Winchester, UK – 5pm

I just finished watching the movie “Revolutionary road”. Great acting and amazing reconstruction of the 1950s-1960s suburban America.

The movie is about this married couple who, by merely following the herd and the status quo, find themselves trapped in a life they hate. The husband is working a job that makes him tired and want to cheat on his wife. The wife is unfulfilled and probably tired of seeing her man frustrated and just bored.

At some point an idea – moving to Paris to start a new exciting life where they can follow their passions – seems to be exactly what they need to get out of that rut.

Problem is: the excitement starts waning when the comforts and pressures of society, make the dream idea seem riskier and riskier.

The couple starts self-sabotaging it in every possible way.

One lesson is what John a mentally ill guy (he got 37 electro shocks in a mental hospital and he’s wiser than the blind, self-sabotaging couple) says when the husband mentions they are running away from the hopeless emptiness:

Hopeless emptiness. Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Yes it takes guts to see that you’re doomed to face an unfulfilled life, if you’re not willing to take the risks necessary to change it for the better. And in a way you have to develop a special kind of tunnel vision to avoid falling back into your old thought patterns.