I know the movie “Seven Pounds” is old news, but I just saw it over the summer so I am just now getting a chance to write about it. This movie screams, “Welcome to Humanity!” I think that what makes a work of art transcendent is its ability to appeal to the humanity in all of us. We can all appreciate beauty and skill, but it takes a lot more than that to make a work of art transcend time and space, and many works of art that are transcendental in this way are not the most beautiful or skillful.

All last semester I was interested in the question “What is the good?” (Which is the only important question, you may recall). This semester, I am interested in the question “What is the human?”

The interesting thing about the question “What is the good?” is that it is closely tied to the question “What is the human?” because we must know what is human before we can know how to approach and deal with the question “What is the good?” Even if God, or Nature, or any other non-human thing is good, we must come to an understanding of how various good things relate to and/or differ from human things. Likewise, we must ask, “What is human?” if we are to see the full range of what we are dealing with when we approach the question “What is the good?” In other words, we must see what is not good in humanity in order to have a hope of making humanity truly good.

The truth is that I am at a loss as to how to explain the amazing sense of humanity that I felt while watching the movie “Seven Pounds” without simply telling the story all over again. For those of you who have yet to see the movie, Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, who commits suicide so that he can donate all of his organs in order to save (or at least radically change) the lives of seven people. It has to be seven people because seven people died in a car accident that he caused some years earlier.

The character amazed me. His flashbacks, his desire to make things right, his desire to give himself as recompense for what he took from others – it is all an amazing look at the human.

Possibly the most amazing line from the movie, in retrospect, is the one in which the main character lists the names of the seven people who were killed in a car wreck. What motivates us? What makes us tick? What causes us to do what we do and become who we become? All of these questions are answered by the names of those seven people.

Watching “Seven Pounds” made me take the time to do something I had intended to do for a long time: become an organ donor. That is, I registered to be an organ donor (I haven’t offered anyone a kidney yet). I also got my wife to register to be an organ donor and I would encourage anyone reading this to register as well; it’s not like you’re going to need your body when you’re dead.

A number of people I have talked to about “Seven Pounds” have said that they thought it was a bit of a downer or even depressing. I, on the other hand, found the movie to be inspiring. I wish I were that selfless. I wish I could find the strength to give more of myself, even if only metaphorically. I wish I could give life to others even if it meant giving mine.

Matt Brumit is a senior Humanities major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].