As the film quite clearly establishes – beyond a point in life, Happiness IS to be pursued and well even when it is, it’s not always the right spelling!
As we’re young, there’s almost nothing that we’re required to do be happy – the word then is ‘security’. We need security and get it in the arms of loved ones. Growing up, definitions of being ‘happy’ change with time – from being the popular one in school, to having a boy friend, to movies, latest dress and haircuts, getting good grades, getting the best mobile, getting into a good college and well perhaps from here is when the ‘Pursuit’ begins.
You enter twenties. You begin to define ‘happiness’. What does it really translate for you?
You meet different people, you return home to look at yourself in the mirror and a hazy reflection begins to form – Identity crisis happens and before you know, college pretty much redefines you into An individual. You become YOU. Beliefs, attitude, personality emerges. You discover that this is what i like and what i don’t – and begin to be okay with it. But once you are found by you, you begin to search for happiness. What makes you happy and how long does that really last. I say this as happiness may be found in the first guy you fell in love with and thought were soul mates but you realize how long this new found happiness really lasts when you also have your first heart break.
You grow up. Worse, you realize it. Then as if all of a sudden, you need to give yourself challenges, goals, ambitions – not to really prove the world who you are, but almost innately, to know for yourself who you really are. At this point – mid twenties, you perhaps take your first step outside home. Look around this new world of independence.
You guessed it would be hard – like a sparrow flying out from home nest to test her wings. Well, it was hard. You missed home. You missed the mother sparrow feeding you Cerelac J But true to your ‘time’ you are giving yourself these challenges. So you’d know if you’ll crack it. This is perhaps the ‘struggle’ in each one’s life – when they stand on their two feet and step out of their dome to in search for their own goals, knowing they need not do it – they could be as they are, but something – maybe the twenty years put in to find who they are, prompts them to go and test their limits. To let the eagles soar above them and not be fascinated.
This is the point in life for me. My questions. My answers. My judgements. My decisions. My mistakes. My regrets. My goals. My restlessness. My choices. My repercussions. Every day is a new day. But it remains MY DAY and what I make of it.
And while I am busy making my own world away from this one, The question of happYness stays steamed out on the glass of my mirror. But as i clear the steam away, I see in the mirror, the Pursuit to this Mis-spelt word that is going to drive me along the day. And I figure why. Why happiness begins to be pursued and every night as we close our eyes, we know if we really found it.
The pursuit of Happyness – you don’t need to be a poor nigger in a racist New Yorkian country with a broken marriage and a three year old son asking questions to really know what this flick was all about. At the core of this film, lies what is basic to each one of us when we face our time. Pursuit. To our own happiness.
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One must have chaos within oneself in order to give rise to a dancing star!
