I discovered this evening that the Cohen Brothers ripped off several elements of their movie The Hudsucker Proxy from Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. I discovered this by watching the latter and finding unmistakable similarities to the former. Hudsucker is one of my favorite movies, so this bothered me at first. Then I concluded that the Cohen Brothers' movie is still highly original, despite having borrowed shamelessly. I think I like it all the better for having discovered that Cohen and Cohen were Capra aficionados.

I spent five hours on Capra's voluminous autobiography today. Fascinating stuff. In those five hours I made it through only 120 pages out of 480. Boy, was it worth it. The man was immensely smart and gutsy, and the world he lived in was full of so much possibility in its desperate way. I think I'll relate just one little lesson of the many I've learned so far. One matter that's continually been on my mind for about a year now is the uncertainty of life. Not the uncertainty of my final destination, but how I'm supposed to get there. Five years ago everything seemed so obvious. One of Capra's comments rendered the matter clear. I don't have the book in front of me, and I don't remember where the quote was, but his basic jist was that the people happiest about doing a particular task are the utterly ignorant and the completely knowledgeable. Thus it strikes me that those who feel the most confident about all parts of life are probably ignorant humans and God Himself.

Over the past few years I've tossed around ideas for attending so many different grad schools - and for innumerable different plans of study. I felt so certain several times. Now I feel like a fool for feeling certain and being wrong.

The one unchanging bit of all this has been story-writing. Somehow, in some medium, I will be continuing to create stories.  ¶ 6:42 PM