I want to believe

Last night, as is our tradition, Sarah got to choose dinner and what we watched; she was the one, after all, who had performed. She choose any old episode of The West Wing, and after much discussion about all the wonderful options, we settled on "Let Barlet Be Bartlet." At the end of that episode, there's a great moment in which the president finally stops playing it safe and decides to pursue his ideals. It made me tear up, but not from sadness; the scene just deeply touched me.

That reaction set me to thinking, and I realized that there are many moments in art that affect me powerfully enough to bring a few tears to my eyes, even though I am a man who doesn't know how to cry. Some of them, of course, move me because they tie in some way to my life. Many, though, simply hit me hard without having any particular connection to me. A few from movies, off the top of my head and in no particular order, should serve to illustrate that second group:

* James Earl Jones' "they will come" speech on the bleachers in Field of Dreams

* Michael Douglas' speech at the end of The American President

* In L.A. Story Steve Martin's musings about magic and love as he stands at the window in the storm near the end of the film

* Multiple points at the end of Love, Actually

You can certainly accuse me of a certain sappiness and vulgar sentimentality, and I'd have to plead at least somewhat guilty, but I think there's more going on than that. I think these and other scenes touch me because I want to believe, I want to believe in getting over your fear and pursuing your ideals, in a dream touching everyone who comes into contact with it, in fighting for what you believe even if it costs you enormously, in love so powerful that it can bring on storms and affect compasses, in love being so pervasive and so powerful that humanity will always have hope because of it. I want to try to live a life worthy of those desires, though I mostly fail at it, and I want to deliver some of those moments in my fiction, though I mostly fail at that, too.

I want to believe.

I hope I always will.