the eugene bean

I saw the movie Harold and Maude this week and I have to say it moved me. Got me thinking. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's got a kicking soundtrack if you're a Cat Stevens fan. In fact, one of the songs really struck me, forced me to run from the movie and jot down a lyric so I could remember that I liked the song enough to blog about it.

Here's a quick look at some of the lyrics from the song If You Want to Sing Out:
Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
'Cause there's a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

You can do what you want
The opportunity's on
And if you can find a new way
You can do it today
You can make it all true
And you can make it undo
you see ah ah ah
its easy ah ah ah
You only need to know

Nice. Nice and simple and inspirational and true. Good ole Cat.

So the movie is about a young man (early 20's) and an elderly (OK, OLD) woman in her 80's and how they fall in love. I know, ewww. I thought ewwww at least twice while watching their love grow. And then I said to myself, "Shut up, you uptight bitch." "Who the hell are you to trivialize their love? What gives you the right to dictate how love should look?"

And then that brought me back to my theory of life and how things work. I've already talked a bit about my atheist beliefs back in November (but I can't figure out how to link you to them) so I won't go into much detail here. But, here is my basic belief in a nutshell.

Every human is free to do whatever will make him happy as long as it does not directly hurt another person as a result. We have only one life to live and should make the absolute best of it.

Ta-da! That's it. I wish it could be as simple as Cat's song but of course it isn't. I've basically discovered that Every decision I make has an impact on the people around me, and someone almost always gets hurt.

So I guess you just have to judge. You have to guess. You have to pretend to be confident and aware and in-control as you careen willy-nilly through this process called life.

Sometimes I think the greater responsibility comes from the other person. The you's and the me's that look at other people's decisions and judge them. We have a responsibility to despise another person's choice while accepting it and learning to live with it.

We are all trying to be happy. We are all trying to be satisfied. We are all searching for the same thing- sometimes it just looks very, very different.