Sunday, February 20, 2011

cause we never turn out the way we thought we would



Patience has never been one of my virtues.
I'm the kind of girl that rages in Los Angeles traffic.
Waiting is not my strong suit
I'm the kind that pulls off your jeans before you can even think of getting down to business
The sticky process of becoming an adult involves becoming more rational, more empathetic, more and more of your best self.
Is it terrible that I still want to fly? Think happy thoughts and live in the moment, unconcerned about the future, mortgages, babies, credit scores.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of autonomy-responsibility can be a seductive bitch yet the burdenless lifestyle of the unbridled siren call is hard to resist. I just want to stay immature (and therefore blameless) for a litttllllleee bit longer.
(Jonny Sist you know what I'm talking about)

Two movies I've seen have really got me thinking lately. First of all there's RESTREPO-a documentary about soldiers battling with Afgani's in the most dangerous part of the world- the Korengal Valley- the brutal grounds where you have to be constantly on guard which consequently forces the soldiers to extricate life and pleasure from every moment where they aren't dodging bullets or fighting for their lives.

Second is SOLARIS. Man goes to space station near a planet that attempts to communicate with its earthly visitors by manifesting itself as a human construct of their most repressed or secretive memories. In the end, rather than face the pain of enduring the earthly reality without his wife who committed suicide, the protagonist chooses to lead a life with an artificial manifestation of his dead wife- to make amends for inadvertently causing her suicide while living in a bland but eerily calm world that exists only within his memories.

What perplexed me was the symbolic meaning of his journey. Is his fall into acceptance his entrance into death? Isn't human life nothing but a struggle and the protagonist's fall into ambivalence symbolic of his individual suicide?

It's a supremely easy thing to say that life is a struggle. Oftentimes, we fail to realize that without this struggle, our existences wouldn't nearly be as interesting. Entertainment (or rather our preoccupation with our lives/other people) is only as strong as the obstacles that befall the situation or person. I'm not an advocate for drama but truly, what is more satisfying than obtaining something that was not easily won? The heroes choice in SOLARIS is the most cowardly of any story I've ever beheld- rather than face life without his wife, he is content with existing within a fake world with a fake her- the construct of his memories about her-no elements independent of his perspectives.

Is how we see each other stronger than how we perceive ourselves?

No comments:

Post a Comment