The Romantics

I watched The Romantics a few nights ago. I found it fantastic. It was quite interesting that someone is so afraid of greatness that he would be willing to marry someone else to not have to face it. He could have Katie Holmes' character, who is a passionate, emotional, challenging woman. She would push him and challenge him to be great. Or he could have a woman who is content, stable, emotionless, and allows him to be stagnant, played by Anna Paquin. He is completely scared of what he could be that he would rather be with a someone that is easy to handle and that will not push him to be all that he could be. Anna does not see his potential like Katie does. She will not allow him to be anything else than that.

One quote is from Katie she says "Greatness makes me sick" as if he were talking to her.

He is referring to a time when he was younger as a life guard. He would sit in that chair, dying to get out and get into the water. When his shift ended he would make a break for it and dive in, but when he did the strangest thing happened I would start to panic. I'm afraid of the ocean (greatness-my addition)

You have to go and watch the movie just for the dialogue that occurs between Katie and Josh.

Our society is riddled with this type of fear. Fear that we will not become what we desire or what we should become so we run from it. We change our plans so that we do not have to confront it. I did this just this year. Having my own classroom scares me to death. It is such a huge responsibility. So to make sure this wouldn't happen I told myself that I wanted a year off, a year to relax. I had plans of living at home for the next year and substitute teaching. I realized that this was me sabotaging myself without even realizing it. I convinced myself that it was just because I was tired and needed a break, which is true, but even more so it was because I was afraid of failure. I was afraid that I would not live up to the expectations others had of me, but also the expectations I had of me.

We are afraid of failure, in turn afraid of being great, so we settle. We ruin it for ourselves so we don't actually have to face it.

I give it an 8.5/9 out of 10