Shawshank and Hope

So, after so many of my friends on FB and in general have picked The Shawshank Redemption as one of their favorite movies of all time, we decided to buy it on PPV last night. Wow, what a film. Raw and uncompromising in many areas and not an endorsement of the prison systems during the period. That being said, it is an amazing story, well written, well acted, directed and the cinematography was amazing. I have always liked Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins as actors (though I wish Tim would shut up about his politics.) Both did a stellar job in this movie.
If you have not seen it, or have not seen it recently, obvoiusly highly recommend it.

What I took as the core message from the film was the theme of "hope." I won't ruin it for you, but essentially The TR character "Andy" believes in hope as his salvation and the MF character Red feels that Hope is something that is a killer in Prison, especially to lifers as both of them are.

Hope is something that in my opinion that you have to hold on to, no matter what "they" tell you. Life without hope really is not living, it's more like dieing. Your vision of hope can change. You can always hope for something else.

With ALS, it seems like the first thing the Neurologists try to do is take hope away. They are the MF character. Not antagonistic, often very kind, very "understanding." They don't "wish" this on you. But they don't offer hope either. The TR character Andy knows that deep within him, no matter what happens to him (and boy do some awful things happen to him) he knows that there is a place that they can't touch, and that is his hope.

So let's all try to not lose that!

Peace,
B.