I just finished watching Midnight in Paris. It was such a beautifully done movie. And in the end it put everything I have been thinking about the last few weeks into perspective.
Ok, so to give some background. The past few weeks I have been reading some of the great classics of American and English literature (Jane Eyre, Brave New World, and one of my all time favorites Huckleberry Finn). As I have been reading I have marveled at how much genius there was in these era's before mine. I contemplated how the latest generation has lost the spark of creation that was held by the generations before them. It made me sad to say the least. There is nothing I want more then to be a part of something amazing. Something that changes someone, somewhere, in the greatest of ways as these authors have done for me. And I felt utterly hopeless, because I thought about who I am, how I grew up, and where my generation is going, with the overload of vampire fantasies and simplistic, mind-numbing fiction, and I thought to myself, "It will never happen. Not in this day and age."
Then, I watched this movie and I thought it was going to prove me right, but I was wrong. So very wrong. Not only did this movie go in the complete opposite direction of my thoughts, but it gave me some very good insight and got me thinking once again. Thinking about the amazing masterpieces of my era. My two most favorite books of all time are some examples, at least I feel they are, of these modern masterpieces. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Both of these books completely changed my life, in ways not that different from the classics I mentioned before. Realizing and remembering this put my life back into perspective. Yes, the past had amazing artists, writers, philosophers, and dreamers. But I live in the here and now, surrounded by a brave, new world as it were, and I am going to live in it and I am going to like it, no, I am going to love it. If I want to be a part of something bigger I have to make it happen, I can't dwell on the past. I have to focus on the present and hope for the greatness of the future I can help create.
