By KAITLYN HENSON
Staff Writer
Identity has been an ongoing discussion since the beginning of humanity. The idea of just being is very strange, and yet here we are living. It’s been a question that probably many of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives. What is our purpose in life? What are we born here to do? This intriguing question is largely discussed in Pixar’s 2020 movie Soul.
Because this movie came out during lockdown I’d assume many people have heard about it by now, but for those who don’t know Soul tells the story of Joe Gardner, who’s disappointed with how his life has gone so far. He dreams of playing jazz with the band he looks up to — but he’s stuck being a middle school band teacher. Joe is desperate to get his life the way he wants it, and is willing to do anything to achieve that goal. But suddenly, Joe finds himself in a strange new realm of life and death, and his time is almost up.
Typically with many movies at this point, I understand the underlying message immediately. It’s always the same message that at this point that many young kids and teenagers already understand. But with Soul I had no clue — I was completely lost with what this film was trying to say. I understood Joe’s desire to pursue his passion completely, I even admired it. It’s always very inspiring to watch someone pursue what they want to do, because it encourages me to do the same. So for most of the film I didn’t understand what was wrong with him. There didn’t seem to be anything bad that he was trying to do, but regardless I kept watching.
Joe in limbo meets a soul named 22 — who doesn’t care in the slightest why anyone would want to go to Earth. She thinks it’s pointless and boring. Joe, desperate for help, works with 22 to try and return to Earth to avoid death. But throughout the film something interesting happens: 22 starts learning about the wonders of living, but Joe is still stuck up wanting to get back to the jazz band. I slowly ended up rooting for 22, even though for the whole movie I was rooting for Joe. I was so confused about what was wrong, I didn’t understand. If I cared about Joe pursuing his passion, then why didn’t I like the way he was acting now? I was waiting the whole time for 22 to get her spark, but that idea didn’t feel like a fully satisfying ending. There had to be more to it than that, but my mind couldn’t wrap around what that could be. That is, until a character says one, simple line, “A spark isn’t a soul’s purpose.”
This one, small moment of realization turned into something completely eye-opening. I was starting to understand what this film was really, truly about. The meaning of life has nothing to do with purposes, or what you think you are destined to do. It was just about living, and breathing, and having fun while going through life’s ongoing experiences. I was coming to this realization with Joe Gardner and I was baffled with how I didn’t realize it before. Joe’s purpose was never to become a jazz musician, he never had a purpose at all. No one really did. And that was completely normal. For most of my life I never got why other people weren’t figuring out what they wanted to do when they got older, or what job they wanted to get. I’ve been thinking about that sort of thing since I was really young, and I only ever cared about that one goal. I didn’t care if I wasn’t taking care of myself, or if I’d rather spend time on my passion than being around friends. All I needed to do was achieve my goal with my passion and my life would be complete. But watching Soul changed ALL of that for me. The other people in my classes all were taking care of themselves, spending time with people that they cared about and weren’t focused entirely on a career. They didn’t care, and that wasn’t a bad thing. Me wanting to pursue my passion wasn’t a bad thing either. My passion is just my spark, after all. But the fact that I’d let it become an obsession for so long and my only purpose for living — that wasn’t good. It was tearing away at the life I was already living.
There’s a very special moment in Soul that almost made me tear up — when Joe Gardner is sitting at the piano, memories of playing jazz music with his late father come by as he starts to play. He feels the moment, he knows that this is what he loves to do, but he had forgotten the moments that went on throughout his everyday life, simple moments of happiness and delight, hurt and sadness, fear and anger, and it all came together in one beautiful melody. This became my favorite scene in the whole film, and I really wish I can experience watching Soul for the first time again. I have never in my life seen a message so clear and so simple, that I’ve never heard about before. If you haven’t seen Soul yet, please take the time out of your day to do so. It’s an experience that I feel is important for everyone, especially people like me, who have passions they want to pursue. It’s a very important message that everyone should hear, that the only meaningful part about yourself isn’t what you end up doing, instead it’s life’s moments that bring you to where you are, from the moment you are born till the moment you die.