THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

MOVIE- KNOWLEDGE AT WORK

‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ is a 2006 American biographical drama film, directed by Gabriele Muccino and based on the true story of Chris Gardner. In ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, Chris Gardner is a smart man who invests in a devise that is now finding trouble to find its place due to emergence of other technologies. Despite his valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, the mother of his five-year-old son Christopher buckles under the financial pressure and leaves. Chris, now a single father, continues doggedly to pursue a better-paying job using every sales skill he knows. He lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm with no salary but only with hopes of a promising future. Due to the lack of money, Chris and his son are soon evicted from their apartment and forced to sleep in shelters, bus stations, bathrooms, or wherever they can find refuge for the night. Despite his troubles, Chris continues to be a loving and caring father, using the affection and trust his son has for him as a pushing force. Various knowledge issues can be seen in the film.
The knowledge issue dealt with here is the war between emotion and reason. Various emotions are involved when you are dealing with life. Chris goes through fear due to his financial troubles, jealousy of people with wonderful lives, sadness, love and then finally happiness. The movie in many forms is didactic. It teaches that that all hard work shall seek its rewards but in a theory of knowledge context, of how in the battle of reason and emotion, for happiness, reason should be a driving force. The root cause of all his troubles, the device known as the bone density scanner, was a judgement based on emotion. It was what everyone told him was the ‘in’ thing. Letting his emotions get the best of him, Chris did not reason out the evolution of life. Everything changes with time. Emotion led him to financial distress, reason leads him to happiness.
The way to reach knowledge is also one of the knowledge issues of the film. Experiences play a major role in informing Chris. Initially when emotion over rules him, all the knowledge Chris has is second hand through hearing what other people say. However as reason takes over him, he observes and talks to a stockbroker on the street and thus receives firsthand knowledge. First hand experiences of Chris develop him to be what he is even in his personal life.
‘I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was’.
His experiences with his father taught him to be there for his son. His son too became his source of determination through which Chris gained the strength to continue with the difficult task of living and surviving. The relationship that they share is built on understanding. Chris’ own experiences allow him to pass invaluable knowledge on to his son.
‘Christopher Gardner: Hey... Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.
Christopher Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.’
Thus one can conclude that the major knowledge at work issue is the struggle to succeed economically and personally. Reason and emotion is a contrast on which the success depends on. However in the movie we can see that money being is shown as the only way to achieve happiness. This is a bias. We see Chris with his son all the time smiling and laughing. Although he is with his son he is saying he is not happy is not ethical as family and love is what leads to happiness. The movie does take for granted the importance of money, cars and a lifestyle for happiness. It does not explore simple living as a happy living. This granted fact leads to the movie have a very fairy tale appearance which at the end of the day is not reality. In the sense, an unhappy man due to his hard work, succeeds and becomes very happy. This is not the truth. Even though there is a clear bias of only money leading to happiness, in the movie we so see the importance of both being shown
The struggle to achieve success economically and personally is the desire of any human alive. However the role of reason and emotion is very important. The movie serves to remind people to think with reason rather than emotions. Something that is very much needed to be understood in our society.