Mr Holland's Opus

I watched this 1995 movie a few times on flights between Sydney and Hong Kong a few years ago. It was an ordinary story about an ordinary person in an ordinary town.

Glenn Holland lived with his wife, Iris, in a small town. Glenn had a great passion in music. He always wanted to compose a remarkable piece of symphony that would make him rich and famous. In his late twenties, he took up a teaching position in music in a local high school, hoping that he could have some spare time to compose his masterpiece while being able to meet the financial needs of the family.
At first, Glenn thought he would only spend a few years in teaching before returning to his full-time composing. But as his teaching career started, he found he was confronted with groups of bored and unresponsive students unappreciative of music. In order to inspire the students to enjoy music as he did, he devoted much of his time demonstrating his own passion and knowledge in this subject to the students. He started patiently showing the students the common elements of popular music like rock and roll and classical music. He tried to arouse interests among the students so that they feel playing music was fun with various musical instruments, bands and concerts. He even spent extra hours mentoring students with difficulties in music and with musical instruments. Over time, he came to realize that he had to spend much more time than he thought before in teaching, leaving him little time in composing his symphony as he originally planned. Further to that, Iris became pregnant and later gave birth to their son, Cole. Glenn was forced to live with the reality to prolong his teaching life for necessary financial commitments to the family.
Years passed. Glenn met with constantly changing bodies of students, inspired many of his challenged and troubled pupils and enhanced the school music program with new marching bands, orchestras and performances. Unfortunately one day, their young son, Cole was diagnosed as having severe hearing difficulty. Glenn was devastated to hear the news that he could never teach the joys of music to his own child. He reacted passively by refusing to learn sign languages together with Iris to communicate with Cole, leaving Iris as the single person to maintain communications in the whole family. He even tried to get away from this reality by spending more and more time in school and with the students. During auditions for a music drama, Glenn became attracted to a young student named Rowena. Without Iris' knowing, Glenn wrote a small piece of music for her entitled 'Rowena's Theme' and took an interest when Rowena stated she wanted to leave town and go to the City to sing professionally. Glenn encouraged her. When Rowena planned to leave on the night after the last performance of the drama, she hinted that she would like Glenn to come with her. Being content with his love with Iris, Glenn was in time to withdraw and declined. Instead, he gave Rowena the name of someone in the City to help her find lodging. That night, he just watched Rowena depart, and went home.
Time further went along. One day Glenn heard the news from the radio that one of the Beatles, John Lennon, was killed by gunshot. Although seemingly unrelated, Glenn suddenly realized that he was wrong to continue his lack of concern with Cole. He tried every effort to repair the situation. He began to learn the sign languages. He provided a concert at the special high school where Cole attended. He even did an interpretation by sign languages of John Lennon's song 'Beautiful Boy', dedicated to Cole.
Time continued to move on, Glenn unknowingly worked with his teaching career for over 30 years. At the age of 60, Glenn's high school met with financial difficulties and needed to cut the school budget. The school board decided to eliminate some facilities in the school for cost saving, and planned to remove the music program. Glenn strongly objected and argued with the school saying that music was very important to the development of students. The Principal insisted to go ahead explaining that if the school needed to eliminate languages, mathematics or music, they had no choice but to remove the music program. Glenn then realized his working life was over. He looked back and felt very much that he had achieved little in his entire life. He had not produced, and would never produce, a memorable piece of symphony as he liked to produce. He believed his students, who had grown up and graduated, year after year, had mostly forgotten him.
On the final day as working teacher, Glenn packed up in school with help from his wife, Iris, and son, Cole. Before leaving, Glenn took a last look around the school campus, and was led by Iris and Cole to the school auditorium. When Cole opened the door of the auditorium, they were faced with a full house of audience inside; the Principal, teachers, present and past students coming from all walks of life. Hearing the news of Glenn's departure, the students secretly came back to the school to celebrate his retirement, bid him farewell and honored his life. A former student and now state governor, represented the students to thank Glenn for his dedication and contribution in teaching over the years. She then handed him a baton and invited him to serve as conductor of the orchestra made up by alumni of different years for the first ever performance of a piece of symphony that Glenn had completed but was totally forgotten and never performed.

Glenn Holland didn't accomplish what he had always wanted. Instead, he spent most of his life in work that he didn't intend to do, but he did it remarkably well. He felt his life was a complete failure, but he didn't realize he had planted lots of seeds for successes. I think this whole story can best be summarized in the speech made by the state governor at the farewell ceremony in the closing finale:

"Mr Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumour had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him rich, famous, probably both. But Mr Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you haven't touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr Holland. we are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.
Mr Holland, we would now like to give something back to you, to you and your wife, who along with you has waited 30 years for what we are about to hear. If you will, would you please come up here and take this baton and lead us in the first performance ever of the American Symphony by Glenn Holland."

(extract from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jM9MC7t-8g&feature=related)

A Love Story

Laura and Tommy were lovers.

He wanted to give her everything;
flowers, presents,
and most of all, a wedding ring.

He saw a sign for a stock car race.
A thousand dollars prize it read.
He couldn't get Laura on the phone.
So to her mother, Tommy said,

"Tell Laura I love her.
Tell Laura I need her.
Tell Laura I may be late,
I've something to do that cannot wait."

He drove his car to the racing ground.
He was the youngest driver there.
The crowd roared as they started the race.
Round the track they drove at a deadly pace.

No one knows what happened that day,
how his car overturned in flames.
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck,
With his dying breath, they heard him say,

"Tell Laura I love her.
Tell Laura I need her.
Tell Laura not to cry.
My love for her will never die."

Now in the chapel Laura prays,
for her Tommy who passed away.
It was just for Laura he lived and died.
Alone in the chapel she can hear him cry,

"Tell Laura I love her.
Tell Laura I need her.
Tell Laura not to cry.
My love for her will never die.
Tell ... Laura ... I ... love ... her..........
Tell ... Laura ... I ... love ... her..........
Tell ............... Laura ................................"

Lyrics from the song 'Tell Laura I Love Her' (1960).

(extract from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjvah1TDZxE)

Counting with Infinities

The set of natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..................... is infinite meaning that no matter how large a number we go, there are always larger numbers we can go further. Likewise, the set of even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ..................... is also infinite. While both are infinite, we want to ask, "Are there more natural numbers than even numbers?"
Our answer tends to be yes because natural numbers consist of both even numbers and odd numbers. Apparently the number of natural numbers is doubled that of even numbers. This answer may be correct IF both of them are finite (i.e. of fixed quantities). But things behave differently when they are infinite. Twice of infinite quantity is still infinite quantity. Seemingly amazingly, the correct answer would be: "No, there are as many even numbers as natural numbers."

Suppose we ask, "Are there as many fingers on the right hand as the left hand?" The simple way to determine the answer is to count the number of fingers on the right hand and the left. If they both come to five, we know the answer is yes. But suppose we haven't developed the number system, and we don't have any knowledge of one, two, three and so on. Then we would not be able to count. But it doesn't mean we cannot answer the question. We can still match the fingers on the right hand to those on the left; thumb against thumb, index finger against index finger, middle finger against middle finger and so on. If all the fingers on the right hand can find a corresponding partner on the left, then we know the answer is yes.
Now suppose we have infinite number of fingers on the right and left hands (a monster!). We would not be able to count as they are infinite. But we can still use the method of matching to find the answer. Although the process of matching goes on indefinitely, if each finger on the right hand is able to find a one-to-one corresponding partner on the left, and each finger on the left hand can find a one-to-one corresponding partner on the right, then we know the answer is yes. However, if we can find some finger on the right hand that doesn't have any partner on the left while each finger on the left hand can find a partner on the right, we know there are more fingers on the right hand than the left.
Alternatively, imagine we have a very very large audience and a very very large cinema hall. In order to determine whether there are as many spectators as seats in the hall, we could ask the audience to seat themselves one by one. If there is no spectator left unseated and if there is no seat left empty, then we know there are as many spectators as seats in the cinema hall without going through the tedious process of counting with very very large numbers.

So, using the same methodology, we list the natural numbers N and the even numbers E as follows:

N: 1 2 3 4 5 ............ n ......
E: 2 4 6 8 10 ........ 2n .....

We can see that for each natural number, there is always a one-to-one corresponding even number by doubling its value. And for each even number, there is always a one-to-one corresponding natural number by halving its value. Although the process goes on indefinitely, there is no natural number nor even number left unmatched. Hence, we conclude there are as many even numbers as natural numbers.

Situation of this type is said to be countably infinite, and is the basis upon which Georg Cantor (1845-1918) developed his theory of infinite sets.

Stones and Sands

We probably have heard this story from some management training courses.

A lecturer started the lesson with a large empty jar in his hands and proceeded to fill it with stones until no more stones could be put inside. He then asked the students if the jar was full. The class agreed it was. The lecturer then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open spaces between the stones. He asked the students again if the jar was full. The class all agreed it was. The lecturer next picked up a box of sands and poured them into the jar. Of course, the sands filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The class unanimously agreed it was.
The lecturer then explained, "Now, I want you to recognize this jar represents your life. The stones are the most important things like your career, your family, your health or your favourite passions. If everything else was lost and only they remained, your life will still be full. The pebbles are other less important things like your job, your car or your vacation. The sands are just small and trivial things like playing games, napping or simply doing nothing. If you spend effort in the most important things first, your life will be full, and yet you still have rooms for handling the less important things and small matters, just like what we did with the jar. On the other hand, if you put the sands into the jar first, there will be no rooms for the pebbles and stones. Thus, if you spend all your time and energy on small matters, you will never have rooms for the things that are important to you. So, remember the main point of today's lesson:

Establish your priorities and work towards them."

The class all nodded in agreement. The lecturer then poured the remaining cup of coffee he was drinking into the jar. The coffee quickly got mixed up with the stones, pebbles and sands. A student asked what it meant. The lecturer smiled, "There's always room for another cup of coffee. Let's go."