A Hastily Written Message

"Shes smaht, funny, beautiful, but what if we go out again and I found out she ain't that smaht, what if I find out she is boring? Nawh, this girl, this girl is perfect right now. I don't wanna ruin that."
"Maybe you're perfect right now and you don't wanna ruin that."

In the movie Good Will Hunting, Will goes out on a date. The girl is smart, funny, and seems to see life the same way that Will does. The date goes really well, and he goes back to his counselor and tell him all about how smitten he is with this seemingly perfect girl. But then he says something odd. He isn't going to call her again, because he thinks she might end up being boring or stupid. The problem isn't with the girl though, and everybody knows it. The problem is with Will.

Potential. Potential is a scary thing. We are all looking for it, the potential job, the potential home, the potential spouse. But once you have found something or somebody who has an incredible amount of potential, what do you do with that? The only possible thing to do with it is to follow it, and to follow it we must change. We don't like to change much, do we? Why the hell not? When faced with what could be beautiful and holy and good and  true, why is there part of our hearts that says no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC2BAjEnmJw

The truth is, we are all a little bit broken. Whether we can still feel it or the wounds lie just under the surface, we all hurt. If you get bit, you carry that bite mark with you. That is probably why it is so easy to fall in love when you are young, because there is no scar tissue there. And the more we live, the more suffering we go through, our hearts can't help but carry that with us, and we can't help but feel a bit of trepidation in making decisions that could potentially revolutionize the way we live our lives.

But it is better to love whether you win or lose or die.

Ultimately love overcomes trepidation. Ultimately joy triumphs over sorrow. Ultimately grace which encourages tramples over the enemy who defeats. If we let it, that is. Joy shows through our human fears that it is so worth it to chase potential. You never know what could happen.

In the movie, you don't know what happens to Will and the girl. All you know is that he went for it. I like to imagine Will and Skyler getting married and having many babies, but maybe it didn't work out. If that is the unfortunate case, Will grew because of it, and he probably found himself another sweetheart over on the West Coast.

Eventually you just have to accept that life comes with exceedingly few guarantees. To live is not to live safely, it is to take leaps over chasms, all to chase a chance at beauty.

Peace,
The Boy Pilgrim