There’s more to life! Keep Watching
Posted by wisdomtree on December 30, 2008
You have spent more time on the tree than on solid ground
There’s more to you than this obsession
- Tom Fairchild in Sabrina (1995)
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Sabrina (1995) is the story of Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of the Larrabee family chauffeur.The Larrabees are a wealthy and own a family business. While she was growing up, Sabrina Fairchild (played by Julia Ormond) spends more time perched in a tree, not just watching the Larrabee family but dreaming of David Larrabee falling in love with her.
For most of her life Sabrina was invisible behind the branches and spending her life lost in her fantasy. For the Larrabees (most importantly for David), Sabrina is just a daughter of the chauffeur.
As she is heart broken when her dream shatters into a thousand pieces, Tom Fairchild (her father) tells her (and us): ” You have spent more time on the tree than on solid ground”. How Insightful and perceptive! We follow our dreams, even if they are unrealistic. We are lost in our fantasy and we forget to live. It’s easy to get lost in a fantasy. But, when we come down crashing it hurts and we get broken inside. Tom Fairchild’s words come to us as the voice of truth. We must let go our fantasy and get on in life. There’s more to life than our fantasies. There’s more to us than our obsessions.
Sabrina finds life as she let’s go her fantasy and moves to Paris where she learns precious life-lessons standing on solid ground. Interestingly, the ordinary Sabrina returns to the Larrabee estate as a mature person.
Questions for reflection
1) why is it easy to be lost in the dream world? Why is it difficult to let go our obsessions even if they hurt us?
2) What does it take to realize that there’s more to life than our obsession? Is there value then in our crash-landing experiences?
3) It hurts to let go our obsessions, and more so if we have lived with them for a long time. We look for answers in the familiar and the immediate. Is an escape to somewhere a solution? What do you think Paris did for Sabrina?
4) Tom Fairchild becomes the voice of truth to Sabrina. Truth hurts. When we become the voice of truth, we are often ruthless and we end of truthless. Tom Fairchild is gentle, compassionate and respectful. How do you think this helped Sabrina in her transformation?
