For People No Longer Living a 1st Order Life

"We wish to live inside the safety of the laws. We fear to choose. Jesus insists on choice."

 - Terrence Malick, "To the Wonder"

...And it’s on this note, that Niel’s priest, a secondary character in the movie, at one point gives a lecture that might as well have been aimed  directly at Neil, and that he could have learned from, if only he was listening. “We wish to live  inside the safety of the laws.” – the priest says, referring here not so much to actual laws but  rather to the broader notion of conventions, comforts, and other artificial obstructions,  false promises and temporary sedatives getting in the way of true meaning – “We fear to  choose. Jesus insists on choice. The one thing he condemns utterly is avoiding the choice.” To choose is to commit yourself. And to commit yourself is to run the risk, is to run the risk of failure, the risk of sin, the risk of betrayal. He goes on to explain that Jesus can deal with  all of this, that forgiveness is never denied, and that if you make a mistake you can repent, but, and this is the part that has always stuck with me, the part that is almost erased by  background noise and must be paid active attention to if you want to even properly hear it; “But the man who hesitates,” – he says – “who does nothing, who buries his talent in the earth, with him he can do nothing.” 

...and this is where we get to the second reason why the words of the priest resonate so strongly with me, and the most important thing that separates Malick’s commentary from that of a Fight Club or a Mr. Robot, is that the universality of this struggle signifies that the real achievement of purpose and meaning is not so much determined by the state of the world around us as much as it is determined by our own willingness to take true responsibility for our place in it. In other words, it’s not just a question of life advice or personal happiness, it’s not just about we want to do, it’s also about what we have to do, about what is demanded of us. And as such, the words transform into a question of morality.