Just a few minutes ago, I watched a movie in TV. It was something about a Filipino family of today's times. I didn't really know what the title was but it's not that important for now. What struck me was how as I was watching it, thought what worth this movie had that I had to spend my precious time watching it. It would seem funny to note that on several occasions, I was somehow able to relate to it. Not that it was happening to my life today, but something in movies make me feel that everything that happens in my life has already happened to someone else before.
This brings to me to my point. I watch movies, other than for entertainment purpose, but also because it lessens the burden on me to reflect too much on what's going on with my life. It seems as though my laziness got the better of me, but on the contrary, if you do a secondary reflection, it even evoked me to reflect on the matter further, only this time, on the perspective of someone else's experience.
Ever wondered how we always want to know how the story ends? It seems to me that rather than making an ending for ourselves, it often better if someone else does it for us. And then our role comes in, as critics. We then reflect on how the ending fits or not to the whole story. Most often than not, we see the ending as how it fits to the story of the movie we are watching, which on some level, allows us to see how most people, including ourselves or not, would end something like this. But like on the level of primary reflection, we often put ourselves distant to the story we are reflecting upon. This allows us to be objective on the subject because we aren't the ones directly affected, which makes it easier for us to criticize whether it was appropriate or not. And besides, it wasn't us who made the ending anyway, someone else made it for us. We might have our own version that we would have wanted to happen, but it's their story and they have every right to end it as how they please.
Then upon further reflection, we then try to put the situation to a closer context. How then would the story end if it were us in it? Would the ending be fit for the story of our life? Now we come to the secondary reflection that allows us to look at the story at a closer and perhaps more meaningful context, at least for me. This then allows me to ponder upon whether I would have done the same if I were the one faced with that kind of situation. A lot, perhaps, would change since we are factoring in our own nuances in life.
This would be good if we do it. Most of the time, people (perhaps even me) halts upon finishing the primary reflection and leave the ending as it is. Omitting the secondary reflection from the equation would leave us with a cake half-baked. This robs us of our freedom to choose for ourselves.
Bear with me on this. Think for example if the same thing happens to us some time in the near future, we'd be seeing the whole experience in the context of the movie's story. Only this time, it's not the movie's characters who are involved but we. But if no secondary reflection has been made prior to this experience, it would be too late for us to think critically and decide without bias. Most of our decisions and actions would be patterned, along or against the movie we've watched, depending upon whether we found the ending suitable or not.
Now think, had we done the secondary reflection before hand and factored in our own nuances. Then perhaps when we face the situation this time, we'd have a whole array of arsenal to go up against the situation. The circumstances may vary but this time, several of our own characteristics have already been factored in so that the characters in the story are more like us than not.
Going back to my point, watching movies allow us to reflect upon our lives and allow us to experience something that we haven't experienced before in several occasions. This of course would only happen if we reflect deeper and place ourselves in the story itself rather than just watch it at the sidelines.
(unedited first draft)
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