Ponder, if you will...

The movie Stranger Than Fiction came into my life at the perfect time. Personally, I think it was fate.


I received the movie Stranger Than Fiction as a birthday gift from my aunt Jane in the middle of August. When I watched it for the first time, I was spellbound by the way the film made me feel. The movie made me continue to think long after I finished watching it. Even the time or two since then that I've seen the movie, it has had the same effect on me. Maybe it would help to give a little bit of perspective background on the last two months of my life.


At the beginning of August, my dad collapsed at work. They took him to the hospital, where, after two days more hectic and stressful than anything you could possibly imagine, it was clear that my dad needed to have valve replacement surgery. Although it is a risky surgery, it is a fairly common one, something that happens successfully every day. Luckily, my dad made it out just fine and is home now after spending about three weeks in the hospital. From a medical perspective, my dad should have died after what had happened, considering how screwed up his heart was. But he didn't, making me wonder if there is someone looking out for me.


Just this past weekend, as I'm sure everybody has heard, there was a car accident with two girls from Minnetonka and the cousin of one of them. Both of the girls died; Kylie in the accident and Kelly the next night at the hospital. I was friends with Kelly before she died. We were in choir together at her church, so I've seen her a few hours twice a week since our freshman year. At age 17, Kelly shouldn't have died. She had a promising lifetime ahead of her, but unfortunately it was a lifetime she would not have the opportunity to experience. In this case, the odds stacked against her, no miracle happened for Kelly. She died, leaving her broken hearted family and friends behind.


Obviously, I've recently experienced both the positive and negative sides of Fate, Destiny, Doom, whatever you choose to call it. This is why the movie Stranger Than Fiction hit so close to home for me. The movie deals with a man, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), who knows his fate is approaching but has no control over it. His life is being narrated as a novel by a woman named Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Unbeknownst to Eiffel, Harold is not just a character in her story, but a very real person. The dilemma is that Eiffel has a reputation for killing every single main character in every book she has written. Clearly, there is a problem. Nobody wants to die. And so a beautiful struggle between art and life and responsibility is born. Questions are raised regarding what the greater good is, what effect choices will have on otherwise unconnected events.


It's difficult to truly explain what I'm trying to say without blatantly giving away a key part of the plot, but I'll do what I can. Harold Crick's dilemma poses the question "how much control do we really have?" Are we all just part of a story whose narration we can't quite hear? Does it matter what choices we make? Who will it affect? And who, exactly, is writing our lives? These are questions that nobody can answer very satisfactorily. This is because they're questions that make you think. They make you reflect on your life, what happens to you, what happens to the people around you. They make you uncertain, they make you wonder. They make you unsure of things you may have been rock solid on before. We all have to make decisions in life. And in Stranger Than Fiction, Harold Crick makes the most beautiful selfless choice possible. Who of you could do that?