Punching A Hole In The Sky
It’s odd that I should be sent The Truman Show from my DVD list this week. I saw it when it first came out, back in 1998, but watching it again highlighted something I had never seen before. There’s a great deal in it, a commentary on reality television, which up until then didn’t really exist, and that element of Big Brother, TV and control. Something came out of it on this viewing, that I hadn’t picked up on before. The ‘reality’ of Truman’s life isn’t just a comment on reality TV, but expresses something about the way we see reality.
I was particularly struck by the quote by Christof, when asked why Truman wouldn’t want to get out of this tiny confined world: “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” Although we don’t have cameras on us all the time, or live in an overtly constructed world, our realities are constrained in very much the same way. What we believe is true about the world is presented back to us as our reality, after growing up being taught by parents and teachers and other adults what reality is, breaking out and finding our own reality is a huge challenge, and many people never see beyond the walls.
We live constrained by our beliefs about what the world is about, who we are and what we’re capable of. Interestingly, we never really challenge that reality unless something crashes into us that challenges us and presents us with new possibilities. If the event is big enough, we might start to question what we know to be true. We don’t even know, for the most part, that we live lives dictated by our own beliefs about ourselves and our world, until the lamp crashes from the sky, metaphorically-speaking, and we start to wonder if what we knew to be true actually is.
Truman’s world is filled with deliberate messages intended to dissuade him from ever venturing past the borders of his current life. In the same way, we can be constrained by the beliefs and ideas of those with whom we grow up and then recreate those ideas as adults. As a result, when something challenges that reality we’re suddenly thrown into confusion. Truman’s battle to get out of his artificially constructed world while Christof throws fire and brimstone in his way, as well as drawing on his phobias and fears, reminded me of the way our own minds set us back, how we throw so many obstacles in our own way even when we want to pursue a great dream. I’ve seen many people in my life construct all kinds of reasons why they can’t do what they most want to do, and the main reason they do it is fear.
The final storm where Truman battles with his own phobia of water reminded me how I felt about writing when we first began to hunt down the elusive publishing deal. Whenever anything positive happened, I sabotaged myself as much as I possibly could. Then came a point where I realised what I was doing, and the effort became not so much a struggle with reality as with my own mind, my fears and doubts and everything else I’d put in my own path to stop me doing what I wanted. Then, of course, comes Christof’s conversation, his voice echoing god-like from nowhere in the same way that our own inner critics echo in our own heads, with Truman. He tries to persuade his charge, standing at the doorway to the real world, that everything ‘out there’ is full of lies and fear, and that Truman should remain in his constructed, fake world in order to stay safe.
Safety is why we stay where we are, why we live quiet, desperate lives. Why we talk about dreams but never act on them, why we sabotage ourselves. It’s why we make up every excuse on the planet why we can’t do the one thing we know we want to do, what our heart calls us to do. It’s not safe, whispers the ego voice, the inner critic or whatever you want to call it. Stay where you are, don’t risk it. People will hurt you, your family will hate you, you’ll be in danger, you’ll be afraid. Stay where you are, hide in the dark where you’ll never have to risk anything! “You’re afraid – that’s why you can’t leave,” says Christof.
In the end, we have to make a choice. Do we listen to our excuses, our beliefs for so long that we miss all the opportunities available to us and end up living in regret at what might have been? Or do we step through the door marked “EXIT” and decide to live in a bigger reality where these things really are possible, and we let go our fears? Well, it’s all your own choice.
Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight. Yup.
