Whether the goals are professional or personal, why do we feel a need to strive so hard every year? Let’s see what the arts have to say.
Clifford Odet’s play Golden Boy at Lincoln Center was first produced in 1937, and maintains its relevance as ever today. The story follows a 21 year-old concert violinist, Joe Bonaparte, who gives up decades of training and practice to pursue quick fortune by entering the professional boxing ring. Joe’s ambition drives him fast towards a destiny that he believes will bring him happiness. Away from the life of musical introspection that his middle class, Italian family fostered, he seeks a journey that will catapult him to instant fame.
His story is similar to the multitudes of young individuals looking to establish themselves in a changing world. Seth Numrich portrays the arrogance and charisma of a boy becoming a man, willing to cast aside childish notions of musical perfection for the adult needs of acknowledgment and status. Tony Shaloub plays Joe’s father with pathos and a tragic recognition of the potential costs of this pursuit. A musician’s profession may not be glamorous enough for a young man seeking success, but in the trade-off he forgets the joy that a more humble life brings to others around him.
The film version of Les Miserable is a grand spectacle bringing to screen visuals hard to imagine on a Broadway stage. The novel of Jean Valjean’s lifetime penance for crimes he committed as a youth, and his foil Javert’s commitment to punishing him, is established in the Western ethos. Hugh Jackman carries the movie on his wolverine shoulders, but it’s a heavy load. Anne Hathaway as the ‘can’t take your eyes off her’ Fantine and Eddie Redmayne as the revelatory Marius provide support, yet the weight of the spectacle overcomes in the end.
Victor Hugo’s story still sings though. Javert’s solipsistic pursuit of a wrong that shouldn’t be righted is misguided and heartfelt. Jean Valjean, after a lifetime of self-preservation and flight from his identity, realizes that his true triumph is not survival but the happiness of his daughter. In this final feat, he accomplishes more than he has in his lifetime.
Like Joe and Jean Valjean, in youth we seek achievement as a way of establishing ourselves, getting the things we want and have yearned for. We seek status for ourselves. Once we get those though, we could keep gathering more, but it becomes a relentless pursuit towards an ever-moving goal.
The difficult part is shifting gears to striving to make ourselves better, not to achieve status, but as an appreciation of life. Recognizing that lacking this impetus, we are wasting the time given to us. The motivation changes to making ourselves better through the success of other - by mentoring, by training or by transferring wisdom to those we love around us. If we cling too tightly to our own purposes, like Javert, we lose true north and have nothing more to give ourselves. As Javert sings before his demise:
I am reaching, but I fall
And the stars are black and cold.
And the stars are black and cold.
As I stare into the void
Of a world that cannot hold
January 13, 2013
