Jan 19 2009
Button me up, Benjamin
I have recently seen a wonderful movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, soon to open in Buenos Aires. The script is based on a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald which you can actually access online.
The story essentially poses the question of aging backwards. The protagonist, Benjamin Button, looks like an 80-year-old in a baby’s body when he first sees the light of day, and then grows young. Life happens in the meantime, and shows its complexity through it all, even with the benefit of youth instead of old age as part of progress. Who has not ever imagined what it would feel like to be a 20-year old in the mind of a 50-year old, combining experience gained with suffering with the supple structure of a vigorous body that responds to everything with a lot more energy? I know what it feels like to be 20, but I don’t know what it feels like to be 50 yet. Perhaps I can only idealize such an adventurous combination. However, after seeing the movie, I still do not think it is too different from the normal order in which we age. In other words, life’s complexity is the same no matter in what direction you grow.
As a closing statement for this post, I cannot but remember one of the key lines for me, spoken by Benjamin as he goes through the suffering of being different, or maybe simply of choosing.
You can go mad as a mad dog at the way things went; you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.
That is the way, Benjamin. As I write this, only a few days away from getting onto another plane leading me places, with adventure hopefully waiting for me at different ports, I can look back and smile. I am learning to let go…
