Top Gun

One of my resolutions for 2024 is to binge a big list of movies I set up for myself. Right now it’s mostly major action franchises, with a few silly things here and there to prepare for some upcoming sequels (can I get an extra like from all my kung-fu panda fans?) One of those movies is the original top gun. Now, I had seen the sequel in theaters and had a good time with it. On top of that, my previous binge was the Mission Impossible movies, so I decided to continue the Tom Cruise binge. Before I get started, this movie is old, so this will have some spoiler-y content.If you haven’t seen it, you’ve been living under a rock next to me. I’m not sorry, but you have been warned. 

In case you haven’t seen it, Top Gun is a movie about two pilots who land a spot in the toughest school in the navy. During one of their tests, their plane’s engine blows up and they have to crash land. Except, one of them doesn’t survive the crash. Tom Cruise's friend winds up sacrificing his life to save him and he feels guilty. He wrestles with his guilt for a while and almost winds up giving up flying altogether. A bunch of investigation is done on the plane that crashed, and it turns out it just broke. It had nothing to do with him as a pilot or the decisions he made. Yet, he still feels guilty and takes responsibility for his friend’s death. 

It’s this sense of guilt that I can understand perfectly, and it tickles my brain. I don’t know if I understand it as someone responsible, someone who is a man, someone who cares about his friends, or all of the above, but I understand this feeling. Something in me demands results no matter what. Things must go a certain way, no if’s and’s or but’s, or I have failed. I don’t typically give myself much credit for meaning well or having a heart of gold. I have to dictate how events unfold. It’s the only thing that matters. 

This movie got me thinking: what is that feeling? I mean, sure! We don’t want harm to come to the people that we care about, but why is it so hard to accept that we aren’t masters of the universe? Why do we hold ourselves to the expectation that we are the ones who have to protect them? “If I had just done a little more!” We say to ourselves. We like to blame ourselves as if we had the power and simply misused it. 

I think there’s something to chew on, here. A lot of us are scared to think about our lack of control in the world. We are scared to embrace the humbling experience of not being able to be in charge all of the time. We pretend that we could have gotten it right because it’s too scary to try to believe that we are like tennis balls on the courts of life. I have had times where this fear has crippled me. I have tried to be more and do more. I have tried to keep hoarding more money, make wiser decisions, be better, do better. It’s an exhausting way to live. Too much responsibility is as much of a problem as too little of it. We need to find a middle ground. 

I have come to realize that all we can do is be wise with everything we have been given, and pray for the rest. Sometimes things still work out, even when you weren’t controlling them like you feel you should have. Sometimes a new door opens up as your only other one starts to shut. Sometimes you achieve the same ends through different means. We are like surfers on the waves of life. A surfer never controls the waves, he just chooses what to do with the ones that come his way. In that sense, we still have some control, but not all of it. All we have control over is ourselves.

We also have to give ourselves the grace to realize that even our best might not give us the results we want. I remember I didn’t have enough saved up when my last car broke down. I was angry. I thought I had more time, so I paced my next-car saving. I wasn’t ready to hear the news that I would need a whole new transmission! I started to get frustrated because I didn’t do more. But then I decided to stop and take a deep breath because there is nothing productive about beating yourself up about something that has already happened. Sure, there are consequences, and sometimes that’s all the punishment you need. Once I cleared my head, I took a good look at what I was going to do differently, and what I had learned from my adventures. I always try to do better, but I don’t beat myself up for the mistakes I made. 

I think it’s important to take the time to try to come to terms with our place in the world, and the power we don’t have over it. This is not done to belittle yourself, but to be able to firmly plant your feet on the grounds of reality, seeing life for what it really is. I do recommend taking this slow. It’s uncomfortable trying to stomach the idea that we aren’t all-powerful. It’s something I have had to work on for a while myself. I crave that sense of control. Part of it is living alone, part of it is my love of order and part of it is my obsessive need to fix all my problems. Ultimately, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I can’t control anything outside of how I react to life. It goes further than you’d think, but not quite as far as you’d like.

I pray this has encouraged you to better yourself, to see the world for what it is, and to find peace with your place within it. May you become a better person by the words of my hands.

Until next time

May peace be your guide.