Open Letter: The Truman Show

Dear Truman Burbank,

The last step I ever watched you take, you were slyly entering my own sense of reality.

They say sky’s the limit. But you? You showed me the existence of possibilities beyond a stark horizon. Running easy with the current, you flowed into the waters of my imagination, past the waves of fear, and into the little cave that opens only for the dreamers. In your breezy innocence I found a new respite, in your determination, my hope. I sit at the edge of my bed now, waiting to notice the slight crack in this quiet night that’ll reveal the light to me. The one that will tingle my insides and make my brain start at the question of what’s real. What is reality then, really?

Nothing, maybe. As I trace what little I know of your journey, it starts to dawn on me that the conundrum of what makes a difference is hardly of consequence at all. Hardly does it matter if I don’t feel a pull now, or the desire to push forth. Because it’s all a part of the bigger picture, a puzzle that I will inevitably put together as long as I’m intuitive enough. After all, for all the adoring eyes, you too still searched for a love long lost, right? So what matters is that my skin makes me warm on chilly nights and that laughter bubbles from somewhere inside of me. What matters is that sensation is my greatest steer, and that there’s a whole universe inside of me waiting to be discovered before the cosmos out there begins to need me. Everything else is merely an illusion, transient and inconsequential. Everything else that seems integral today will inevitably be trivial tomorrow. Everything else that’s mundane to me and cautious to others is really subject to perception. All I have to do is see clearly the things that matter and take all else in the stride.

(Inspired by the 1998 movie ‘The Truman Show’ starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank)

Poster by Francesco Turla