Tom Cruise is one the biggest action stars in the whole world. From Ethan Hunt to Jack Reacher he has never failed to impress the audience with his jaw dropping stunts and unmatchable dedication towards his work. Over the years Tom Cruise has created some extremely good and memorable pop culture moments out of which the best one according to me has to go the No Mind Scene from the 2003 blockbuster The Last Samurai.
The film is known for its dialogues especially the thought provoking conversations between Lord Katsumoto played by Ken Watanabe and Nathan Algren played by Tom Cruise. The film is set in 1877 Imperial Japan where The Samurai Clan rebels against American occupied Japan for freedom. The particular scene I am talking about features a practice bout of Katana sparring between Nathan Algren and Ujio, Nathan’s Master. In the bout Ujio is easily able to defeat Nathan. He really gets demotivated and is almost about to quit that his friend Nobutada rushes up to him and whispers to Nathan –
Nobutada: Please forgive…too many minds.
Nathan: Too many minds?
Nobutada: Hai (yes).Mind the sword, mind the people watch (watching), and mind the enemy, too many mind. No mind.
Nathan: No mind?
Nobutada: No mind.
Nathan did not understand the meaning of the concept at that point of time but during his next sparring bout he really cracked it. We all see in the film that Nathan is a really good swordsman, he had the potential to defeat anyone who faced him but when put in a sparring bout where he was aware that people were watching and there was a possibility of humiliation, he lost all fights. In the real world too there are gifted people who can outperform anybody put against them but due to the fear of humiliation, nervousness or even loss they never make it out of the ordinary lot.
To the people who are reading this, I would just like to say that whether it is an audience or your relatives or anyone for that matter, they are all humans. Nobody is born with heat vision or super speed; everyone is as flawed as you are. So there is no point creating pressure for yourself and pouring water on your own hard work. During the second sparring bout Nathan really showed his worth by clearing his mind off the pressure.
When will you?
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