“Left behind”...  not only on Mars!

The Martian...

A popular movie...

A good book...

But is it more than just entertainment?  

What about the story giving you direction in your collapsing world?

Relating to any probem you might be forced into.

A movie can do this?

Before a personal crisis changed my world, my son had seen the movie and encouraged me to do it.  But I’m pretty careful with my finances (also called cheap), so I just got on the waiting list at the library to see it for free.

I was about number 92 on the list!

And I was busy with other circumstances.

But all of a sudden, I was surprised to see the movie had come in for me!   I have no clue how I bumped all the others!

And I took time out to watch it.    

Not knowing that I would then refer to it day after day... just to keep on going.

The Martian

The story is about an astronaut to Mars whose team is in an emergency situation and thinking he is dead they take off and leave him on the lonely planet.

So what does he do?

The lead character is Mark Watney.  

Another lead character...

Compare this to the the lead character in my personal story... as I was also left behind, in a way, when my husband died.  But since I am on another planet, the title of my story would be “The Earthian”, I guess!

Granted, “Earthian” is not as romatic as the sound of “Martian”.  It sounds more like a burp.

Anyway... on with the story.

Our hero...

Now Astronaut Mark Watney is a cute kind of guy.  Not like the “larger than life” heroes, John Wayne or Superman.  I couldn’t have related to them.

And I can’t swear like Watney does - although it seems appropriate to do so in his situation.  This is not because I don’t know the words... I’ve slipped on too many manure piles on the farm.  But it’s because I’ve been trained in newspaper journalism and we can only use symbols to express frustration.  “#$%*”!”

Also, I love Watney’s wry sense of humor... that helps you keep on going too.

 Keeping on...

I have corresponded with the author, Andy Weir, to express my appreciation for his lead character’s ability to keep on struggling.  It was helping me.

So I used Watney’s slogan... “You just do the math and solve the problem... and then on to the next problem and solve that problem.  And solve the next problem too.  And if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”

I wasn’t very good at math so this scared me a bit.  But I could do the next step - take one thing at a time.

Although one day I tried to organize too many “problems” and was overwhelmed.  

But I had Mark Watney in my mind and I settled down to just handle one issue at a time.

Progress...

And I figured that I was making progress when I could feel sorry for Watney because he was all alone... and I had friends and family around.

And my faith.

And now I found some other symbols that I can use -

                              :)♥☀♫★