Reflection on the Film “Tuesdays with Morrie”

The first time I watched Tuesdays with Morrie back then last semester, my usual nonchalant and stone-hearted self broke down in tears. I couldn’t explain why, but I just involuntarily cried. Perhaps it was just pent-up emotion. But on a deeper level, I knew the reason: I could relate to so many things in the film. When I saw it for the third time in our Philosophy class, I tried to view it on a slightly more analytical and less affected manner (even though I couldn’t stop sudden hidden bursts of emotion) since I knew there were topics discussed by Morrie to Mitch which were covered by our discussions in Philosophy of the Human Person I.

The last lessons taught by Morrie dealt with the fundamental yet often misunderstood or even feared things in life. One interesting thing in his discussions with Mitch was the line he repeatedly said: “If you know how to die, you’ll know how to live.” At first, it seemed to me as though it were contradictory to the phenomenological way of describing things – for how can one ever know how to die if he hasn’t experienced it yet? But after some reflection, I thought that perhaps Morrie, by saying “know how to die” meant that if we know that all our possibilities will end in the great even that death is (“know[ing] how to die”), we will strive to do our best daily – as if it were our last, as if we could hear that “bird on our shoulder.” I also liked Morrie’s emphasis on the importance of loving – for it is only in loving that we give ourselves freely to the other. And indeed, we must “love one another or die.” Ah, those words constantly ring in my head. I really saw myself in many personae in the film (sometimes the young Morrie, sometimes his father) but what’s important are the many lessons I’ve learned about living and loving. Every time I watch that movie, I tell myself: hey! Morrie’s more alive than I am