Are you a Mitty? Author April Moseley says yes.
Walter Mitty is everywhere. He was in the car beside you at the light this morning. The guy who was driving the meticulously maintained yet inconspicuous 1994 Honda Civic; the one who let you cut in on him about a mile down the street. You may remember him from the post office yesterday morning. No? Remember when, as you left, you dropped your stamps? He was the fellow who called to you and handed them back. You must recall last night. You and the kids had just finished up dinner at that new chicken place. He was the neatly dressed gentleman who was throwing his trash away at the same time. Still don’t recollect? He held the trash flap for you so you wouldn’t have to touch it yourself.
Walter Mitty is you and me. He is any man who has ever self medicated his ego by imagining better outcomes. He is the ubiquitous everyman that believes that his station in life is static. He is the jaded family man who cannot put down the iPhone or turn off the TV. He is every one of us that has become a passive passenger in our own distracted lives.
The film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is based on the short story by the same name written by James Thurber and is the second film to recreate the story. Thurber’s story was originally published in The Atlantic in 1939. The print story differs greatly from the 2013 film. Thurber’s tale is of a married gentleman who is relentlessly verbally abused by his overbearing wife. Mitty finds his sanity by living an alternate life within the confines of his own imagination. A distraction, if you will.
As we meet the film version of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller), he sits frozen by indecision, in front of his computer. He struggles to decide whether or not to send a “wink” to his crush via eHarmony. Soon after, we learn that Mitty is a meticulously dressed, single professional. He has a steady job, a mother and sister whom he cares about, and a vivid imagination.
The fact that both the film and print version’s title characters escape through their imaginations is where the likeness ends. As the film unfolds, we learn that Mitty’s one true source of pride is the relationship that he has built through the years with a world renowned photographer named Sean O’Connell, played by Sean Penn. Walter works at Life magazine, procuring negatives and as time has passed, garnered the trust of O’Connell. The crux of the film hinges upon this relationship and what Walter learns through it.
The better part of the movie chronicles the real adventure Walter finds himself on: to find O’Connell and safeguard his job. The film culminates with the two men finally meeting each other in the most unlikely of places. The pivotal moment occurs as the two men share the view from behind the lens of a camera. O’Connell nudges Mitty and implores him to take a look at his elusive subject, the snow leopard or ‘ghost’ leopard. Both men sit spellbound as O’Connell resumes his position, and then takes his eyes away from the lens and stares, awed. Walter continues to sit and gaze too, but before long he notices that O’Connell is not snapping pictures. Mitty is beside himself and finally quizzes the photographer why he is not shooting. O’Connell pauses, sighs, turns to Mitty and replies, “Sometimes I do that. I just watch. When a moment is beautiful to me, on a personal level, I don’t want to be distracted by the camera.” The heart of the movie now lays bare.
How many days go by that you do not, cannot, or won’t see beauty? Could it be that your definition of it has been skewed? Have we been brainwashed to feel that if we are not dreaming big dreams, doing big things, living a big life, that we are living a life cemented in the mundane? Could it be that by being so connected all the time, we have essentially unconnected from the everyday beauty of life? The film makes the case that to live fully we must be less distracted. We are slowly killing our senses through our diversions: iPhone, iPad, television, etc.
The film shows us that living less distracted is not a passive pursuit. Mankind must be willing to make conscious efforts to touch and feel all that life can offer. One has to try and transcend our boundaries, both real and imagined, in order to drink from life’s fragile cup of fleeting divinity. Walter Mitty wants you to know that it’s okay to dream, that it is, in fact, vital. It is the increased frequency and intensity of these reveries that pirate our inborn connection to the splendor which is life. It is also important to note that this sentiment is in no way a declaration that one’s life is always happy or fair. In fact, there are probably billions of souls who can attest to their suffering.
The inability to put the camera down and be a witness, a participant in our own lives kills our growth as individuals. Mitty also wants you to know that you are not alone in your diversions. We all struggle with constraints of time. It is when personal growth stagnates, that it ripples out to touch all other aspects of our lives; drying us out until all we are left with is a handful of ‘I wish I hads’ and ‘Why didn’t I’s?’ A husk of who we wanted to be.
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Keeping yourself undistracted is not a task that will come easy. You must seek the beauty of every day and open your eyes, your heart to it. You must be an active contributor within your own life in order to be fulfilled. Do not let the precious moments of your life pass you by because you are too distracted to notice the hands on the clock are moving.
You don’t have to have life changing, epic adventures to feel alive. Man must simply be willing and able to slow down just a bit, to turn away from whatever it may be that distracts you. So put down that phone, turn off the TV, and take that chance. If it can scare you then it can empower you.
