Life is Beautiful

There are no facts, only interpretations. -Friedrich Nietzsche

 

I watched Life is Beautiful (1997) again this weekend and reclaimed it my favorite Feel Good Movie. I'm reminded of it whenever I watch an adult explain or interpret something to a young child, in a way that expands the child's future with joyous possibility. Just as the father in Life Is Beautiful did so masterfully in the following scene.

Roberto Benigni wrote, directed and starred in this movie for which he won the Best Actor award in 1998. His character, Guido, is an Italian Jew who's taken to a concentration camp along with his young son. In an effort to keep his son happy, he explains that the camp is all a game and the one who amasses 1,000 points wins a tank (his son's obsession).

Watch as Guido pretends to understand what the German soldier is saying as he interprets the camp's rules for his son. The little boy's reactions are priceless!

Guido manages to keep his son safe, although he himself is shot and killed as the advancing American forces begin to cause chaos and disorder. At the end, an American tank enters the camp just when the little boy comes out of hiding. In his world, he is the winner!

Hopefully, no one will ever have to interpret such horrific circumstances as a war camp to a child, just the normal ups and downs of daily life. But imagine what rich futures could be constructed in the telling. And for those of us who may have lost our childhood innocence:

Many around you want to point out "reality" to you. They say, "Face the facts. Look at what-is." And we say to you, if you are able to see only what-is --then, by the Law of Attraction, you will create only more of what-is...You must be able to put your thoughts beyond what-is in order to attract something different or something more.

Your emotional attention to what-is will root you like a tree to this spot, but an emotional (happy) vision of what you would like to begin attracting into your experience will bring you those changes. Much of what you are now living, you want to continue, so keep giving your attention to those things, and you will continue to hold those things in your experience. But anything that you do not want, you must take your attention from.(1)

I envision a world with more people like Guido, for Life is Beautiful!

Source: (1)The Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks.

Illustration: Ideanomics