Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction answers questions three, five, and six. The director uses Harold Crick as the vehicle to answer these questions.

For most of the movie, Harold lives a bland thought out life. Eventually he, upon learning about this unavoidable death, he chooses to change his life style. The director shows that you can choose to make yourself but sometimes it takes a monumental event to spark these changes. That then poses the question is it you making the choice to choose? Or is you only reacting to the event that takes place? I believe that under pressure many people shut down and don't act, and because this I think the movie shows that you do make your own decisions.

Towards the end of the movie Harold is faced with the decision of halting the creation of the book, or letting it take its course and accepting his death. This where the director addresses question five. Harold mulls it over and eventually decides that the book should be finished in it's original intended ending. He independently chooses to allow his death to happen even though the author makes it evident that he could have talked her out of it. If someone is faced with death and instead of running away from it, walks towards it, that decision shows that they are breaking the mold of human condition and making a independent choice. I think in real situations that matter it is easier to see if you are clearly making the decision for yourself or if someone is making it for you. The director shows us that is possible to make your own decision even if it means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, so to speak.

Stranger than fiction shows us that it's the little reasons that drive us to live our lives among all of the chaos and uncertainties. Close to the end of the movie the author of the book reads out loud the exert of the story the night before Harold's death. She speaks about the evening with Anne and how it was understood as normal but it really was so much more. Although the saying, "its the little things that count in life" is over used, it is very true. The director makes us think to ourselves: "What are the things in life that we care about? What comes to mind? What makes us get up in the morning?" My cat. My best friend. My customers at work. The Fall air. People have to live because if they just sat there, what would be the point of the journey? Oedipus's fate was inevitable but he didn't just live in ignorance. He sought the truth and got more meaning out of his life in a day than he probably did from all of his victories. Stranger Than Fiction illustrates this much the same but it's stretched over the course of a week or two. We life our lives because the point isn't to die the point is to gather experiences along the way. To learn, and to teach. To live on from the stories and lessons we give to others.

Final Final Draft Of Podcast. (Yay!)

I believe in car rides. I developed my attachment to them when I was baby. If I was having trouble falling asleep, or if I was having a tantrum, my parents would take me for a ride in the car and I'd always come home calmed down. For a long time, when I was a kid, car rides weren’t necessary for me anymore. But in recent years, as I've gotten older, these small trips have really become a nice escape. I always come back home feeling better than I did. I'm not the best at stress management and there's something deeply comforting to me about sitting back and watching the world move past my window. Cars take me where I want to go, whether it be mentally or physically. For me, they're the only place I can think in the perspective I need to handle whatever may be on my plate at the time. Over time I've developed a specific science for making the trips successful. My family went on a vacation to Missouri, and while we were there I asked my dad if we could drive around. He said 'sure', but this time offered me the keys. Big mistake. I should always be the passenger. When I’m driving and trying to sort out my issues, I get extremely distracted. I ended up coming home more frustrated than I left. Also, it's always good to go with someone I can level with. It's not about having an authority figure giving me advice. It's about having someone that can speak to me like they're my equal and either appreciate mutual silence or help put together the puzzle that we call life. My dad is this person for me.

When I was younger I had a few of my family members pass in a short amount of time. My dad was still grieving the death of his father, and we weren't very close. We were around each other the majority of the time but it was hard to connect and in most cases we gave up before we had an actual conversation. When we started picking up car rides again, they really gave us time to share our thoughts with each other and have some support. My dad and I are extremely close now, and I'd like to think that taking the time to go on a pointless 45 minuet drive has brought us together. The atmosphere is always very relaxed. There's never any pressure to talk, which is relieving - I feel that half of what people say is only because they feel obligated to carry on a conversation. Sometimes all we do is listen to music. I like to explore many of different genres, so not only is a time to reflect, our trips are also a time to analyze what ever I'm currently trying out. I really like to think that in some aspect the car rides are just a great opportunity to have a actual genuine talk. People, whether they realize it or not, are constantly under pressure, and that's my place where i don't feel obligated to worry about the fickle things that stress us out from day to day. Over the past two years especially, I've grown as a person. I truly believe that I owe this development to taking an hour out of my day, getting in the car, and watching the world move past my window.

I believe in....

I believe in Determinism with the opportunity for change. I enjoy live music because all my life i grew up in an environment with people playing instruments. Because of that, I will most likely pick acoustic songs over songs full of amplifiers. I want to go to college. I think a lot of this was influenced by my parents saying all my life "Sydney, you will have so many more opportunities if you go to college." I have brown hair because both of my parents have brown hair. I'm naturally skinny because i inherited my moms high metabolism. When I'm older, I'll probably get cancer checks more often because it runs in my family. All of these aspects, everything I've encountered as a child, has made me the person i am. I believe in determinism because the foot prints left on us as children are eventually the adults we will become. With this being said, you don't have to follow the foot steps and ultimately create the exact same environment for your children. If you were raised dirt poor, you don't have to stay dirt poor and that's where your will comes into play. The effects of being poor will forever shape you, but you can rise above the past generations and create a new version of determinism for the next generation to make their own.