Years ago, I responded to a friend’s Facebook recommendation to see Eat, Pray, Love. She said the film gave her interesting food for thought. (Other reviews said it was “heartwarming” and “enlightening.”)

The tagline for Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love is “One Woman’s Search For Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.” The idea of searching for everything intrigued me.

When the film ended, I felt a little sick and deeply sad in ways I still can’t describe.

Maybe I expected something akin to Born Free or Sound of Music. I sent a puzzled, private inquiry, “OK, so I just have to ask why she loved the film so much.

She shared…

I suppose because some of the things [Gilbert] struggled with are things that I struggle with. It resonated on a lot of levels, unfortunately. I don’t agree with the choices she made. I don’t endorse her actions. Also, I have been awakened to the reality that there are all sorts of cultures and lifestyles out there that are foreign to me…. I have grown up extremely myopic and, although I’m thankful for where I live and how I was raised, the sheltering, etc., there is a whole world out there that I know nothing about. And there are beautiful people in those places…. I’ve had the confusing experience of being loved and accepted by people who aren’t [of my faith], and some would say it’s been corruptive. I’ve also had the experience of being unloved and not accepted by [those who are considered] most pious. Those experiences have left me at an interesting point in my journey. I have no desire to be the judgmental, rigid, critical person I once was, yet I can’t divorce myself from the beliefs I’ve always cherished. Quite frankly, the internal conflict is rather disconcerting. On any given day I feel paralyzed because I don’t feel like I belong anywhere, can’t go back, am too scared to go forward…and that my friend is most of the story.

I, too, could relate to Gilbert on every level—and have actually walked down the same path to a certain degree—leaving a husband, exploring culture and various religions during college. Thinking anyone and everyone was nicer than the religious people I knew.

It’s no small point that Gilbert’s journey of self discovery was paid for in advance by a book deal. She had to know that questions are worth a fortune. No one pays money for answers.

I understand a desire to see a bigger picture. To revisit and test assumptions.

I remember doing things my closest peers would consider blatantly rebellious and daring anyone to judge me, as I’m sure they did, and then judging them back—and later realizing I had no business determining what I did or didn’t do or believe based on what I thought others were or weren’t thinking about me.

We perceive our beliefs to be safe spaces, but they aren’t always. Deconstruction is all the rage these days, but it’s nothing new. I don’t know anyone who holds genuine personal beliefs who hasn’t deconstructed and reconstructed to some extent. I certainly did and have continued to do so throughout most of my life.

I’ve also tended to circle back and pick up pieces of notions and beliefs I discarded along the way after recognizing they weren’t all wrong or bad. We’re each a product of the culture we’re raised in. We can step away, but we never stop responding and reacting to that cultural imprint within us.

There’s a great tension between those who regard deconstruction as going backward and those who see it as going forward.

What is “going forward” anyway? We constantly discover new things and develop new language to communicate those discoveries. We call what we embrace good and what we reject bad. Self-discovery becomes an end in itself and the process of that discovery a “journey.”

What did Gilbert really gain in the end?

Something else.

In my estimation, that is all.

That’s all there is if you leave one thing for another.

Something else.

Cultures and lifestyles may differ, but people’s emotions and aspirations are largely the same wherever you go. People on every continent feel a deep sense of need to look for something else.

And that’s all they find.

Something else.

What does it mean to be myopic? We all only see what we see. If you leave your husband and travel the world and eat delicious food and see sights and hear sounds and experience every emotion under the rainbow, are you really less myopic than someone who grows up happy and contented with the husband or wife of their youth in their hometown surrounded by friends and family and a few dogs and cats?

I’ve met some beautiful, loving, generous people like that. Are they myopic or simply enjoying their own something?

For all the enlightenment Gilbert claimed while on her path of self-discovery, she still needed a crooked-toothed, grinning guru to explain to her the obvious in the end, and he seemed as stunned by that as I was.

Throughout the film, truth for Gilbert was constantly redefined by what she felt or experienced in the moment as well as by where, when, and who was telling her something was true. That seems myopic to me.

Refusing to commit to anything for fear of missing out on everything—FOMO—doesn’t prevent us from still missing out on a good many things. Every choice, every experience precludes another.

We’re always just one person…

in one place…

doing one thing…

at one time.

That’s something.

My takeaway from the film is that something else isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

#elizabethgilbert #eatpraylove #moviereview