Committed

I've watched the movie Committed three times now, and I still linger on the last lines of the main character's voice over:

There are always people who are willing to take a leap, a big leap, just dive off a cliff with everything they've got and hope for the best. What do we say about these people? Are they stupid? Or are they brave? Are they crazy, or just very, very lucky? I guess it is one of those things you can look at either way.

Ultimately, the film seems to argue that these people are lucky. I wonder.

I am like the main character, Joline, in her quirkly sense of spirituality, her sometimes naive belief in others, her desire to turn ideals into action, and her belief in the power of her word. Like Joline, I have taken leaps of faith that have made others dizzy, but me extremely happy. But then there have been other times when I have taken those leaps without really looking -- and later regretting my feet ever leaving the ground. I am not sure that leaps of faith are good for me (or for anyone for that matter), but, strangely, I can't imagine my life without them.

Joline's story is a familiar one -- she pursues her runaway husband and tries to win him back -- but this story is merely a vehicle to explore bigger questions of faith and worthiness and responsibility and commitment. We've all known people like Joline -- a friend who takes back the philandering husband yet again, another one who follows his errant wife across the country more than once. We might have been like Joline in our own relationships, trying to stand by our partners like we hope they would stand by us. I know that I certainly have been.

Joline says:

I read somewhere, the reason most relationships break down is that each partner is waiting for the other to fix it. But if you want somebody to stand by you always, you have to be willing to do the same for them, even when they're acting like an idiot.

Joline stands by her husband, but we come to learn that it's more about her vision of herself as a committed person than simply her love of him. Because she defines herself by keeping her word, she takes the idea of commitment too far throughout the first part of the movie. She lets a band play with only one member and gives the employee the night off even though the club is sold out -- all because she has given her word. She commits to political causes, and feels pride in following through. And, finally, she crosses the boundary into crazy, stalking territory with her husband. Yet, the movie isn't telling us that her sense of commitment is bad thing. Rather, it questions the extremes, the blindness of the faith, the following through without any critical evaluation. Because we all know she should just let her husband leave. And she finally learns it, too.

Joline's major achievement is separating her identity from the connection to this one other person. When she says to her husband, "I am still a commited person. I am just not committed to you anymore," she reclaims her identify for herself, regardless of her connection to him or anyone else. She recognizes that there are some commitments that shouldn't be kept, but that doesn't make her any less of a commited person.

In our current political arena, anyone who changes his or her mind is a weak-minded flip-flopper. But one of my favorite Emerson quotes says the contrary. In "Self-Reliance," he writes:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Like Emerson, Joline learned that "foolish consistency" can be more harmful to the soul than breaking a commitment. Since I, too, am a divorced person, I find solace in Joline's lesson. I took the biggest leap of faith in my life when I left my career and support system to create a family with my ex-husband, one Joline would have been proud of. And I kept the commitment past the point when I knew I should have -- all because I wanted to keep my word. Finally, however, I was able to give up my "foolish consistency" -- and move on. Watching Joline redefine her boundaries helped me to articulate my own.

I know many divorced people lose faith in themselves and in their ability to commit. I am the opposite. I understand better what commitment means, and I will never again make such decisions as I did before. I have more fear now of commitment because I know better what it means. However, I like to think I'd be able to make more of a knowledgeable commitment, one founded on careful choice. But in the end, all commitment is taking a leap of faith. And, fortunately, I am starting imagine that I once again can jump.

Maybe I am lucky.