Unbreakable Purpose
The film "Unbreakable," by M. Night Shyamalan, is about many things, but one theme has remained with me after watching it years ago in the theater when it first came out (2000). As much as it is a thriller about superpowers and crime fighting, it's primarily a tale about finding one's sense of identity, purpose, and calling. It's a film about the exhilaration and energy that can course through us when we discover our meaning and direction in life. It also gives us clues about how to reach this.
As Roger Ebert noted, "If this movie were about nothing else, it would be a full portrait of a man in crisis at work and at home." David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is leading a listless existence, clocking in and out of work, struggling in his passionless marriage to wife Audrey (Robin Wright), moving through life in grayscale, muted in emotion, stunted in purpose. Part of the lesson that the film offers, we learn, is that he needs to be awakened to his reason for being here, and called into action to activate the gifts that lay dormant within.
Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, (Samuel L. Jackson) asks Dunn at the end during the big reveal, "Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world. To not know why you're here." Granted, as the film's villain, this predicament is dramatized and played up for Price. For most of us who are still struggling to find our full sense of calling, purpose, and direction, we need not see it in such dire terms. It certainly can be scary. But it need not terrify or paralyze us. Rather, the film is quite hopeful about moving forward.
The most beautiful and memorable moments in the film for me are the series of scenes half way through where Dunn discovers his power and purpose. Things begin to fall into place. Energy surges through him and he experiences impact and effectiveness. His marriage is rekindled. The gray of life peels away to reveal the rich color beneath. He is inhabiting his full self and his relationship with the world begins to flourish. He's found his reason for being.
While I agree with Quentin Tarantino that "Unbreakable" is "one of the masterpieces of our time," I disagree that the film is another superman story. Rather, it's an everyman tale. I know I've had those moments where everything clicked and came together, where I felt I was doing what I was meant to be doing in that phase of life, where energizing meaning and purpose pulled me out of bed in the morning, where barriers of fear, uncertainty, or despondency melted away. The lesson for us all is to seek to actualize those periods more often and more regularly in our lives.
How do we do this?
According to the film, we must observe, take stock, reflect, listen, act, explore, and grow. Dunn's character is advised to pay attention--to his inner voice, to the intuitive decisions he makes, to the places and people to which he feels drawn, to what feels energizing and fitting to his sense of being in the universe, to his inner compass for justice and desire to correct what is wrong in the world. Indeed, it is very much an intuitive and mindful process that Dunn follows, coupled with attentive mentoring and the space to practice and experiment.
The metaphor of "Unbreakable" that forever remains with me is the hope that we all have incredible direction to find, meaning to cultivate, gifts to actualize, wrongs to right, compassion to extend, purpose to achieve, and deep fulfillment to experience. May you find your authentic purpose and direction and so become unbreakable.
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