Notes from Joe outside his music lessons - Madhura Ashokkumar

I’ve always loved Soul. Not just because it’s beautiful or clever, but because every time I watch it, it feels like the movie is holding my face gently in its hands and saying, “Hey. Look at your life. Really look at it.”

When I first saw it, I thought I related to Joe Gardner because of his passion — the way he worked so hard for a dream, believing that once he reached it, everything would finally fall into place. I’ve had my own “someday” moments, the ones I thought would fix me.

But then came that scene.The one where Joe finally plays his dream gig… and afterward, he just walks home, quietly, realizing nothing in his soul feels any different. I thought about what Dorothea Williams tells him:

“I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to an older fish and says, ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ says the older fish, ‘That’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This?’ says the young fish, ‘This is water. What I want is the ocean.’”

That hit me like a mirror. I’d been chasing an “ocean” for years, blind to the water all around me. The rest of the movie unfolded like a slow breath I didn’t know I was holding. Watching Joe and 22 discover that the spark isn’t a single, shining purpose — it’s the little things — made me rethink everything. The sunlight through my window in the morning. The way Ilayaraja’s music stirs joy in me. The predictable routine I have.

As 22 says, holding a leaf in her hand for the first time:

“Maybe sky-watching can be my spark. Or walking. Or pizza!”

I used to think these were background moments. Now I know they are the point. 

Joe Gardner sat at his piano, fingers drifting over the keys. At first, his heart was racing—his mind chasing after the big stage, the big break, the life he thought he needed. This was his sympathetic nervous system at work, buzzing with “fight or flight,” urging him to run, to strive, to push harder.

But then something shifted.He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and let the music play through him. The notes carried him into a place beyond time, where the city noise disappeared and even his worries fell silent. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing softened. He was in the flow state—the gift of the parasympathetic nervous system, the body’s “rest and digest” mode.

Here, Joe wasn’t chasing life; he was living it.Every sound, every touch of a key, every pause between notes felt alive. It was the same stillness he would later feel when tasting pizza with 22, or when watching a maple leaf drift through the autumn air.

The parasympathetic system whispered, “Slow down. You don’t need to fight right now. This—this moment—is enough.”

Joe learns that his worth isn’t tied to applause or achievements, and 22 learns that you don’t have to earn the right to live — you just have to live. Or, as Joe says in the end:

“I’m gonna live every minute of it.”

And just like Joe at the end, I’m trying to step back into my life not chasing the “big break,” but noticing the morning air… and breathing it in. Soul really is one of those films that lingers in your chest long after the credits roll.