{"id":1687,"date":"2017-03-13T07:31:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T07:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2017-03-13T07:31:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T07:31:06","slug":"memory-and-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html","title":{"rendered":"Memory and optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Playing the Men in Black theme song back to back with Sting\u2019s Fields of Gold is an interesting juxtaposition. It impressed me with a theme of memory. How there is negative stuff in memory, but how it can be wiped clean, to bring a whole new outlook, like walking in fields of gold. Negative memory is a dish best wiped clean.<\/p>\n<p>The Men in Black theme song, sung by Will Smith in 1997, encapsulates the Men in Black movie theme. In sum, it says all the \u201cbad stuff\u201d gets processed through the memory. But those memories can get wiped clean. It\u2019s forgotten. It\u2019s no longer a problem. The best one hopes for, when the bad stuff has gone is a brighter outlook on the future like Sting\u2019s Fields of Gold, a beautiful, brave new way of looking at life. Certainly, many Hollywood endings leave us with such optimism.<\/p>\n<p>Negative memories may haunt older people more than younger ones. What\u2019s an older person to do with negative memories? Can negative memories be wiped clean or is that wishful thinking? Is the brave new outlook of Fields of Gold a fantasy for older people? Certainly, it can get harder dealing with negative memories when getting older, but that does not mean that negative memories can\u2019t be a thing of the past and stay in the past. Movies like Men and Black and the optimism of the Hollywood ending challenge viewers to see the world afresh. So according to those, there is a way towards a brighter horizon.<\/p>\n<p>This means there is always hope\u2014when those negative memories surface. This matters because we can deal with our present so much better without the nagging, niggling memories from the past. Men in Black and the optimistic Hollywood ending import those ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Playing the Men in Black theme song back to back with Sting\u2019s Fields of Gold is an interesting juxtaposition. It impressed me with a theme of memory. How there is negative stuff in memory, but how it can be wiped clean, to bring a whole new outlook, like walking in fields of gold. Negative memory&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":602,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,325,318],"tags":[6,26,34,46,8,10,54,141,374,375,12],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-emotional","category-practical","tag-action-movies","tag-change","tag-connect","tag-existentialism","tag-film","tag-film-commentaries","tag-freedom","tag-hollywood","tag-memory","tag-optimism","tag-second-chance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Memory and optimism - Life at the Movies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Memory and optimism - Life at the Movies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Playing the Men in Black theme song back to back with Sting\u2019s Fields of Gold is an interesting juxtaposition. It impressed me with a theme of memory. How there is negative stuff in memory, but how it can be wiped clean, to bring a whole new outlook, like walking in fields of gold. Negative memory&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Life at the Movies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-13T07:31:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"pveugelaers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@peteswriting\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Memory and optimism - Life at the Movies","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Memory and optimism - Life at the Movies","og_description":"Playing the Men in Black theme song back to back with Sting\u2019s Fields of Gold is an interesting juxtaposition. It impressed me with a theme of memory. How there is negative stuff in memory, but how it can be wiped clean, to bring a whole new outlook, like walking in fields of gold. Negative memory&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html","og_site_name":"Life at the Movies","article_published_time":"2017-03-13T07:31:06+00:00","author":"pveugelaers","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@peteswriting","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html","name":"Memory and optimism - Life at the Movies","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-03-13T07:31:06+00:00","dateModified":"2017-03-13T07:31:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/#\/schema\/person\/130d91946aab7658f3eb78312dec28a9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/2017\/03\/memory-and-optimism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Memory and optimism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/","name":"Life at the Movies","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Peter Veugelaers","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/#\/schema\/person\/130d91946aab7658f3eb78312dec28a9","name":"pveugelaers","description":"I\u2019m a blogger, and writer for faith-based, mainstream, and alternative publications, in the form of articles, inspiration, and film reviews and commentaries. I enjoy catching up with sport, listening to music, buying a coffee, and keeping an eye on current events. First \u2018awesome\u2019 movie moment was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Amadeus, first \u2018serious\u2019 film. A 3 star rating out of 5 stars is above average from me.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.peteswriting.wordpress.com","https:\/\/x.com\/peteswriting"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/author\/pveugelaers"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1688,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lifeatthemovies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}