How Do You Live: On Searching, Growing Up, and Rules

After all these years, Miyazaki has finally given us a new film. No marketing, no buildup, just a single poster and a title that asks a question: How do you live?

Before I saw it, I didn't understand the title. It felt too grand and too abstract, missing the wondrous sense of fantasy his films have always had. And yet the question cut so close to the heart that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Since watching the film, every time I think of that title, I am moved in a way I can't quite explain, and a quiet warmth settles over me. It is as if a wise elder has just finished telling the long story of his life, then turns to the young listeners gathered around him and gently asks: And you? How do you want to live?

That sense of conversation reminds me of the lyrics of Pu Shu's "The Ordinary Road," as if the fourth wall had been broken. I am always moved by this kind of exchange, the most sincere and direct a work can carry between its creator and its audience. So even though the story of How Do You Live isn't especially gripping, its message is somewhat abstract, and its world feels a little patchwork, it still holds a kind of magic. Whenever it comes to mind, something in me stirs.

To me, it is a story about searching, growing up, and rules.

Searching

Growing Up

Rules