Spoiler-Alert!
This article contains slight spoilers about the film “Passengers” (2016) and the novel “Around the World in Eighty Days” by Jules Verne and all adaptations.
What do we dream of? How do we imagine our life, our future? What are our hopes and wishes? Such existential questions have great power to drive or paralyse us. They can make us aware of the responsibility we have while the earth keeps turning. Because no one can make better decisions about our lives than we can. So what on earth do we do with the time we have?
The question is not even remotely easy to answer. Not only because, of course, each person is different and thinks differently, but because the world offers endless possibilities – and that’s what I mean when I say it would “paralyse” us. How is one ever supposed to decide? How is one supposed to know if one has made the right decision? Often the easy way then seems to be the right one, at least the safe one. If you stick with what you know, nothing can go wrong, right?
But what happens when we don’t take the safe path? What happens when we rush headlong into the unknown and chase dreams that we perhaps didn’t even know we had? One thing is certain then: adventure awaits us if we only muster the right courage. Dreams are good and important, but – to apply the logic of Anselm of Canterbury – it is only when they are not just dreams but reality that their true value is revealed in their veracity. And who wants to tell stories of things they always wanted to do but never did?
“If you live an ordinary life, all you’ll have are ordinary stories. You have to live a life of adventure.”
Aurora Lane
Aurora Lane has dared to do it. In the film “Passengers”, she boarded a spaceship that was to take her to a new world – with no chance of ever returning. She left everything she knew behind to experience something extraordinary. In doing so, she followed the advice of her father, a writer like her, who apparently knew that adventure was just waiting. While in the end it is not the adventure she would have expected, it is no less significant for that. To put it in the words of a well known hobbit:
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.“
Bilbo Baggins
If we dare to take the first step, anything can happen, but in the end, something genuine awaits us that can shake us to our very core. Who would end an adventure the way they started it?
A wonderful example of this is Phileas Fogg. Adventure beckoned him, but for a long time he did not venture out into the wide world, preferring to spend his days in a gentleman’s club in London – in safety. But then at some point he receives the final push, in this case a bet, and his journey begins. Over time, he faces all the obstacles in his path and he outgrows himself (with a little help). And once he has tasted some of the freedom and possibilities, it was clear that he could never go back to his old, humdrum life. And it’s not just him….
Honestly, I can think of another book that tells of people who left their old lives behind and chose a new path that changed everything. I refer to the Bible and in this case to the disciples of Jesus who followed him and took part in something beyond anything imaginable. By joining Jesus and his journeys, they embarked on an adventure whose impact continues to shape the world today. They became witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension and were commissioned to carry the message. Nothing can be more genuine than that.
Of course, no one can expect our adventures to be as great. We don’t even have to climb Mount Everest or be launched into space in a rocket. We can start small and just dare to take the first step out the door. Our feet will already know where to go… And then we too will find something so extraordinary that we can tell stories about it.