Life of Pi

“And so it goes with God.”

This is the line that Pi ends his story with, as his listener decides that a story which requires faith is worth believing in. There’s power in this concept — and as the film ends, we’re left pondering which story to believe as opposed to stuck hopelessly gathering facts. This seems to be a central thesis to ‘Life of Pi’ — that there are bigger things at play in this world than the present or the past.

There’s a possibility that fiction might be more real (and more honest) than reality.

A second important lesson of ‘Life of Pi’: In the midst of the most extreme and profane tragedy one can imagine, life is still beautiful. When all is lost, the world is still grand.

This is a lesson I think we could learn much from.

So many of the most beautiful moments of the film show Pi as nothing more than a speck in a sea of eternal blackness, filled with equally sized specks of ghostly light. Is it the ocean we’re looking at, or the universe? Maybe it’s both. In either case, Pi is taking part in something much larger than himself.

Each shot seems to suggest that if at any moment our protagonist were to die, it would be both an extreme loss on a microscopic level and an event too small to note on a macroscopic one. The ocean’s nature is to swallow up an entire ship without fanfare — and the world moves on.

Maybe God was speaking to Pi through his experience. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Pi learned something from it all. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe you’ll consider the profound as you listen to it all. Maybe you won’t.

And so it goes with God.