Be Attentive: Your life is here, NOW

Photo from Pixabay

“I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ the older fish says, ‘that’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This’, says the young fish, ‘this is water. What I want is the ocean!'”

From Disney-Pixar “Soul”

This little tale from the new Disney-Pixar film “Soul” voiced by Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey, has stuck in my mind since I watched it. I hesitate to admit but I saw myself in this young fish.

I am an INFP, one of the 16 MBTI personality types. If you are an INFP or you have an INFP in your family or among your friends, you must know that we, INFPs, live in two different worlds; one is a mundane, minute-to-minute, hustle-bustle world of reality and the other a creative, intriguing, fun-packed inner world of their mind. This must be owing to INFP’s auxiliary function of Ne (Extraverted Intuition); we easily get inspired from what we see in our daily life and develop exciting, possible ideas for the future, which can be either for ourselves or someone else. This is one of the “sparks” (in the movie, they used this phrase to describe one’s passion or motivation in life) we were born with, “fascination with a possible better future” where we INFPs focus and feel most alive in our lives.

Joe from the movie, who is a music teacher for a school band, has a dream to become a professional Jazz pianist. I’m not sure if he is INFP but he believes that his fascinating, glorious life will finally start once he achieves the goal. Since he blindly focuses on that goal, everything else is blurred, not having significant meaning to him until he unexpectedly sees his life through someone else’s eyes: the eyes of his mentee, Soul 22. She, in turn, unexpectedly experiences a brief-yet-profoundly-striking journey on earth in Joe’s body and experiences subtle-yet-heart-tingling moments of joy on that day.

The fish story above is what Dorothea Williams, the successful Jazz performer who Joe has been admiring, tells Joe at the moment he nails his dream of playing the piano with her on stage nightly. He achieves his dream but nothing changes. The excitement, fulfillment, or glory that he has been fantasizing doesn’t hit him as he’s expected. Instead, he feels more alive and recognizes more contentment through the interaction with his mentee, Soul 22, in the ways they are forced to on that day.

INFPs tend to live in our inner world, day-dreaming fascinating possibilities, to escape from day-to-day life, which results in us missing what is happening right in front of us. Not only for us, but for anyone who lives in this modern world flooded with vast amount of information and nonstop demands, we tend to lose touch of how to appreciate the precious moments that make up a lifetime. Becoming a writer is my life-long dream and I have been somewhat like Joe, believing that my life will be different once I fulfill that dream, I will be perceived as who I truly am.

Well, the life is more than that. You also want to interact with others, learn from others, and help others like Joe and Soul 22 do, consciously or unconsciously; Joe comes to realize how loving and interesting people he actually has in his daily life only if he only pulls some courage to open up, and Soul 22 finally finds joy in “living” by accidentally having herself exposed to the fearful reality on earth and experiencing things unfamiliar, unknown, and unaccustomed.

My fellow INFP friends, as well as any MBTI types, I promise that you will gain priceless insights on your life from this heartfelt movie, “Soul.” This story reminds me of how important it is to live in the moment, and also of the reason why:

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.”

Dalai Lama