Batman Begins: 3 Lessons Learnt
There is no other superhero character as motivating as the Batman (the Nolan one). Batman is probably the only superhero who is more about the strength of his mind than the strength of his body or skills. What is it that I derive from the movie?
Note that this is also more of a “note to self”, than about preaching these lessons.
- Failure is inevitable.
“Why do we fall, Bruce? “
Falling (here, failing) has been seen frequently in the movie, both literally and figuratively. As a kid, he falls deep down in a pit and has to face a swarm of bats. That is when his father rescues him and in a very subtle manner, gives him a life changing lesson — he indeed talks about Bruce ‘falling’ down, but what he really talks about is — failure. In the second half of the movie, Bruce’s entire house is burned down by the antagonists, leaving him shattered. In a scene where he is going down in the elevator, heavily injured, physically and mentally, with the Bruce Manor burning and falling apart, Bruce expresses that he has failed Gotham. The wise butler, Alfred, reminds him of his father’s words — “Why do we fall, Sir?
Failure is indeed inevitable. You might go all in on a new venture and lose everything. You might apply to a dozen companies and get accepted by none. You might fail miserably in maintaining relations with people that matter to you most. You might be at all the right places at all the right time and may still end up messing up everything.
But, “why do we fall, Bruce?”
So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.
2. We always fear something that we do not understand:
This particular line comes at a point where Bruce has to meet the underworld mafia — Falcone (who murders the person convicted for the murder of Bruce’s parents). He talks about the “power of fear” and the fact the you’ll always fear what you don’t understand.
The movie shows us how a person trying to fight his true and greatest fears (while blaming these fears for his parents’ death) embraces them and turns them into his own identity as Batman. The story is not about “defeating” fears — you’ll never see Batman blasting around all the bat-caves in Gotham and wrecking havoc on the bats . He instead becomes fully aware of his fears, embraces them, and turns the ‘bat’ into a symbolic figure — it still stands for fear, but is now directed towards the criminals in the city.
Life is nothing but new experiences. We will always have the fear of losing, fear of failing, fear of being alone or the fear of being pushed into the crowd. We must face our fears. Facing doesn’t necessary mean jumping off a cliff if you have a fear of heights. Channeling your fears can make you do new things and experience much more than you would do otherwise.
When you are going to fear what you don’t understand, go ahead and make sure you do!
3. Actions > Intentions
We all like to believe of ourselves as good human beings. Our actions often get justified in our own eyes because hey I am a good person deep down you know! There are indeed instances where you will be filled with negative emotions, of frustration, envy and anger. It is not easy to escape these feelings of course, it is but natural. You will envy the success of someone else, sometime in your life. But how you choose to express and act upon these feelings makes all the difference.
It is not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.
Thank you Mr. Nolan :)
