Two Thoughts on Life

Robert Redford and Rob Reiner were two of my favorite actors turned directors.  They both passed away in the last 4 months of  2025 and as a result I've been thinking about them and their work.  Yesterday, quite by accident, a movie quote popped into my mind.  I could not place the movie at first, so I googled it and soon this scene was on my phone.

 

 

This quote from The Natural, although said to Redford's Roy Hobbs rather than by him,   informs and leads  the protagonist to the decisions that makes up the film's climax.

Thinking of Redford naturally made me think of Reiner. Thinking of Reiner led to thinking of the Princess Bride, which led me to this brief scene.  

In reviewing the context of both of these scenes, the hard fact that life is painful cannot be denied.   Both characters were denied (albeit temporarily)  true love due to circumstances beyond their control. The quotes are both delivered to their respective true loves when at each point of the film a happily ever after doesn't seem to be in the cards.  

Hope and bitterness both carry transformative powers.  The concept of hope in the line "the life you learn with, and the life you live with" says to me, yes life is pain, but much like pain you endure in a fire swamp you can learn from that pain.  Thinking that life is only pain can create a bitterness that is hard to overcome.  I am glad  that the 4 characters depicted in these scenes found their happy endings.  When I think of Redford and Reiner and all the stories they told through their acting and directing, it makes me sad that their lives have ended (especially in the tragic way Reiner's ended ) but glad that I am still learning about life through their work.