Monday, February 19, 2007

On Character, Honesty, & Advice about Sunscreen

In my last post I included a 7 minute clip from the movie The Big Kahuna. The clip ends with Phil saying:
"[Larry] is honest Bob. He’s blunt as well. That sometimes is part of being honest, because there are a lot of people who are blunt, but not honest. Larry is not one of those. Larry is an honest man. You too are an honest man, Bob. I believe that -- that somewhere down deep inside you is something that strives to be honest. The question you have to ask yourself is, has it touched the whole of my life?"

Bob asks "What does that mean?"

and Phil continues: "That means that you preaching Jesus is no different than Larry or anybody else preaching lubricants. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'how to make money in real estate with no money down'. That doesn’t make you a human being. It makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to someone honestly, as a human being… ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are. Just to find out. For no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it. It’s not a conversation anymore. It’s a pitch, and you’re not a human being, you’re a marketing rep.
The clip ends there but Phil's speech does not. He goes on to say this:
We were talking before about character. You were asking me about character. And we were speaking of faces. But the question is much deeper than that. The question is, do you have any character at all? And if you want my honest opinion Bob, you do not. For the simple reason that you don’t regret anything yet. You’ve already done plenty of things to regret. You just don't know what they are. It's when you discover them; when you see the folly in something you've done, and you wish you had it to do over, but you know you can't because it's too late. So you pick that thing up and you carry it with you. To remind you that life goes on: the world will spin without you; you really don't matter in the end. Then you will attain character because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself all across your face. Until that day however, you cannot expect to go beyond a certain point.
I want to go beyond that certain point, and live a life that is fulfilling and imaginative and inspiring and fun; valuable to others and valuable to myself.

Phil's comments about the requisite baggage it will be healthy for me to carry through life so it shows on my character-tattooed face remind me of two other quotes. The first is said by Roland of Gilead, Stephen King's Gunslinger character in The Dark Tower series. When someone acts falsely he says to them a deeply-healthy-shame-inducing phrase:
You have forgotten the face of your father.
The second quote is from Disney's The Lion King. It is an interchange between Mufasa & Simba, after Mufasa's death, as Simba is facing his own identity:
[Simba looks into a pool of water]
Simba: That's not my father, that's just my reflection.
Rafiki: No, look harder.
[Simba's reflection changes to that of his father, and Simba is startled]
Rafiki: You see? He lives in you.
Mufasa: Simba.
Simba: Father?
Mufasa: Simba, you have forgotten me.
Simba: No. How could I?
Mufasa: Remember who you are.
To add even more wisdom, as The Big Kahuna ends, even before the credits roll, a narration begins. This narration, as it turns out, is read verbatim by Lee Perry from a July 1, 1997 column written in the Chicago Trbune by Mary Schmich, and is mixed and put to a beat by none other than Baz Lurhmann (of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo+Juliet fame). The result is a song called Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen). The article itself begins with these words:

The portion used for the end of the movie dishes out advice that is sometimes cheesy, sometimes poignant, sometimes powerful, and it goes like this:
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.




Do one thing every day that scares you.













Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.






Respect your elders.




But trust me on the sunscreen.
That's good advice. Every last word of it.

~ Keith

1 comment:

Unknown said...

wow. that's awesome Keith. I want to cut and paste parts of that and tattoo it in reverse on my forehead so I can read it in the mirror every morning...

of course I wont...

but I will try to do something that scares me every day.

and I'll try to remember the sunscreen.