I remember watching this movie with my father when it first came out and being left speechless. It was my worst nightmare come to life; pushing my dreams aside to be conventional. Shivers.
My dad gave up on his dreams decades ago and goes to work everyday at a job he hates and comes home to a wife he can't stand and who can't stand him. He didn't like the movie, he said he didn't get the point. Speaks volumes.
Does he turn down his hearing aid to blot out the wife’s blathering?
shareYeah, well some people who follow their dreams and refuse to compromise wake up one day and realize they're getting old and they're never going to be able to stop living paycheck to paycheck, and that maybe a more conventional life might have brought more happiness or stability. Some people who live conventional lives end up happy, even if they're (horrors!) raising a family in the suburbs! I know it seems impossible, but it does happen.
There's no right way to live your life, no guarantees, there are only the choices you make for yourself and what happens afterwards.
I agree that some people have to settle for mediocrity, otherwise what's the alternative? They go crazy and kill themselves, or others?
Still, society should be doing so much much more to help EVERYONE pursue their dreams.
Unfortunately, we live in a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum-game, status-orientated world in which the whole point of doing well for some people is simply to watch others do badly. For too many people 'if everyone is special, no-one is', a twisted, solipsistic, deeply narcissistic philosophy, sadly endorsed by Disney Films, of all things, that fails to acknowledge that we all only have one life, and that every one of those lives deserves to be treated as special.