By Dillon McDuffie Staff Writer
In 1986, a movie came out that changed my life. It was 19 years before I was even born and yet this film has had a bigger impact on my life than most anything I can think of. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is a cinematic masterpiece. I say this, for all the reasons that many would consider it to be a flawed storyline, a lackluster message even.
In the film, Ferris Bueller decides to skip school for the day along with his two best friends. In society this would be viewed negatively and even criminal. However, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off its justified. Ferris does not want to skip school; he needs to skip school and thus does. As mentioned above, most stories would find a character that does this learning a lesson in the end; dealing with reproductions and changing their ways. Not Ferris though. You see Ferris understands something that instead changes everybody around him.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris understands how to live life, and he understands how to embrace it. He understands how to make the people around him embrace it. Ferris teaches them how to look around and enjoy the most beautiful aspects of life. Where Cameron and Sloane start compared to where they end are completely different mindsets; but they are for the better.
When you begin to understand this simple mindset, it changes the way that you do everyday tasks. When I did so, I thought about my life five years ago, and how much I’ve missed by not ever looking around. Then five years before that and five years before that, and at a certain point I can’t remember what my life was like at that point. For as much as we begin to understand and remember as we get older, I think we forget some of the most important things: to just look around and enjoy life.
Life is many things to many people. But as much as it’s about work, school, and money and all the nonsense. It’s also about enjoying the fact that you can wake up each morning, and that somebody somewhere is thinking about you. Because as much as life sucks sometimes, and it absolutely does, it’s also beautiful just as often; you just have to look around to find it.
Eternity. That’s how long it would take you to make a list of everything that life is to everybody. But if you want to try, here’s a start:
Life is hard, but it’s beautiful.
It’s confounding and astounding
It’s confusing and amusing.
Sarcastic and fantastic.
It’s breathtaking, and it’s very head aching.
Infuriating and intimidating.
It’s ever-changing and rearranging.
Repelling and compelling.
It’s unpredictable, and yes sometimes despicable.
Impure, obscure and most of all immature.
Terrorizing and mesmerizing.
Problematic yet cinematic.
It’s so many things that you can’t quite elicit. So please, understand this.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”
ECC Cornerstone 