“Well, Paterson. How’s life doin’ you?”
“Uh, no complaints. You?”
What is “the good life”? It’s a question that has occupied humans in every age. To answer it, we create stories and proverbs that warn of the perils of poor choices and encourage us toward a better way to live. Any spiritual definition of a life well lived includes one common element: contentment. We find it throughout the world’s religious traditions. In the New Testament, Paul reassures his concerned readers that “I have learned to be content in any circumstance. I have experienced times of need and times of abundance. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of contentment, whether I go satisfied or hungry, have plenty or nothing. I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13 NET). The Quran echoes this affirmation in its promise that Allah will be “sufficient for him” who trusts fully (65:3). Hinduism teaches that a person “is free from karma who receives with contentment whatever befalls him, who is poised above the dualities, who is devoid of jealousy or envy or enmity, and who looks equally on gain and loss” (Bhagavad Gita IV, 22). And the Buddha writes that “contentedness is the best riches” (Dhammapada XV, 204). We all know this—and yet we strive and grasp, straining to see further than just the day ahead of us.
The film Paterson (directed by Jim Jarmusch, 2016) challenges us with the possibility of contentment with each day. In the film, we spend a week getting to know Paterson, a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey, who writes poetry, interacts with friends, and observes people around him. Each day plays out much the same as the previous. Paterson wakes up in the morning, eats breakfast, walks to work, and drives the streets of the city while listening in on snippets of conversations on the bus. He eats lunch overlooking the Great Falls of the Passaic. In the evenings, he dines with Laura and then finishes the day walking Marvin the dog and having a beer at the Shades bar. It’s simple. Mundane.
Comparing Paterson to a lot of other movies, we might say that not much happens. In fact, we might be perplexed or even unnerved by Paterson’s seeming lack of motivation for change. “No complaints,” he says, but as we watch, we can imagine numerous causes for complaint. Is this what contentment looks like? As we ride along with Paterson each day of the film and listen in on his poetry (written by American poet Ron Padgett), however, we hear an ebb and flow of comfortable contentment and the struggle against the tantalizing possibility of more. “I knock off work,” Paterson writes. “Have a beer at the bar / I look down at the glass and feel glad.”
Contentment. But in other poems, he admits that “I like to think about other girls sometimes,” and he playfully muses on other ways of being (“Or would you rather be a fish?”). These poems may reflect Paterson’s interior determination to remain content in a world that continually offers something else to desire. The potential allure of fame, for example, is never far from Paterson, as he responds to Doc’s questions of who is famous enough to make it on “the wall of fame” behind the bar. It’s easy to chuckle about the fame of being named “world’s sexiest man” by Paterson’s teen-age girls club, but what about the desire to win this weekend’s chess tournament, to sell out one’s cupcakes at the bake sale . . . or to publish a book of poetry?
Paterson gives us space to think about the line between good goals and unhealthy ambition. To help us discern the good from the unhealthy, we can remember the film’s recurring image of twins (or “matches,” to align with Paterson’s beloved Ohio Blue Tips). Paterson himself is “matched” with other characters to bring out similarities and contrasts. And so we can set contentment against its matches, its opposites, to learn more about it. Its opposite is not merely “discontent,” but rather, covetousness, dissatisfaction, hopelessness, or chaos. How do each of these opposites bring out more fully what we envision when think about contentment?
In trying to learn from Paterson’s contentment, we find some paradoxes. Paterson has built human connection into his daily routine. But research also points to the importance of regular religious community specifically, and this seems absent from Paterson’s life. Paterson values his independence from screens and technology. But not owning a cell phone causes him great stress during an emergency. Some questions, the movie doesn’t answer. Money doesn’t buy contentment, but we don’t know how Paterson views his limited financial resources. Contentment results from finding purpose in life. But the film doesn’t specify precisely where Paterson finds meaning beyond his calm engagement with each day.
The film invites us to reflect on the paradoxes and unanswered questions in our own lives. As I’ve shared this film with students each year, it raises questions of whether Paterson’s form of contentment represents “the good life.” The film doesn’t demand that we agree with Paterson’s example, but for people who disagree (and some of my students do), it asks, What do you propose instead? In post-film discussions, we ponder what we believe constitutes a good life if it’s not a placid life in New Jersey. In that contemplation, perhaps we discover that we’re investing energy in pursuing some things—material possessions, unresolved bitterness, unnecessary recognition—that we might better discard.
For me, every time I watch Paterson, I want to see the world a little more as Paterson does. I want to quickly forgive Everett for his outbursts; listen with patient compassion to Donnie’s litany of woes; love Laura unconditionally in her many passionate hobbies; affirm a young poet reading from her secret notebook. And when a stranger hands me a blank page, I want to have a ballpoint pen ready to click to begin writing the next poem. That’s a contentment I’m ready to learn. — Neil R. Coulter (2025)
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