Recently, I was recommended a movie, ‘The Intern’ by my friends. Truth be told, the recommendation was given a long time ago, but I got around to watching it quite late. The Intern, if you haven’t seen, (SPOILER ALERT) is a heart-warming and easy going story centred around a widower retiree (played by Robert DeNiro) who joins a ‘Senior Citizens’ Internship’ at an up and coming fashion start-up run by Anne Hathaway. The movie focuses on the friendship that these unlikely characters end up forming. Starting skeptically, DeNiro eventually finds a place for himself within the organization by assisting Anne in various ways. Their bond strengthens and Anne ends up finding a confidant in DeNiro. With no major ups and downs and a simple narrative arc, the movie ends, leaving a smile on your face. What’s the trouble then?

The trouble is, there were moments when it was going too well in the film, and I was anticipating something terrible to occur. Some accident, some sickness, someone dying etc. And when none of it ended up happening, I was actually left perplexed. I didn’t quite have any grudge with the story or the narrative as such except that I couldn’t understand why nothing terrible had happened! And immediately, another part of my brain went, ‘Why would I assume something terrible would have to happen?’

As is wont in my scenario, this led to an internal argument wherein I was raising questions and trying to answer them myself. I couldn’t possibly offer a verbatim script of the debate that raged, but I do put forth here the essence of the argument – ‘Why would I assume something terrible would happen?’

As of late, I have noticed myself having an almost cynical perspective on things. When something is going pretty well for a decent amount of time, a part of me is waiting for that other shoe to drop. Needless to say, this anticipation isn’t something to look forward to, at all. But I wasn’t like this during my school time. What went wrong?

College is supposed to be this life-defining experience in one’s life where you push yourself to your limits, expand your horizons, go to frat parties, do musical numbers with your other halves… or so pop culture leads us to believe. While I haven’t had the most idyllic college experience so far, it has certainly impacted me in more ways than I realize. I’ve got a glimpse into the nuts and bolts of what I am likely to see once I leave college and it’s not nearly as exciting as it is made out to be. I’ve seen ‘soulmates’ date for time periods shorter than some seasons of TV shows, I’ve seen people who are professional stalwarts behave in unnecessarily and unimaginable rude ways with students, I’ve seen long lasting friendships crumble like a house of cards for whatsoever reasons and it’s difficult to spectate these events and not feel impacted yourself.

Perhaps I am overreacting to what, one would assume, is the way things work in general. But I don’t feel as though it is my naivety that is the culprit here. It does make me wonder, though, how easily I am comforted in the fact that whenever a novel is going too well, the illness of a major character doesn’t surprise me, when the wife comes from an oversea trip, the sight of her husband having an affair doesn’t shock me and so on. As kids, it was the over the top, corny, song and dance fests kind of movies that would fascinate us. It is only now that we realize that they were a distant cry from reality, if not a far cry. But I understand, it has to do with growing up, with having experiences that molded our taste, that opened our eyes to an ocean between black and white – made of endless hues of gray.

Nonetheless, what this endless amount of gray region should ideally signify is that the hero isn’t the apostle of virtue and morality and that the villain isn’t entirely an outcome of one factor of his personality. It shouldn’t be the reason why I should anticipate that a ‘Hello’ from a friend would likely end at him requesting a favour or that I should question one’s presence in a group being purely associated with the kind of push and pull symbiotic to the dynamics of that group.

In an article titled ‘Hope, Cynicism and the Stories we tell ourselves’, the author shares:-“Take, for instance, an entity like TED — something that began as a small, semi-secret groundswell that was met with only warmth and love in its first few years of opening up to the larger world. And then, as it reached a tipping point of recognition, TED became the target of rather petty and cynical criticism. Here is an entity that has done nothing more nor less than to insist, over and over, that despite our many imperfections, we are inherently kind and capable and full of goodness — and yet even this isn’t safe from cynicism.”

I understand that one’s experiences are a mishmash of the good, the bad and the ugly and the same principle is applicable to every aspect of life. Perhaps, I am observing only the bad and ugly and basing this on that conjecture. But the paradigm shift I’ve noticed in myself is definitely not conjecturing. Many friends would also attest to nursing such sentiments ever since they crossed that threshold into ‘adulthood’. Maybe I just need to watch Disney movies on an endless loop to get out of that frame of mind. Maybe I will. (Suggestions anyone?). However, at no point, do I wish to not acknowledge that something has inherently changed and that I should process it accordingly. It would be unwise to bury my head in the sand and pretend it’s status quo. At the same time, I must not let this sentiment overpower or warp my decisions entirely.

I don’t know how I will get to that point exactly. Like most of my articles, this one too is about articulating an underlying sentiment and not necessarily about finding precise solutions. I think time will lend me a perspective that would balance itself out properly. Perhaps, I’m going through that phase of the movie where the protagonist is undergoing an existential crisis and things are on the turn soon. I might just hold on to that hope for the time being. That counts as optimism, right?