What Do You Want?

Last night, for the first time I watched “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” starring the very handsome and charming Javier Bardem, simple and sexy Scarlet Johannson and the absolutely beautiful Penelope Cruz. And I really liked it. It was simple yet complex and there wasn’t a happy or terrible ending. It ended as people wouldn’t expect it to: in a realistic way. Plus it helps that Woody Allen wrote & directed it. Psh. Me love Woody.

But what got to me was Scarlet Johannson’s character, Cristina, who’s spontaneous but not in a loud and rambunctious way. She was always calm and did things just to do them but in a chill manner. Though I liked that fact and how simply gorgeous she looked being simply spontaneous, I couldn’t wrap around what she said to Javier Bardem’s character, Juan Antonio. She said, “I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want.” And every time she thinks she’s found something she’s comfortable with, she gets that feeling. That feeling that she’s bored; that what she’s doing isn’t what she wants. Penelope Cruz’s character, María Lena, called it compulsive unsatisfaction and that she was sick lol (she said it in spanish in the movie. Sounds much better in español, of course).

I mean … I know what I don’t want. Sure. We all do. But then again, we know what we want, right? Or we at least have a clue, don’t we? Is it bad to live that life of uncertainty? We start something big, right? We think this is it. This will be what I want. I’m satisfied with this… But then, just a few months or years later… It’s not enough. You’re bored. You don’t want it anymore. You want something else. Isn’t that … bad? And if it’s good, how so, beside the fact that your meeting new people, learning and seeing new things, participating in new activities?

Many say those who are, as María Lena puts it ‘compulsively unsatisfied’, are unhappy. That they’re lost. I wouldn’t say that’s a terrible thing. I mean, these people are trying to find what they want, y’know? They’re traveling and engaging themselves into the world. They’re seeing it more than those who know what they want are. It may take them a while or a long time, but they’re open to whatever comes their way hoping that this might be it. They go with the flow because planning doesn’t go well with them. Doing something just to do it works wonders.

I don’t know… That’s just something that had me pondering for quite some time. To be compulsively unsatisfied… Should we live life a BIT compulsively unsatisfied? We’re young. When we tie ourselves down at a young age and we don’t explore… Are we holding ourselves back? Should we be like Cristina? Or is it OK to already have a plan. To be satisfied with not seeing and doing things because something in our plan permits us to…

Just a thought. I’m not satisfied with what I’m doing right now, but that’s because I have a plan and I’m doing what I can to get there. I’ll go with the flow once in a while…but I’m also taking step by step. There are things I KNOW I want and things I’m not sure I want yet. But one day I’ll know. And from there, I can be a bit more spontaneous.