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ShareFirmness, that's it? No, it's far more than that. Determination is a live volcano of self-belief that surges ahead, reducing to ashes all impediments in the way, until one has achieved one's aim. Every individual has something that he strongly believes in and behind it, he has a torrent called determination as a back-up. Whether it is the star quarterback making a winning run with determination in his eyes or the final move that will end a game of chess and trap the king in checkmate, one has to be determined about anything.
To that end, my father, an aficionado of British films, exhorted me to see two films based on true stories. Not once, but many times over. Each time I saw them, he would ask me to review the films and explain what struck me as outstanding. Soon, the films got etched in my memory, indelibly.
The first was David Lynch's 1980 film The Elephant Man based on the life of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London. Merrick's life is meticulously traced (of course, the film takes many liberties with facts to up the emotional quotient), from being born in a poor family, riled and ridiculed, to meeting his saviour, Dr Frederick Treves, until he becomes a favourite of the Victorian upper-class. Through thick and thin, negotiating relentless lampoons, Merrick never loses the will to live.
The second film is director Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown. This is a 1989 drama based on the life of Christy Brown, an Irishman with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Like Joseph Merrick is supported by Dr Treves, Brown is egged on to fight his incapacities by his mother and later by Dr Robert Collis. Brown outgrows his deformity to become a worthy writer, poet and artist. The cornerstone of both Academy Award-winning films is one: be determined and you can achieve; relinquish your grip on life and you are finished.
Without the determination to succeed, giving up when a situation seems impossible to overcome becomes second nature. That's what my father warned. Grab life by the horns, he said. Learn to harden with the roadblocks, decimate them as you soldier on. Always remember what Winston Churchill said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts."
