kinds of thoughts? Do you? Do I? Yes. To be human—to be alive—is to fall into patterns of behavior. Some of these patterns are good. We are drawn to the comfort of routine, and we settle in, but there can also be a discomfort in going through the same motions. Just as slumping for hours in the same position can be bad for ours backs, it is also true that taking the familiar and repetitive path of least resistance can cause our lives to become a bit stuck in place. We become outdated algorithms needing a new and bigger sequence.
The act of changing our routine is good for us. Even something as simple as rearranging apps on a phone helps us to resist the automatic default of muscle memory.
As Tara Brach put it: “Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns . . . We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”
The discomfort zone
A kind of timidity can set in with familiarity. A fear of change. We can end up stuck in jobs we don’t like, in unhealthy relationships, with similar unhelpful attitudes. We call this the “comfort zone” but often it is the opposite. A discomfort zone, a stagnation zone, an unfulfilled zone. It is surprisingly easy to walk through and out, once we decide to. And what we see beyond the discomfort zone is in fact a deeper comfort. The comfort of being the best possible version of us. Beyond the pattern or code of established behavior. Less coded, more human.
Stuff
You don’t always have to do stuff. Or achieve stuff. You don’t have to spend your free time productively. You don’t have to be doing Tai Chi and DIY and bread-making. Sometimes you can just be and feel things and get through and eat chips and survive, and that is more than enough.
Ferris Bueller and the meaning of life
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) is the best teen movie of all time but for years I had a problem with it, even though I enjoyed it immensely. John Hughes’s tale of a popular teenager skipping school by faking illness, then having a sensational day out in Chicago with his best friend and girlfriend, annoyed me because I thought Ferris was selfish and this seemed like a movie where liking the central character was essential for its enjoyment. My issue was that he uses his best friend, Cameron, by making him take his dad’s vintage Ferrari on their adventure, even though Cameron will get in major trouble for this.
Rewatching the movie, though, I realized I’d got it all wrong. Really, this isn’t a movie about the eponymous Ferris. This is a movie about Cameron. Cameron is the emotional center of the film. He is the one who makes the most significant transition—from a depressed, possibly suicidal, outwardly privileged teenager who frets about the perceived meaninglessness of a future containing college and adulthood, to someone with self-esteem, who is able to live in the present, and to stand up to his strict father and his oppressive rules.
When Ferris starts the movie with his famous monologue he talks straight to the camera, but the core message is one he spends the rest of the film teaching Cameron: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris is basically a 1980s version of Marcus Aurelius saying, “Dwell on the beauty of life.” He is a mix of Eastern and Western philosophy. Buddhist mindfulness fused with American individualism—though he wouldn’t want to be part of any -ism. “A person shouldn’t believe in an -ism,” says Ferris. “He should believe in himself.” But Ferris isn’t just out for himself. He is out for his friend too. He is out for us. As with all the most comforting films, the film gives us permission to feel. It helps us live.
Films that comfort
Jaws. Because it shows that we need to acknowledge our fears before we beat them.
Meet Me in St. Louis. Because of the songs. Because of the colors. Because of Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Because it invites us into the beautiful and bittersweet comfort of another time, another place, another family, another reality. And