One of my guilty pleasures is TikTok. I download it when I go on holiday and delete it when I get home (or at least that’s what I tell myself). I suspect that I’ve seen the entirety of most movies in 15 second increments at this point, but one TikTok movie clip in particular stands out. It’s a scene from Shall We Dance where Susan delivers a monologue to her husband.
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."
That line struck a chord with something I have believed for a long time and have always tried to live by.
When we reflect on our lives, it’s not the things we did that we remember, but the people we did them with.
Maybe Susan was a narcissist and the writer was offering a commentary on our egoistic tendencies. I’m not sure that’s the case though. I think we all see a bit of ourselves in Susan. We’ve all texted a friend to tell them good news or secretly delighted that our family attended our awards ceremony. We all want to share our lives, and be included in the lives of others. Because in the end, what else do we have?