Clay or Stone

Komarovsky: Pavel Pavlovich; my chief impression - and I mean no offence - is that you're very young.

Pasha Antipov: Monsieur Komarovsky; I hope I don't offend you. Do people improve with age?

Komarovsky: They grow a little more tolerant.

My favorite movie since I first saw it is Dr. Zhivago. The 1965 version. Part of the beauty of the material is that every time I watch it things resonate differently with me. The exact same scene that I know backwards and forwards will be a different revelation to me. It all depends upon the life experience I'm filtering it through. When I first saw it at 15, it was the love story that dominated my attention, and I didn't really get the subtext. Later, when I was homesick, it was Zhivago's intense love for Russia and how the two women in his life embodied the different faces of Russia.  I could go on. But no matter what phase of my life I'm in, one scene in particular strikes me differently every single time, and it's the scene in the student cafe when Lara introduces Komarovsky, the older, sexual predator who is her mother's advisor to the young idealistic, yet cold Pasha Antipov, her fiancé. Since I began this blog and took the inevitable look backward to explain my forward, I've been thinking about the conversation the two men have in the cafe and wondered: are we molded in clay or are we chipped out of stone from the time we are young? Are we capable of change as we grow older or are we pretty much a done deal as soon as we leave our parents' fold? And, indeed, do we grow a little more tolerant?

I don't think I'd like myself really if I met young me in some chance setting. I'd recognize that we had a lot in common, but I'd find the younger person high strung, gossipy and so insecure that she spends too much time masking that insecurity with false bravado which I would find grating.  I was a little bit nuts. Maybe more than a little bit. Young me would have told you I was passionate.  But, no, it was nuts. Maybe people with a great deal of passion are all a little nuts, I can't say but I'll cop to it in my case.

The things I hold dear or the overall world philosophies I've had since I was young don't seem to change. Well, not much anyway. I mean, how could I develop a guilty pleasure listening to Fall Out Boy long before they were even born? But I'm a Steelers fan now and always. I love all things on four legs but if they speak dog, then all the more so. In many ways, I'm set in stone. One thing I can point to with absolute pride is I've resisted the prediction I heard more than once, "You'll become more conservative with age." Meaning politically, and primarily from a fiscal point of view.  I have not strayed from my original liberal outlook either socially or fiscally.  What I have done, that I might not have 40 years ago, is accepted as close, dear friends, others who are on the other side of the political aisle from me. Some of you reading this might be among them. As long as you don't trash me for what I believe, I'll respect your point of view. If you want to discuss it, I'll go there if it can remain civil. But honestly I prefer we lean into the areas that made us friends and skirt around the politics. Maybe what my parents always said - never discuss religion or politics - was wiser than I credited at the time.

And I guess what I'm pondering here and posing the question to all of us: are we indeed more tolerant? Or are we like a man named Otto and become grumpier and more stodgy as we age? And are we capable of improving with age like a fine wine or do we at some point sour into vinegar? And can we choose which it will be?

I'd like to think much of my personality has changed and hopefully for the better. I'd really love to tell you I'm no longer crazy. Maybe just a smidge. I suppose we all are. We were raised by imperfect beings in an imperfect world.  It's bound to make us a little off balance. I had to work at it though; it wasn't a "eureka, I've cured all my personality quirks" kind of a thing. One thing about having kids in crisis is we did a LOT of family therapy. I've also done my share of support groups. I'm not sure I would have lost the hard edges without a lot of help, and I still find myself too edgy and judgmental for my own tastes. And opinionated?  Oof, and how!  And - wow - I do have my father's temper, even without his DNA.  All things I'd like to work on. Is it possible? Can I become the better person I want to be? I guess I worry because I spent the recent holiday superbly grumpy at all my neighbors for shooting off fireworks and terrifying my dog. And I thought to myself, "I AM a man called Otto and next thing I know I'm going to be chasing cars down the street yelling they're driving too fast." What happened to the more tolerant part?  

Anyway, back to my characters in the cafe. Fortunately for Lara, she managed to escape both those losers - at least for a time. Oh, oops, that was pretty judgmental of me, wasn't it?

But before she managed all that, she sat in that dingy cafe as Pasha's retort to Viktor Komarovsky was, "Because they have more to tolerate in themselves..."  No matter what age I am, I always find Pasha Antipov/Strelnikov insufferable, but perhaps that is right.