Ever wondered why we love watching movies so much?

 I love watching movies… almost all the types..                                               

I have often  wondered as to what makes me love watching these movies when I know its an illusion? I wonder why is that I can experience tears of joy and pain, the deep pleasure and disappointments of the characters that I watch on the screen in the darkness of the theatres. Its even more embarrasing when I am the person who sportinlgy pokes fun at my mother over her deep and full involvement with the characters of the TV serials she watches so diligently!    

Over a period of time I have discovered a few home truths about my movie watching… at least they are the reasons I give myself for unashamedly watching as many movies as possible without having to trouble my conscience much about the money and time I am spending on them !!!                                                                                      

  I have a curiosity to know and experience different thoughts, different lifestyles, life as different individuals in different situations… all of which is not a possibility in one lifetime! I wonder how Mukesh Ambani feels on being the world’s richest man and also how the man sleeping on the divider of the highway feels about the moments that life has given!!! I wonder how it feels to be a figure skater, I also wonder what the old gujarati lady feels when she is haggling for getting her vegetables from the vendor for her household!!! I suppose this desire to live and experience different lives and different situations is the biggest driving force in my fascination about the movies. 

Movies can be pretty inspiring too…. sometimes when I am down in the dumps and need some cheerful thoughts to make me feel like myself again, movies are an instant perk up solution for me. When I look back I find that on number of occassions I have been drawn towards movies which have catered to some emotional need of mine at that point of time. It is like wishing for something so badly that it shows up in your life in some form or the other!!  

 It was in fact the book “Illusions” by Richard Bach which made me think about this fascination of mine on a serious note to see why I had such a tremendous fascination for the movies. I realised that at all given point of time I had the freedom to choose the type of movie I shall be watching. It has a parallel in my real life too. Most of the time the universe provides us with the freedom to choose what we want to experience and have in life. But seldom do we realise the power of choice and freedom we have been gifted by the universe.

 The type of story I prefer to watch shows the type of thinking that I have or the extent to which I am prepared to expand my thinking and living. Its a parameter of where I am and where I am going in life…