Lessons on Life from Puss n Boots — The Last Wish
My wife and I recently took our seven year old son to see the Dreamworks movie Puss n Boots — The Last Wish. An artistic spin off from the catalog of Shrek films of the 2000’s. This cartoonesque film was well written with engaging characters, humorous dialogue and a storyline that threw a surprising gut punch to my heart.
The short version to Puss n Boots quandary was learning he was on the last of his nine cat lives. No do overs, no time outs, no extra takes; just a talking cat learning to face his own feline mortality. Quite literally confronting death face to face and experiencing the fear of the Grim Reaper dressed in wolf’s clothing.
Puss n Boots did not take his initial conversation with Death well. After a very brief dose of milk infused machismo, Puss n Boots yells defiantly “Fear me if you dare,” before battling death only to discover THIS opponent is different. This is an opponent that cannot be defeated. Puss n Boots experiences fear for the first time in any of his nine lives. The type of fear that raises the hair on the back of your neck, or in Puss n Boots case, raised fur all over his body. Death is an opponent that even the heroic Puss n Boots cannot defeat. To merely survive, he ran away to hide from Death. A heroic life now minimized to breathing instead of living.
Like Puss n Boots, death will come for all of us. What we do with our life is that difference between just breathing and living. Similar to Puss n…
