Perks of Being a Wall Flower - Race to Happiness
Perks of Being a Wall Flower was a good movie there covered many different aspects of a teen's life from love to loss to depression to delusion to you name it. There is a cute girl, Samantha (Sam) who hangs about with abusive boyfriends. And the good guy the protagonist (Charlie) pining after this cute girl is at loss why she wouldn't choose better. Charlie's keenly self-aware English teacher explains that people 'accept the love they think they deserve'.
Charlie is an extremely introverted suicide prone kid trying to find a place for himself in the High school setup in the midst of a bunch of other misfits teens with eclectic tastes for music. The teens are in a reckless race for finding happiness in everything from dancing to parties to drugs to sex. Ironically the moment they experiecne 'infinite happiness' has nothing to do with parties or drugs or dancing or sex. It happens when Charlie, Samatha and Patrick are riding to a tunnel listening to David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day' is blaring on the radio. Charlie turns to Patrick and says, "I experienced the infinite". They were 'Heroes just for that moment'. They experience inexplicable mystic happiness.
They figure that it is the song on the radio did the trick, but the problem is they do not know the song. They make a note to hunt for the song. Life goes on, they hook up with with girlfriends/boyfriends and then breakup and go through the ups and downs of it. They get high on dope and the low on getting caught not to mention the hangovers. But all the while there is the search for the one song (which is David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day') that helped them experience mystic happiness that had nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.
Sam finishes school and goes to college. The coterie is broken. Then there is a reunion. Sam with a sheepish grin discloses her serendipitous discovery of the 'song on the radio' - David Bowie's Heroes. They go back on the ride through the tunnel to recreate their magic moment of mystic happiness and with that the movie ends.
In spite of all the hustle and bustle of teen lives, David Bowie's Heroes stands tall as a moment that really makes them want to live life to its fullest. Drugs, sex, parties are just a diversion away from the dreariness of suicide prone life.What gives them hope in spite of the dreariness of life is the few moments when they experience the infinite and feel like they are 'special' in some way, they are 'Heroes'. It is for those moments that these teens live for - drugs, sex and parties just help them make it through life until they experience their 'Hero' moments.
God has calibrated the world is such a way that we have enough diversions to not to want to commit suicide (as Charlie sometimes feels like he wants to) but at the same time we have only the briefest glimpses of what makes life special so that we will keep seeking something better. And those moments that make us feel special have nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.
So the question is, if there is much better joy outside of sex, drugs and parties, why do the teens seem bent-upon reckless race to find joy only in sex, drugs and parties. The answer is the same one that the keenly self-aware English teacher gives, "they do not think they deserve better".
What keeps Sam from Charlie's love is her belief in the lie that the greatest happiness she can ever have is whatever is given her by her abusive boyfriend. Unless there is a way to denude the lie that the greatest joy is found in sex, drugs and parties, we will live in a world of teens wrecking themselves in the race to find happiness in cheap pleasures.
Just like Charlie can offer Sam much better love than her abusive boyfriend, Christ steps-in to offer us a place of Heroes as His Sons and much better joy than sex, drugs and parties can ever offer. But there are almost no takers. None thinks they deserve more joy than they already think they are getting from the abusive practices and people they are getting it from. Unless it is shown them that there is much joy in Christ, they will continue to wallow in the reckless race to happiness.
Charlie is an extremely introverted suicide prone kid trying to find a place for himself in the High school setup in the midst of a bunch of other misfits teens with eclectic tastes for music. The teens are in a reckless race for finding happiness in everything from dancing to parties to drugs to sex. Ironically the moment they experiecne 'infinite happiness' has nothing to do with parties or drugs or dancing or sex. It happens when Charlie, Samatha and Patrick are riding to a tunnel listening to David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day' is blaring on the radio. Charlie turns to Patrick and says, "I experienced the infinite". They were 'Heroes just for that moment'. They experience inexplicable mystic happiness.
They figure that it is the song on the radio did the trick, but the problem is they do not know the song. They make a note to hunt for the song. Life goes on, they hook up with with girlfriends/boyfriends and then breakup and go through the ups and downs of it. They get high on dope and the low on getting caught not to mention the hangovers. But all the while there is the search for the one song (which is David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day') that helped them experience mystic happiness that had nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.
Sam finishes school and goes to college. The coterie is broken. Then there is a reunion. Sam with a sheepish grin discloses her serendipitous discovery of the 'song on the radio' - David Bowie's Heroes. They go back on the ride through the tunnel to recreate their magic moment of mystic happiness and with that the movie ends.
In spite of all the hustle and bustle of teen lives, David Bowie's Heroes stands tall as a moment that really makes them want to live life to its fullest. Drugs, sex, parties are just a diversion away from the dreariness of suicide prone life.What gives them hope in spite of the dreariness of life is the few moments when they experience the infinite and feel like they are 'special' in some way, they are 'Heroes'. It is for those moments that these teens live for - drugs, sex and parties just help them make it through life until they experience their 'Hero' moments.
God has calibrated the world is such a way that we have enough diversions to not to want to commit suicide (as Charlie sometimes feels like he wants to) but at the same time we have only the briefest glimpses of what makes life special so that we will keep seeking something better. And those moments that make us feel special have nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.
So the question is, if there is much better joy outside of sex, drugs and parties, why do the teens seem bent-upon reckless race to find joy only in sex, drugs and parties. The answer is the same one that the keenly self-aware English teacher gives, "they do not think they deserve better".
What keeps Sam from Charlie's love is her belief in the lie that the greatest happiness she can ever have is whatever is given her by her abusive boyfriend. Unless there is a way to denude the lie that the greatest joy is found in sex, drugs and parties, we will live in a world of teens wrecking themselves in the race to find happiness in cheap pleasures.
Just like Charlie can offer Sam much better love than her abusive boyfriend, Christ steps-in to offer us a place of Heroes as His Sons and much better joy than sex, drugs and parties can ever offer. But there are almost no takers. None thinks they deserve more joy than they already think they are getting from the abusive practices and people they are getting it from. Unless it is shown them that there is much joy in Christ, they will continue to wallow in the reckless race to happiness.