Stories are metaphors of life. They make our lives easy when it is too complex to decipher the meaning. Being a filmmaker, I’ve discovered some inspiring lessons in every great story that one must know them to understand the paradoxes of life. Hope they would instill hope in you.
Choices define character
At crucial point in every great story, protagonist faces dilemma as we face occasionally in our own lives. The lesson we can learn from here is very simple: Choices define who we are. What we are is the result of the choices we have made. Life is full of choices so let us choose carefully for they decide our destiny.
Ordeals are a way to glory
Life is a perennial ordeal; we have to be prepared to fight, not to escape from them, for they lead to glory. Heroes would never be called be heroes unless they haven’t been fought through ordeals. There is a reason for everything. Ordeals never come randomly, and they come purposefully to make you strong and cautious. Go ahead and fight away ordeals and glory is awaiting you.
Go for life beyond status quo
Every great quest of a protagonist starts with challenging the world and goes in search of something he deeply believes in. If you are skeptical of leaving the incomplete world and go in search for something you love, you never live truly. You will just survive; there is hell lot of difference between living and surviving. Decision is rightfully yours.
Mistakes never define us
But what we have learnt from them does define us. Dwelling into the past and lamenting over the wrong choices is the least thing that we could do. Every protagonist realizes his mistakes at the end and resurrects in climax. Actually resurrection is a metaphor used in stories to make us understand to grow consciously beyond our mistakes and never repeat them. However we can surely make new mistakes.
Risking is the way of life
Show me one protagonist who has never risked his life in any story – none. So never be afraid to take risks because risking not is the biggest risk of life. Treat them with zest but be calculated. You cannot go into the deep waters without testing their depth. Let us make risking the way of life to dig out the hidden treasures of mankind that is possible only by risking truly.
Follow the bliss
Bliss is something which you deeply love, you deeply believe.The protagonist in every story follows his own bliss nonetheless his life would be a deep mess. So, let us follow it; if we do that, we are enjoying that refreshment, that life within us all the time. When we can see that, we begin to meet people in the field of our bliss and the doors will be open. It would be quite surprising to relinquish all those moments. Don’t worry if you miss the chance, they keep on opening. That is the beauty of bliss.
Good wins over evil
This is pretty cliched lesson we can learn from every great story, but it’s worthy enough to ponder continuously. World itself has been formed on the principle of duality – Good and evil, love and hate, male and female and other unity of opposites. So we have no option. We just have to deal with the opposites. But what we opt for ultimately matters. If we opt for wrong choices, we fight ordeals with unfair means and hence make mistakes that can’t be regretted ending up in a deep mess. So, I guess you get the point.
