Cliched Epiphanies

Me and the loverboy were watching Thor this weekend – after deciding to do a Marvel binge which has us watching all the movies in (timeline) order. Which is awesome. Cause I love Marvel. Not just for the actionpacked (and sixpacked) storylines, but also because they manage to slip in some braincracking gems and morals every now and again that get my ticker ticking and grey matter spinning.

This time it was the end scene that got me going.
Spoiler Alert!

‘She searches for you’ says Heimdal. Meaning that Jane, after Thor leaving, now has her life revolving about finding a way back to him. Which, obviously, is a lovely endeavor and excruciatingly romantic (I hate people who are so effortlessly romantic, as I am not). But the thing is, she now knows what she is looking for, and that it is out there to be found.

And that’s when it hit me, why I appreciated her ambitions BEFORE meeting Thor. Because Jane, as a scientist, spent her entire career searching for something she didn’t even know was there. She researched something that was only a theory, a thought, maybe even a wish. She chased an idea in hopes of finding something real. In her quest for knowledge about Einstein Rosen bridges (wormholes) she WANTS to find evidence of the great beyond, to prove that we’re not alone, without ever knowing that that proof is there to be found. Damn girl!

Which, to me, is something extremely powerful. Because to pour yourself into something that is SO unsure, SO intangible and SO ‘unreal’ is true commitment to something. It’s so much scarier than the life we currently oftentimes get to live. Because, agree or not, we do live in a world where a lot of the things that can be discovered….have already been discovered. A lot of theories have been debunked, proven or elaborated and a lot of mystery has neem demysticised…demystified…whatever (how the hell do you say that? Is there even a word?). And that, I guess, makes us a bit scared of such things.

At least, that’s how I feel. Might just be me though.

I mean, take for instance the saying ‘it’s better to have loved and lost, than not to have loved at all’.
Which is true, for all intents and purposes, if you ask me. And underlines that same line of thought. It is ever so much easier to look for something that you KNOW is there, than to attempt to find something you’re not sure exists. I know the saying is meant to soothe people who have lost love in saying that they at least had it for some time instead of not at all, but to me it always brought me comfort that IF lost, I’d at least know it’s real, and thus can be found (again).

It helped me through my heartbreak, eventually. Because after digging through a mountain of fear of having lost my one chance at what I considered to be true love – this sentiment instead gave me the hopes of finding it again (and, all gushy and all, I think I have, once more). But it did push me over that final hump of ‘starting to search again’. I knew it was there, all that remained was to go get it.

But all around me I see people, who might be at different points in their life, struggle with similar concepts. And different concepts. And I do too. Because there’s moments in life when we DO find ourselves in a spot where we have to commit ourselves to something new. Something we don’t know. Moments where we have to aspire something we might not clearly see yet. Where we have to start on something that we don’t know might yield the wanted (or any) results. Venturing into the unknown.
Whether it’s striving for a new careerstep that might or might not be in our cards, or for a dream that might never manifest. Whether we’re aiming for goals that might or might not be realistic or learning things that might not turn out to be relevant – we often find ourselves embarking of journeys with unsure endings. And I feel like everyone taking THOSE kinds of steps deserves some sort of medal.

Because what Thor made me realize is that it is ever so much easier to look for what you know is there – than to search for something without knowing it can be found.
And while the one might be hyperromantic, the other is truly impressive. In my eyes, anyway.
So thanks to Marvel I suddenly feel a lot more willing to explore uncharted territories, instead of just ambitiously striving for the tops of ladders I can already see. Because when we look further than what we know, we find the things we never knew were there. And that…is a powerful thing.

I guess I ended up falling for the cliché ‘life starts at the end of your comfort zone’, after all. Damn you Marvel!