le scaphandre et le papillon

The last night I was visiting my dad in Oregon, I watched this movie in bed and alone. This trailer, along with the blurb on the DVD case, hardly grazed the surface and the strength of this film. Expecting an uplifting story about the perseverance of the soul, I was floored by the weight of Jean-Dominique Bauby's story.
At the peak of his glamorous lifestyle, he suffered a stroke and was left completely paraylzed save for one of his eyeballs. Without even the ability to swallow his own spit, he is forced to communicate through blinking his eye- one for yes, two for no. Jean-Do often compares himself to a diver inside a diving bell, hence the name of the movie. He is completely trapped inside his body, capable of seeing, hearing and understanding the world around him but prevented from being able to interact with it. The story is incredibly heart wrenching, but at the same time completely appropriate for the big blanket.
It takes a while for Jean-Do to come to terms with his condition, especially since he was used to fine dining, fast cars and beautiful women. In order to escape his self-pity, he escaped into his own mind, using his imagination to make his immobile life worthwhile. There was nothing he could do about his situation, so he had to make the most of it. He dreamed up exotic lands, rich dishes and fond memories.
"I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory."
“Hold fast to the human inside of you and you’ll survive.”

This reminded me of the end of "The Stranger" by Camus, when Meursault is in jail waiting to be executed. His days are long and boring and he feels that he is starting to go crazy in his cement cell. But instead, he starts to make due with what he can, examining his lawyer's ties and watching the birds from his window.
"At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it." Part 2, Chapter 2, pg. 77
"And the more I thought about it, the more I dug out my memory things I had overlooked or forgotten. I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored. In a way, it was an advantage." Part 2, Chapter 2, pg. 79

Etty Hillesum's diary was also brought to mind. Although I cannot find the exact quote, she speaks of the expansiveness of the soul and how it is more vast than any landscape known to man, in the physical sense. While biding her time in the concentration camps, she would scour her soul for the smallest ounce of beauty so as to avoid losing herself completely to the destruction around her.

Also, I think many of us can relate to how trapped Jean-Do felt after suffering his stroke. We are bound by language, time, society, expectations and so much more. Many people exhaust themselves trying to control their own fates, but it is impossible to succeed. I found it an interesting coincidence that I saw this film the night before I left the small meth town in Oregon where my Dad lives, where I hardly left the boundaries of the lot, save for going to the grocery store. I passed my time, when allowed to, reading "The Tao of Pooh" as in Winnie the Pooh. If you are not familiar with Taoism, it is essentially about how you should simply let things be as they are, not try to push them in a certain direction, especially if they do not want to budge. It is not preaching apathy, but encouraging you to accept the way the world is unfolding around you and be at peace with it. One of my favorite Winnie the Pooh quote that exemplifies this idea is the following:
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”
“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”

The point is, we all get stuck in some awful situations, some short-term, some long-term and some forever. If that is the way your live is, and there is nothing that can change it, why fret over it? Spend your strength on the things that are in your power. In order to make this more applicable to many of our young lives, say you studied for a test but did not do so well. Why are you gonna fuss over it after the fact? It is not as if your stress level will raise your grade point average, so just move on. Think of yourself as in the passenger seat and God, Allah, pure energy, Nirvana, fate, whatever is in the front seat. Maybe you can hold the wheel every now and then while the big guy lights his cigarette, but other than that you do not have much control of where the car is going. So lean back, relax and enjoy the view.

Don't forget to watch "Le scaphandre et le papillon" also known as "The diving bell and the butterfly".