What ’Gravity’ taught me about life (spoiler warning)

I watched Gravity today, and I can attest that it has rightfully earned its high Rotten Tomatoes rating.

The movie was literally an out-of-the world experience.

Do I still want to go to space before I die? I don’t think so.

The movie followed the experience of Dr. Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock) on her first space shuttle mission.  Just five minutes into the movie, we saw things started going wrong, and it got worse and worse as the movie progressed. She and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (played by George Clooney) working outside the Explorer got attacked by satellite debris which caused them to lose the shuttle and communication with Mission Control.  Soon, Ryan became the sole survivor of Explorer.

What would she do? Would she live or die? How would she get back to Earth?

As audience, we also encountered the terrifying reality of being lost in  space.

I now fear space. I fear its darkness, its vastness, and its silence.

It’s everything that Earth is not. It’s cold and it lacks signs of any life forms.

The film made me realize that people need other people, and we need meaning in life to make it worth living.  Without other people, we begin to question the purpose of our existence and quickly start to feel fragile and insignificant against the harshness and vastness of space.

There were many points in the movie where Ryan was about to give up on herself when her attempts to board various capsules to return home kept failing.  It was the voices of Matt and her daughter that told her to keep going, to keep thinking of other ways to get back to Earth.

The scene of her  yelling helplessly inside the Soyuz capsule when she discovered the craft’s thrust had no fuel made me tear up when the next shot showed her pounding and yelling at the control boards in silence in a  tiny capsule drowned  in the stillness of space.

I wondered: How many setbacks does it take to break a human?

In  contrast to Ryan’s damaged character, Matt was a happy and optimistic guy who was resilient in the face of difficulty and  the source of encouragement for Ryan throughout her journey . The movie showed me the fragility and strength of the human spirit at the same time. Yes, we can easily demise in the dangerous and inhospitable conditions of space. But as humans, our will to live can give us courage and drive to use our ingenuity to break through impossible barriers and survive the most threatening situations.

No matter what challenging obstacle we are going through right now – the loss of a family member, a setback in our career, or just the daily hurt and frustrations life throws at us –  we have to keep going.

Like Ryan’s tumultuous journey back to Earth, I think life is also a series of obstacles that you either find ways to overcome or give up and disappear into the darkness. No matter what you choose,  “either way, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”

Life is a gift and a curse. Nobody will go through it unscathed. Like the quote said “You can either let setbacks define you, destroy you, or strengthen you.”

Ryan in the end was able to forgive herself over her daughter’s death with the encouragement from Matt in her unconsciousness , and chose to return to Earth alive with a new perspective on life.