The man who stopped expecting anything from life

Inspired by the film The Magic of Belle Isle — about withdrawing from life, and the small interruptions that can draw us back into it

The other night, I found myself endlessly scrolling on Netflix, looking for a thumbnail to jump out and break the boredom¹. After what felt like forever, I ended up watching the 2012 movie The Magic of Belle Isle.

Look, no one’s going to claim this is a serious film. It’ll hardly show up in director Rob Reiner’s “must see” collection. Honestly, I can’t even believe it was the one that won over the hundreds of (better?) options! But I did watch it, and wouldn’t you know it, something stuck and no, it wasn’t the plot.

It was the image of a man who had stopped expecting anything from life.

Monte Wildhorn, played by Morgan Freeman, is a writer who arrives in a small lakeside town with a bottle, a wheelchair, a bad mood, and no great interest in being restored. He is not looking for transformation. He’s definitely not trying to begin again. He seems like he’s simply waiting out the rest of his days with as little disturbance as possible.

It’s that image that got to me. I thought about how easy it would be to drift in that direction — you know, checked out of one’s life, no longer expecting life to offer any surprises. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I suspect it’s more common than we might think.

• • •

I think people end up withdrawing from life in different ways. Some are dramatic — something monumental happens, a lifequake as Bruce Feiler might say², and we get thrown off our axis. We retreat for a bit, hide in our hole. But then a week becomes a month becomes a year, and before long, it’s become the norm.

But I suspect it isn’t usually the dramatic that pulls us into a hole. Or rather, it’s not ONLY the dramatic that could land us in a hole. We could get there too through the seemingly unremarkable, the weight of ordinary days, in succession, one after the other.

Signs that someone’s withdrawn from their life will often be clear and evident, as was the case with Monte. Anyone can see them “giving up” — bitterness, or boredom, or resignation. I think the danger zone is when it’s not as obvious… when checking out looks like one’s simply being “realistic”, or wanting peace and quiet, or telling oneself they’ve already had their turn.³

When we confuse being tired with being finished. And we don’t even realize we’ve stopped expecting life to surprise us.

It’s easy to fall into a hole and not even realize we’re in one.

• • •

Some years ago, I got myself in some nasty negative spiral. My life didn’t feel like it was working the way I wanted it to, and making any effort to right things felt like asking too much. It was easier to crawl into a cave and hide from the world. The pantry was stocked with bags of tortilla chips and jars of cheese dips. Time to hunker down. In my case, it lasted barely a week. My roommate at that time refused to live with a cave dweller. And to this day, I still wonder, whatever would have happened if she hadn’t pushed and pulled me out of the apartment to rejoin the world.

• • •

The movie does have an upbeat ending; it is a Rob Reiner film after all.

In the film, Monte begins to wake up again through small interruptions: a neighbor expecting him to attend a wake, a child with an inconvenient question, a stubborn dog that isn’t even his technically, an interesting story request.

Nothing grand happens. There isn’t one single thing that pushes him out the door. Just tiny moments and slow inconveniences of being needed, noticed, and pulled back into relation with the world.

Reiner makes it look too tidy for real life. Climbing out of a hole can be the most difficult, most vulnerable thing a person might ever have to do in their lifetime. Sometimes, that’s reason enough to stay in the hole to begin with.

But as Hallmark-esque as it is, Reiner’s ending reminds me that we can find our way out — usually. The world throws us ropes every now and again to get us out of holes, though they may not always be obvious and are easily overlooked. And of course, finding the rope is just the first step. One actually has to grab it and make the laborious climb out.

Life is remarkably persistent; it keeps inviting us in, if we are still willing to pay attention.

✴️ I’d love to hear from you:

Have you ever gone through a season where you realized, in hindsight, that you'd quietly withdrawn from life? Or has a book, film, conversation, or unexpected encounter ever nudged you back toward it?

Talk soon,
Lou Blaser

1. Did you know that Netflix often generates multiple variations of this artwork for a single movie (what they call "artwork personalization"). Instead of showing everyone the exact same promotional poster, their algorithm displays an image tailored to your viewing history. For example, if you watch a lot of romance movies, your thumbnail might highlight a love triangle, while someone who watches action might see an image of the main hero.

2. NYT best-selling author, Bruce Feiler coined the term “lifequake” in his 2020 book, Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age. Lifequakes are events that redefine how we think about and derive meaning from our lives. They’re so significant that there was life before the event and life after.

3. Oddly enough, I'm currently reading The Quitters Club by Jessica Strawser, and one of its characters has begun reminding me of Monte. At first, her friends thought she’s simply grieving the loss of a loved one. Only later did they wonder whether she quietly stopped participating in life altogether.

Lou Blaser exchanged PowerPoint decks for essays and has yet to regret the trade. She writes Shaping Life, where she follows her curiosity through books, conversations, films, and whatever else refuses to leave her alone.

Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying Shaping Life, consider becoming a supporting subscriber or sharing it with someone who might enjoy it too.