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Hugo

I love inspiration movies. Stories about dreams and passions, meaning and purpose, and courage and perseverance. I suspect a lot of people like them too since Hollywood keeps making them. They reminds us our dreams, give us the license to pursue our dreams, and perhaps ignites in us what has died. The new movie by Martin Scorsese, Hugo, however, is different. It's not about a boy finding his dreams. Rather, it's about a boy finding his purpose in restoring another person's dream. Hugo is a boy skilled in machinery and clockwork. From his point of view from the clock tower, the city works like a machine. And he knows there's no spare part in a machine. Each part has its purpose. An abandoned boy as he is, he believes that he is part of this world and thus has a purpose. What he hasn't pointed out explicitly in the movie is that each machine has a designer. Parts don't fall together by chance and become machines and clocks. There is no spare part because someone has designed and engineered it carefully with its purpose in mind.

Do we believe that we have a purpose? I do. Because like a machine, I know I have a Designer and the Designer has a purpose in mind when He created me. Only then meaning and purpose are not arbitrary, they have a Source. And only then we could have a purpose and meaning.

One might argue that it is my wishful thinking and desire for purpose that lead me to believe there is a Designer. In response, I must ask, what's the alternative? The alternative is that there is no purpose and meaning to our existence. Is that what we experience in our daily lives? Without a Designer, there will also be either no values like good and evil or these values are mere human constructs. In other words, killing a baby is as desirable as nurturing one. Is that so?

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
(Romans 1:20 ESV)

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