Berend Lange’s KOMPASS

     Concluding my mini-series of articles about inspirational movies today, “The Family Man” is one of these must-see-at-all-cost. You’ll enjoy it too, I guarantee it.

     It is all about a single and very successful Manhattan businessman who thinks he has everything, with a lifestyle that the world envies - until his girlfriend Kate (Tea Leoni) of 13 years ago contacts him and he is confronted with his choice not to marry her at the time.

     By some twist of events, Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) wakes up one morning to lead an alternate life of being Kate’s husband for a few weeks, happily married with two kids, selling tyres in the suburbs.

     Why would that happen, you might ask? Because over his obsession with business, he has completely neglected his personal life - and that’s catching up with him now. You can’t be out of balance for long, nature will always restore it - a Universal Law that can not be broken.

     As human beings, sooner or later we have to experience life from all angles consciously open to us - but we have our priorities, and therefore choices to make. For me this film is very relevant and believable.

     What would have happened, for example, if I had not decided in 1984 to live and work in South Africa?

     At the time, my biggest dream was to no longer live in Germany where I was born and raised - the two years in London I had done previously weren’t enough to satisfy my curiosity about people who live, learn and grow in cultures different from my own.

     As difficult as our decisions seem to be at times, we should be grateful every day that we have the freedom to choose and that we do have the right - and obligation - to become what we can be and want to be. This, by definition, always includes our choice against everything we do NOT want to be.

     Fortunately, the constitution of our country ‘guarantees’ that we may pursue any dream we have, as long as we take the responsibility for our actions - not everyone can enjoy this freedom and comfort.

     Be that as it may, if you want ‘guarantees’ buy a toaster. In my opinion it is more important to be aware that whatever we do to others will eventually be done to us, one way or another. That’s something that I will personally guarantee, for what it’s worth.

     If we all recognised that truth, I believe there would be a lot less suffering in the world, and more prosperity. But we decide to the best of our knowledge, so I must assume that right now most of us just don’t know better.

     One dilemma we often face in our choices is that we have to temporarily sacrifice something when we opt for one route over the other. We can never really take a wrong turn though : at the end of the day, one way is as good as the other - may be it’s a bit longer or more difficult than the alternative, but it is always exactly what we need to experience at the time.

     Obviously, we sometimes need to give up familiar and comfortable positions to obtain a more comprehensive picture of our place in the universe - and in “Family Man”, Jack Campbell at first has a rude awakening to a life without his Ferrari and penthouse.

     But once he discovers that the treasure of a happy life with family and friends is worth so much more than any material comfort, he doesn’t want to go back to his previous existence.

     Can we reverse our decisions? No, but with our new perspective we can adjust our course for the future. Be aware of your choices before you hit dead-end.

     I have never liked Jim Carrey as an actor much, most of the movies he stars in tend to be a bit silly in my view. 

     But “Bruce Almighty” is different, I enjoyed it.

     The script is very clever : Bruce Nolan is desperate and complains to God that he is not doing a good job because everything is going wrong in what he perceives to be his mediocre life in small town Buffalo/New York.

     So God now gives him all his super-powers for a while - can Bruce do better than God himself?

     Morgan Freeman as God - in an immaculate white suit - calmly goes on vacation now, while Bruce goes overboard to get everything he ever wanted on earth for himself. His main ambition as a TV reporter is to become the news anchor on his network, although one of his colleagues is first in line for that.

     You can imagine all the havoc Jim Carrey as Bruce creates in the process - not only in town with his new Ferrari, but also in far away places like Japan when he ropes in the moon for his girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) who desperately wants to marry him.

     The film is very entertaining, and many of us would probably overlook the messages it has for us. One of them is that even divine strength ends where human free will sets in : Bruce arranges the most outlandish situations for himself to look good professionally, but alienates everyone else in the process – he still doesn’t know that selfish behaviour without any consideration for others will eventually come back and haunt you.

     Treat others like you want to be treated yourself. Why? Because the world you experience is a mirror-image of who you are inside, your attitudes and behaviour. This is one of the Universal Laws of Human Nature that can not be broken or ignored.

     Nevertheless, Bruce becomes famous as a newsman who is always first on the scene of dramatic action - but he cannot cope with literally millions of prayers addressed to God every day.

     He finally surrenders to divine will and voluntarily hands back the guidance for his life to a higher authority.

     At that point it dawns on him that he never really needed the extra powers granted to him : like you and me, he had all the qualities and talents required to make his life successful to begin with, but wasn’t aware of it.

     All it took was some respect and service for, not power over his fellow man. ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ - Lord Acton wrote that in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 and he has never been proven wrong yet.

     The receiving process starts with giving - service without concern for your own gain is the key to your happiness.

     Bruce has a unique talent to entertain and when he eventually settles back into his old job with humility and begins to share his appreciation for others in the local community, he wins more influence than he ever had and is transformed into a successful human being.

     His genuine concern for the wellbeing of others makes him a better reporter, and we’re left in no doubt that he now earns a bright future by first mastering what he is confronted with here and now.

     There is no such thing as a mediocre life in Small Town, we all have something important to contribute wherever we are - just know it, do it and be yourself.

     Have you seen “A Beautiful Mind” with Russell Crowe?

     The film is based on a true story about a brilliant mathematician coming to grips with schizophrenia, and it won four Academy Awards in 2001.

     I’ve seen it a second time last week and was again captivated not only by Crowe’s performance, but especially by the fascinating illustration of how powerful the human mind is.

     While Professor Nash teaches at a famous American university, he is approached by secret service agents to decipher a code which the enemies of democracy use for their subversive activities, threatening national security. For years he works with the agents, exploring millions of connections and possibilities to uncover the mystery - until his wife finds out about his hidden life and supports him on the way out of the mess.

     It turns out that all the persons involved in the undercover plot are totally fictitious, they only existed in the Professor’s mind - so real for him, that he had developed a complete second identity around his scenario. His weird behaviour under these circumstances was obviously labeled ‘madness’ by his ‘normal’ peers - and yet he won a Nobel Prize for his academic work a few years later.

     Genius and madness are close neighbours, they say - assuming for a minute that you and I don’t fall into either of these categories, what is the lesson for ‘normal’ people here? As far as I’m concerned, I show more consideration for the unusual conduct of people these days.

     Who am I to judge others for things I don’t understand? I know that I have some blind spots, and may be that odd fellow I saw in the mall yesterday is a genius working out the quadrature of the circle.

     What’s more, I am reminded that I, too live in my own world - like you do in yours.

     A lot of things occupy my mind every day which directly influence my actions because I am absolutely convinced that they are perfectly sensible.

     Most of the time you wouldn’t find strange what I do, I suppose, but I am sure that some people wonder who the fool is that spends an hour on a perfect Sunday afternoon writing articles like this.

     What’s on your mind? Do you want to be president of your bowling club? Climb Mount Kilimanjaro? That’s OK, but I personally couldn’t be bothered.

     The point is that we are who we think we are, literally. I am not a professor, and I don’t want to win the Nobel Prize - but I want to write and that’s OK, too. Who knows, may be they’ll give me the Pulitzer Prize one of these days - call me crazy.