I’m unsure what’s in the air, but talks of UFOs are all over. After taking a University course about life in the Universe, I, without a doubt, believe that aliens exist. The Universe is ancient and vast. There’s also so much of it that remains unseen or undiscovered by humanity–it would be ignorant to dismiss the existence of life beyond Earth. If life on Earth could progress to be what it is today, what’s to say that life on other planets (outside this Solar System) could not do the same?
Recently, I got the opportunity to watch the 2016 film, The Arrival, featuring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this silly little alien movie would leave me contemplating life as we know it.
(If you haven’t seen the film, stop here. This article will contain spoilers–lots of them. While I am someone who despises spoilers, I promise you, it’s absolutely necessary here.)
The film is set on Earth and follows humanity after twelve oddly-shaped spacecrafts land in different locations on Earth. While the arrival of these aliens creates fear among the masses, they make no move to harm anyone. Instead, they attempt to communicate with humanity. The US government enlists the help of Dr. Louise Banks, a Linguistics Professor in a dark place, who is grieving the loss of her late daughter. Through the course of the film, Louise, a physicist named Ian, and their respective teams, successfully communicate with the aliens or “heptapods”.Â
Ready for the cool spoiler? Here it is: Louise learns of the heptapods’ purpose on Earth. They have come to bestow a great weapon (or gift) upon humanity in hopes that humanity can assist them in 3000 years when they’ll need it. After racking her brain trying to figure out what this gift could be, Louise realizes that it’s the ability to see time as the heptapods see it, with the past, present, and future converging all at once, at any given moment. It’s not necessarily foresight or the ability to only see the future, it’s the ability to live in all these different moments at once.Â
With this gift, Louise knows that she will fall in love and wed Ian, the physicist she has been working with. They will have a daughter who will bring them the greatest joy and then ultimately the greatest loss. (This is the daughter that she was grieving at the beginning of the film.) Even knowing of her fate and the unimaginable pain in her future, Louise chooses to embark on the complicated journey–accepting the grief that wreaks havoc in her mind to experience the fleeting moments of love, happiness, and beauty with the loves of her life.
Near the end of the film, she asks Ian, “If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?” to which he answers that he doesn’t really know what he would do (Wikiquote)… When she posed the question in the film, I thought of my answer in real life.
For starters, I don’t know how I would feel if I saw time like the heptapods, knowing how my whole life would play out and experiencing it all at once. On one hand, we see time linearly right now and it’s scary in its own way–not knowing what may lay ahead of you. On the other hand, imagine knowing exactly what lies ahead of you–all the good and the bad–but also, the way time plays out, it wouldn’t technically lay ahead. You would experience time in a way that’s unfathomable to us…Â
I admire Louise for being able to choose beauty and pain over the absence of it all. To answer her question, no. If I could see the entirety of my life, I would not change a thing. I have faith that everything I’ve experienced was meant to get me right here. I have absolutely no idea what my future holds but I have a feeling that at the end of it all, when I’m annoyingly old, I’ll have no regrets.Â
What’s your answer?Â
(If you haven’t already seen The Arrival (2016), this is your sign to give it a go.)