female musician told him a story: “Once there was A small fish, always eager to find the ‘sea’, and the big fish told it, you have been in the sea ah! The little fish refused to believe it: it was just water, how could it be the sea?” I have actually felt similar to Joe many times. When the results of the high school entrance exams came out, when a full and happy period of missionary work ended, when I successfully enrolled in graduate school after two years of effort against the rules, when I returned to school after attending the annual institutional awards ceremony at …… I always feel that the happy time seems like a dream, the dream has woken up, what should I do now? I seem to be running forward all the time. I must have a goal, plan my “today” to the fullest, and move towards my goal in order to feel at ease with my life. I wrote in this answer that I would have my life in order: How do I make a good study plan? But once that goal was reached and I hadn’t figured out the next one, I would be in a huge funk.
Two months ago, after signing up for a job, I finally realized what it feels like to “like my life now”. It’s not because I signed up for a job that everything is fine and I can lie down. I still write my graduation thesis every day, do the work assigned by my supervisor, occasionally take up some appointments, hope my boyfriend can go out for dinner when he is free, and plan ahead for my future work and prepare course materials. In short, I was still busy, and from the looks of my behavior, I didn’t look very different from before. But I have a different mindset. In the past, I worked hard because I was dissatisfied with the present moment and was strongly obsessed with “if only ……”. I always felt that I couldn’t stop, I was afraid of being left behind, and every goal I had was in service of the next one. In high school it was to get a good college, in undergrad it was to successfully bail out of grad school, and in grad school it was to find a job I liked …… they were all springboards. So, it’s hard to say how much I like these things in the plan itself. After I decided on a job I liked, I finally stopped having to run in order to move forward and, to a certain extent, simply experienced the “running” thing. I wrote my dissertation not just for graduation, but because I wanted to share my data results; I wrote my contract not just for the money, but because I already like to write about science …… This mindset has given me more satisfaction. In Soul, there is another story line: Joe died in an accident, because his soul wanted to return to his own body, he ran against the grain and became one of the instructors of the Soul Academy, responsible for helping the soul dolls to find the “spark”, so that the soul dolls can get a pass to Earth. Joe thought spark was the goal of life, and the people in charge of the Academy laughed: you instructors are always thinking about the goal of life, but spark is not like that. In fact, spark is the moment when you want to live. In addition to these two places, the movie also uses other wonderful metaphors to express: if you lose the connection with the present life, you will lose a lot, not only the joy of life, but probably the self.
2.After Joe became a mentor by mistake, he was faced with the 22nd headache of the Spiritual Institute in many years. She had been through the displays of the “Temple of Everything” and had experienced many earthly activities; many famous souls had been her mentors and told her their stories, but none of them had given her spark, and she had made her mentors very angry: “I have spent my whole life in the Temple of Everything.
Mother Teresa: I have loved the world universally all my life, except for you.
Jung: My subconscious mind is hating you.
Muhammad Ali: You were always annoying.
And after countless failures, more and more do not want to go to Earth, more and more do not want to live, but also because of the negative comments of the mentors and insist that “I am not good enough” “do not live even if. But by mistake, she went to Earth with Joe’s soul, only she entered Joe’s body, and Joe …… entered a cat’s body. Since then 22 has a body, learn to walk, have feelings, began to taste the delicious taste of pizza, feel the warm sunshine, touch the leaves falling from the trees …… Then she found herself with spark. 22, who did not want to live for many years, because of the feelings of the present, and suddenly felt that maybe go to Earth to live a little It’s not bad at all. How do you lead a child to like life, or to like some part of it? It doesn’t work by reprimanding, it doesn’t work by lecturing. It may work by observing and trying, because many soul dolls have found spark by trying the displays in the Temple of Everything, or by listening to the stories of their mentors; it’s better to go deeper than trying, to experience for yourself, to pay attention to your own feelings! And this echoes the first part of what I wrote – if you don’t feel the moment, it’s hard to find yourself.
In fact, in addition to this, the film has many wonderful psychological entry points.
- Before coming to Earth, the soul dolls have to get their personality (personality), though perhaps temper (temperament) would be more appropriate; personality psychology classes would teach that temperament in personality is innate, while character can be shaped later.
- The director of the Mindfulness Institute mistook Joe for a child psychotherapist and showed a life story in which the therapist was using a projective test to help a young visitor change his perspective.
- The soul of a person who is absorbed in something can enter a “state of forgetfulness” and feel joy, what is known in psychology as immersion (or “flow of the mind”); but if one is unable to connect with life or if one is too attached to joy, one can become a monster. 22 Such a monster becomes when he thinks he is not good enough.
- When Joe’s soul wants to find his body, the mystic’s soul creates a soundtrack that leads him to close his eyes and feel his body; they also use it to free the monsters described above, to “wake them up”. This goes well with the guiding words of positive meditation; and reminds me of the book “Out of Mind, Into Life” that talks about ACT.
- How to find a spark is actually very similar to career education. But spark is not all about career choices. A supporting character, Joe the barber, mentions in a short time that he used to like “veterinary medicine” but life forced him to become a barber, but he is still happy with his current job. His story is suitable for talking about choices and regrets.
- The above story happened when 22 was in Joe’s body, and it also reflects the skill of communication and interaction, like a child who is sincere and curious; Joe was afraid to tell his mother the truth after he got the opportunity to perform, until 22 was in his body and had something to say, he had to confess his true thoughts, and finally got his mother’s support. Yeah.
- With the negative comments of several mentors,22 he was already depressed, and this paragraph is suitable as material for parents’ lectures. There are many souls on the road to life, and one 106-year-old soul “has been waiting for a long time”, which can also be used to discuss death education and the meaning of life.