BODHISATTVA
“Bodhisattva” is a visceral action adventure/drama about how to truly LIVE.
A heartfelt search for identity, in the chaos of the open ocean; finding the courage to change our path in life when, deep down, we know we really have no other choice if we want to truly feel alive.
SYNOPSIS
The fictional story of “Ollie”, a corporate escapee who lives a monotonous life, dreaming of adventure, to sail solo around the world and save his soul. What he finds is love, compassion, wonder, and himself. He realizes that he wasn’t looking to escape his old life, but to discover how to actually live the only life he’s been given. To stop focusing on “making it to the end” and loose sight of the “end point” entirely - so he can finally see the world that surrounds him. To live in all directions at once… a “quantum life”.
Pirates, loneliness, extreme solitude, self-reliance, discovery, adventure, enlightenment, fear, awe - and love.
Guided by the unexpected exuberance of “Samantha”, a beautiful and brilliant scientist who is determined to save remote coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Ollie discovers the capabilities he didn’t know he had, and finds a path in life that he didn’t know existed - mustering the courage to let fate guide him, and say “yes” to the wonders of life.
THE STORY
“Ollie” is a corporate escapee in his mid-40’s; and he finds himself half-starved, covered in grease from head to toe, elbows deep in a steaming hot engine compartment on his broken-down sailboat; 2,200 miles from the nearest human civilization. “Point Nemo”… the Oceanic Point of Inaccessibility… He’s fucked… He’s on his own… And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Sailing solo - around the world.
This is the life he’s always dreamed of but been too afraid to grasp for his own. Except for the starving… and the grease, and the heat, and the broken-down bits. As his dad would say “suck it up and grab a pair”. He also said “get a job with a big company and save for retirement”, so what the hell does he know…
Surviving heat stroke, sleep deprivation, and storms; Ollie is thrust awake as his very needy sailboat “Bodhi” crashes headlong into an unmarked reef in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With skills learned as a mid-west farm boy, he survives against all odds; stitching his boat together with spare parts and trash washed up on shore. Now, he limps to the nearest inhabited island atoll. A spit of sand and palm trees barely two feet above sea level. Here, he meets the most gracious and humble people of his life. People who have nothing, and insist on sharing it all.
Now in Fiji, making critical repairs, he’s noticed by a beautiful woman standing next to a stack of Pelican cases, jam packed full of research equipment. “Samantha” is a brilliant scientist, headed to a remote speck of land in the Solomon Islands, and she desperately needs a lift.
En-route they're attacked by pirates, nibbled by sharks, shaken by their past lives, and driven toward their futures. Off to save a remote coral reef, with Samantha’s brilliant technology, Ollie has risked everything to leave his old life behind. To finally live life for himself. To achieve his "goal"… And now, he’s learning that there’s more than one path to your destiny. His courage to leave civilization behind has lead him to find the civilization he’s yearned for all along. A civilization that’s disappearing, and he can help to save it.
There’s more to life than "getting through it"… More than a distant point on the horizon...
Perhaps, rather than focusing on the length of our life, we should focus on the breadth of it... and the quality and quantity with which we spread it.