In the movie What Women Want, Mel Gibson plays an advertising executive who uses women cynically. As his boss remarks, he knows how to get what he wants from women, but he doesn’t know how women think. Gibson’s character can’t write ads for women, so his boss hires a woman, played by Helen Hunt, to create ads that will appeal to manufacturers of women’s products.
Meanwhile, Gibson falls in a bathtub with a hair dryer and is shocked into unconsciousness. When he wakes up, he can hear what women are thinking. It’s a funny film, and it’s surprisingly engaging, I think perhaps because it shares an element with other stories that have the power to engage and inspire us: a protagonist who learns difficult lessons and becomes more than he was. As Gibson’s character learns to see the world through women’s eyes, his heart begins to open, and he feels moved to offer his women co-workers his friendship and support.
Thinking about the film, I recalled my run last weekend, and I reflected on how much more satisfying the experience of expanding awareness is, than its mirror-image in movies and books.
I began the run feeling depressed and lethargic. I prayed, “I’m finding it hard to feel positive about much of anything in my life.” But I resolved that if inspiration and positive attitudes wouldn’t come, I would do my best to create them.
I thought of my friend Gary Fanelli. Gary is in his fifties now, and he’s still a high-level age group competitor, running the half-marathon in 1:13 and 10 miles under 55 minutes. Gary is famous for his positive attitude and off-beat sense of humor. In the 1970s, he would show up at races dressed in a Blues Brothers outfit. A photo of Gary in porkpie hat, shades, dress shirt, coat, tie, and running shorts appeared in Runner’s World. When sports psychologists studying positive attitudes in elite runners tested Gary, his scores were the highest they’d ever seen.
Ambling along, feeling depressed and directionless, I wondered how Gary manages to bring so much positive energy to his running. I decided it’s a question of perspective. Any experience can be positive, if we can understand at it from the right angle. I resolved to fight free of my somber mood and pour my best energy into enjoying the day. And, in His inimitable way, God decided to “help.”
I was running on Mt. Tamalpais. After stopping at the Pan Toll ranger station to fill my water bottles, I took a wrong turn and faced a decision: I could go straight up a long, incredibly steep, grassy hill or turn around and take the long way back to the trail.
Inching painfully up the slope, knee to nose, I panted with silent laughter, “Why are you doing this to me, God?” But the energy that I generated was the cure for my bum mood. Emerging onto the main trail, I felt renewed, my spirits restored.
The ridge above Pan Toll is one of the loveliest places on earth. Green meadows flow down over hillsides punctuated with evergreen and oak groves to the blue Pacific, 2000 feet below.
The ridgetop trails were wonderfully harmonious and serene. Couples were seated on rocky outcrops under windblown cypresses, absorbing the amazing views. On a grassy knoll, an Australian aborigine played a didgeridoo for friends sprawled in a circle on the grass.
I paused to take pictures with my little camera, then began the long descent through Pan Toll. I was wearing my heart monitor, and for the umpteenth time I was able to confirm that science, spirit, and the runner’s art are in accord. I kept my heart rate in the “harmony zone,” while I practiced inward prayers and let my heart open to nature’s welcoming arms. It was a lovely afternoon.
The four-mile descent was jarring, but with an easy pace and joyous mental attitude, I managed to stay in the harmony zone. I’m learning to respect the power of balance, the importance of finding the place inside where body and mind, feeling, will and soul coalesce.
Back to the movies. In the arts, it’s almost a sure thing, given adequate craftsmanship, that if the artist can make his creation expansive, human hearts will respond. We’re attracted to movies and books that show us paths to increasing awareness and joy, just as we’re attracted to sports heroes who point the direction of our own higher potential.
The way to get more happiness is by loving more, serving more, living with greater energy, growing in wisdom, letting go of petty self-importance, and embracing a greater Self. That’s the formula. How well it succeeds in the arts depends, in part, on the skill of the actors and directors, but much more on the wisdom of the artist.
Shakespeare must have expanded his heart, to be able to write about life’s great themes. Lesser authors may not be able to hold the same broad vision, but they can be expansive at their own level. An advertising executive learns to think like a woman, and by expanding his heart, becomes a better man.
