During the reading week, I had a goal to spend the least amount of time on my phone as possible, aside from listening to music (that was non-negotiable). At first, it was really difficult to put away my phone and sit without it, since it’s always by my side. I failed a couple of times, and I’ll probably fail much more when I get back to school. When I actually achieved going without it, I didn’t feel the lack of company as stressful as it was before. I spent more time with my family and friends, was more productive than I thought I would be, and was overall more relaxed.
Currently, I’m not listening to any music or have any white noise in the back and it’s making me conscious of my thoughts and actions while writing my assignments. The complete silence, though lonely and strange, isn’t entirely bad. I wouldn’t mind staying in this exact spot for hours, even if it feels a little uncomfortable. Usually, reading week is a more stressful time for me, and it probably should be, considering I have assignments waiting to be done, but the quiet is giving me the chance to comb back through everything that’s changed in the past week.
In the moments of listening with snowfall as the backdrop and the warmth of my fireplace, I put on a movie. It had been a while since I tried watching a new movie, as I usually rewatch ones I knew I would like. Did you know a movie can change your life? Maybe I can say that about almost every movie out there, depending on how I look at them, but something about this movie is different. The movie in question is truly a classic. It’s the Dead Poets Society. Here’s the thing. I know this movie is uber popular and is well-loved. I don’t know what was holding me back from watching it before. I’ve seen various clips from the Dead Poets Society in my classes, but I never understood the context and the clips from the movies were not appealing enough for me to want to watch the entirety of the movie. So, it was always a movie that floated around in conversation, but I was never able to appreciate it. I still don’t know what prompted me to watch it and why I chose it out of all the movies I could have watched. Until this past week when I decided to watch the movie, I thought everyone was exaggerating about how special it was.
I am so glad I made that decision.
I will say, there are some intense scenes that I was not ready for and I didn’t expect, but that’s what made the movie powerful.
The first time I watched the movie (I watched it several times), I thought the movie’s themes were about friendship, found family, change, and growing up. The second time I watched the movie, I was paying a lot more attention to the different relationships. I realized it’s not just about change or growing independent, it’s about listening. In so many ways, the characters ignored one another in conversations. I think many problems could have been resolved if some of the characters sat down and had a complete conversation, where no one interrupted and they simply listened to one another. Mr. Keating awoke some of the dreamers, but not everyone wanted to be one. While I rooted for the dreamers, the two messages I got from the story were: there will always be consequences, but a person needs to recognize what their dreams are worth, and that listening is a choice.
Dead Poets Society put things into perspective for me and gave me characters that were the physical embodiment of my feelings. The best part of the movie was that the characters developed naturally, and everything they did were (mostly) very mundane. To me, the movie was about living and enjoying it, not surviving and dealing with it.
Similarly, another interest that caught me by surprise this week was discovering there was a musical adaptation for The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. I know I’ve mentioned the story before in a previous post, so I hope I’ve made it clear how much I love this book. Was anyone going to tell me about it? I was a huge theatre kid in high school (I didn’t perform, only watched) and I can’t believe this is the first time I’m hearing about the musical. I would have thought there would have been more talk about it, especially since some of my friends love musicals. Maybe someone did tell me about it, and I didn’t pay enough attention to investigate, which makes me want to catch up on lost time.
The soundtrack is so good and I have been listening to it on repeat ever since I’ve discovered it. Every song is integral to the story, and I love every duet song with Johnny and Ponyboy, but I must say “Stay Gold” is my all-time favourite and gets me the most emotional. I am determined to see it live one day.
I’m sure there’s other examples of movies, musicals, or books that I should have known about or experienced before now if I had just listened. Now I wonder about how many there are out there. I realize now, the silence isn’t just a time for reflection, but it gave me the time to explore different and new things. It showed me how important it is to listen to everything that anyone in my life has to say. All the small things about their life, what they did over the weekend, or even a movie they recommend, can make all the difference. Knowing what I know now, the more that I tune people out—which I don’t do on purpose, sometimes I just get tired—the more I miss out on life. For all I know, someone could’ve led me to my favourite movie or book and I wouldn’t know.
Listening wasn’t something that I consciously thought about because it came automatically to me. Maybe I’ve just been taking the ability for granted or maybe I just never really learned how to listen properly. Going forward, I’m willing to try because I’m starting to believe that one of the first steps to living is listening.