significance

Well, like I have a clue what that word means. This evening was an interesting one. Maybe one that I will need to repeat from time to time. Tonight was one of the first times ever that I went and caught a flick by myself. Now, this blog is not a pity party, or a chance to win your hearts and adoration for being the "underdog." No, it is just interesting that I have never really just gone out on my own. In normal circumstances, I am either with peeps or I don't go out. Well, this venture brought with it a new chance to just clear my head. I guess given the current climate of my life, I needed it .

I went and saw "Public Enemies", which was initially a movie that I really wanted to see, but after some less-than-glorious reviews, I left it for another day. The thing about movies is they have that amazing ability to transport you to another time. I love to get lost in a movie. New places, another life, feeling the adrenaline of some other time. All of these things just heighten my experience. But I mostly love that, when I am focusing on things other than the people I'm with or what to do afterwards, I generally learn something. Or I at least become introspective long enough to question my own current life. Watching the story of John Dillinger is eye-opening. I knew a little about the story. How Melvin Purvis was an extremely short man, and how J. Edgar Hoover was driven to the point of madness by Dillinger's popularity and fame. Plus, you can't ignore the Hotel Congress shout outs for his famous capture. Aside from all that, I was drawn to the story of how someone from a simple beginning, from a simple time, decides to step out from the norm and set themselves apart. Sure, most, if not all, of his drive was to further himself, but the story brings about a life question for me. What makes us strive to be more than the status quo? There are so many people on this earth that live each day completely consumed with tomorrow and who dream of mediocrity. The house, 2.3 kids, dog, etc. What do they all mean? At what point are we settling for a life that is less? Not that everyone should strive to be an almost infallible bank robber, or a famous something-or-other, but that we end up with settled-for dreams. When do we give up?

I suppose these questions are harsh. I mean, to be content in life is admirable. To have a family and home that you built is honorable. However, I can't sit still. I still have that feeling in my gut that I had before I left the South. An uncureable, unquenchable desire to be more than I am. A passion to change for the better, not just on a local level, but global, international. Not a change that leaves room for wanting, but one that is memorialized. I realize that all of that sounds like I have these delusions of grandeur. Perhaps I do.

Interestingly enough, the movie contained within itself an old Clark Gable flick, "Manhattan Melodrama." In fact, this is the movie that Dillinger is watching the night he is killed. Anyway, there is a quote that Gable says as he is being led to his execution in the movie, "Die the way you lived, sudden. Don't drag it out."

We are put here on this earth for reasons that we may never know, or care to know. I guess this leads me to think that we should live to the fullest. We should dream the biggest and never settle. Never ever settle. I have some good friends back home that were in a band. They wrote a song that says "Never regret living life with no regrets." I suppose this is how I choose to live. I'm not sure how I plan to do this. I am human and prone to the fancies of just existing. I believe to live a life that is beyond status quo, you must never be satisfied and always uncomfortable. So, I suppose the purpose of this post is to spur me onward to the greatest sunrise. Push me towards the horizon of greatness. Those that are referenced as "Icon" and "Legend", never settled for a dream less valiant. So, my question is, why do we?