Depressing Thought Tuesday: Happy Endings
I love movies, TV shows, books... in short, I love stories of all kinds, in all mediums, but I've begun to get tired of them. I think that at some point in the last twenty years, people in Hollywoo all got together and decided that they would only make movies with happy endings, and I have to say, I hate it.
At the end of such a movie - let's take it to an extreme - let's say Miracle, about the hardships that the American Olympic Hockey team went through to beat the Soviet Union, or Canada, or some shit (it's been a while since I've seen it, give me a break). It ends happily, and in the moment my spirit is uplifted, but the next day I wake up alone, drive to work alone, and look forward to returning to an empty home that is quietly accumulating filth and judging me for it. I make a grossly unhealthy meal, maybe write a bit, and go to bed. In those final moments before I drift off to sleep, I find myself thinking back on the movie and finding hollowness in it.
I am no longer actually inspired by those who have risen to unimaginable heights out of the depths of mediocrity or worse. I find myself resenting these stories, these characters, because their plight has no meaning to me; I feel that I've been told to admire these people, instead of finding actual valor in whatever they've done with their lives.
You wanna know what does inspire me? Someone in a loveless marriage, who carries on simply for a lack of anything else meaningful to do with themselves, who watches their peers, their friends achieve their lifelong goals and examines their own life in comparison and shrugs their shoulders because what the fuck are they going to do about it? I am inspired by people who pull themselves out of bed every day knowing that today is not going to be any better than the day before, and tomorrow holds no solace either.
"To Trudge: the slow, weary, depressing, yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in his life but the impulse to simply soldier on."
Jeffrey Chaucer's character in a Knight's Tale inspires me, because I know his pain. We live in vastly different worlds, he and me, but we are both just dealing with our situations, resigned to the thought that no matter how bad things are, this may very well be as good as it gets.
In case you haven't seen it, watch this. It's fantastic. (Please pardon the subtitles, I couldn't find a video without them) Did you ever see Megamind? Fantastic movie. *Spoiler Alert* In Megamind, the Hero cracks under the neverending pressure of being the hero, so he fakes his own death, just to escape it for a while, so he can just be himself for a while, and have a beer. Inspirational. Why? Because he had the balls to tell the world to go fuck itself, so he can try to be happy for a little while. Sure, the movie probably had a happy ending, but I don't remember. The hero was broken, desperate just to be left alone for a while, that's what struck me as truly genuine. That is what intrigued me. I don't care one bit about Megamind's rise to power, or whatever happened in the rest of the movie, it was the hero's pain that brought me in and kept me watching.
At the end of it all, you wanna know what the depressing thought is? I imagine this whole thing was completely relatable to you. We live in a world that doesn't give two shits about us, and we know it. We carry on from day to day as if someday, if we're really good and follow the rules, some meaning will reveal itself to us, but even the most hopeful of us doubt that.
I'll see you next week.
At the end of such a movie - let's take it to an extreme - let's say Miracle, about the hardships that the American Olympic Hockey team went through to beat the Soviet Union, or Canada, or some shit (it's been a while since I've seen it, give me a break). It ends happily, and in the moment my spirit is uplifted, but the next day I wake up alone, drive to work alone, and look forward to returning to an empty home that is quietly accumulating filth and judging me for it. I make a grossly unhealthy meal, maybe write a bit, and go to bed. In those final moments before I drift off to sleep, I find myself thinking back on the movie and finding hollowness in it.
I am no longer actually inspired by those who have risen to unimaginable heights out of the depths of mediocrity or worse. I find myself resenting these stories, these characters, because their plight has no meaning to me; I feel that I've been told to admire these people, instead of finding actual valor in whatever they've done with their lives.
You wanna know what does inspire me? Someone in a loveless marriage, who carries on simply for a lack of anything else meaningful to do with themselves, who watches their peers, their friends achieve their lifelong goals and examines their own life in comparison and shrugs their shoulders because what the fuck are they going to do about it? I am inspired by people who pull themselves out of bed every day knowing that today is not going to be any better than the day before, and tomorrow holds no solace either.
"To Trudge: the slow, weary, depressing, yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in his life but the impulse to simply soldier on."
Jeffrey Chaucer's character in a Knight's Tale inspires me, because I know his pain. We live in vastly different worlds, he and me, but we are both just dealing with our situations, resigned to the thought that no matter how bad things are, this may very well be as good as it gets.
In case you haven't seen it, watch this. It's fantastic. (Please pardon the subtitles, I couldn't find a video without them) Did you ever see Megamind? Fantastic movie. *Spoiler Alert* In Megamind, the Hero cracks under the neverending pressure of being the hero, so he fakes his own death, just to escape it for a while, so he can just be himself for a while, and have a beer. Inspirational. Why? Because he had the balls to tell the world to go fuck itself, so he can try to be happy for a little while. Sure, the movie probably had a happy ending, but I don't remember. The hero was broken, desperate just to be left alone for a while, that's what struck me as truly genuine. That is what intrigued me. I don't care one bit about Megamind's rise to power, or whatever happened in the rest of the movie, it was the hero's pain that brought me in and kept me watching.
At the end of it all, you wanna know what the depressing thought is? I imagine this whole thing was completely relatable to you. We live in a world that doesn't give two shits about us, and we know it. We carry on from day to day as if someday, if we're really good and follow the rules, some meaning will reveal itself to us, but even the most hopeful of us doubt that.
I'll see you next week.
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