I've a pile of movies sitting around on my hard disk, waiting to be watched. A whole host of story books that I really ought to read, but haven't got around to reading. Bushels of poetry that I have marked out for myself, but haven't read. My usual reason for all of this is the fact that I'm "busy".
But the truth is, that's a lie.
I spend hours re-watching bits of movies that I like, reading parts of books that I already know off by heart, reciting poems that I've known since I was a child. I've spent hours re-visiting all those life affirming moments, while effacing the rest of the story-line. And I've ached, as I watched it. Ached as I watched the last scene from Intouchables, the jubilation of the team from Wiley College, the student clambering onto a table and saying "Oh Captain! My Captain!", the tie of friendship between Miss Daisy and Hoke.
I'm scared of art, suddenly. I'm afraid of the sort of impact it has on me. I am afraid of uncertainties -- I often read the plot of movies/books and watch/read on that basis. Art used to be a revelatory experience. It had the power to reaffirm my faith in relationships and life. Now it seems taunting. And I don't quite know why. I don't know when and why I turned, from a girl who wolved down books at alarming rates, into a person who would much rather live inside her head. A person who is afraid of stories, be it in her own life or otherwise. A person who treats mere friendliness with unqualified suspicion, even hostility. A person who is more accustomed to having people afraid of her than not; indeed, to the extent that she doesn't know how to react to being approached normally. A person who has begun, sometimes, to think of herself in terms of instrumental value, as opposed to merely having a place in the universe. A person who's perpetually on the defensive and sometimes on the offensive, but rarely just being. A person who presumes that the worst opinion delivered is most likely to be the common view of a matter. A person whose instinctive reaction is now to walk away, because anything else is just too exhausting. A person who is reading these very words and thinking that even war veterans seem more optimistic about things, but is writing this nonetheless.
Each time I hear a story, I find more things to be envious of. The ache in me grows. It's almost like I have come to believe that these stories are not for me. That meaningful relationships are beyond me or, perhaps, that there is something inherently repulsive in me that I somehow can't get rid of. And so aches are all that one is left with.
But I watched Sherlock over a few days. And I went back to watch the scene where Sherlock knocks Neilson out and moves swiftly to kneel before Mrs Hudson and reassure her, and the one in which he tries to break the 'ice' with Watson, after having behaved horribly on feeling doubt. I went back and watched those scenes because there is always hope that human relationships can be forged and maintained. There is hope that you can be redeemed, both to yourself and others. And that is why new stories are so important -- they force you to hope when it's easier to just give in to the snarling, stony side of yourself. So I watched that suicide scene and I howled my eyes out and realised, that if art can cause me to feel so deeply about a character that I have only seen through the viewpoint of some director, perhaps I wouldn't want to miss out on the power of real human relationships, despite the pain, the judgement and the disillusionment that often comes gratis.
But the truth is, that's a lie.
I spend hours re-watching bits of movies that I like, reading parts of books that I already know off by heart, reciting poems that I've known since I was a child. I've spent hours re-visiting all those life affirming moments, while effacing the rest of the story-line. And I've ached, as I watched it. Ached as I watched the last scene from Intouchables, the jubilation of the team from Wiley College, the student clambering onto a table and saying "Oh Captain! My Captain!", the tie of friendship between Miss Daisy and Hoke.
I'm scared of art, suddenly. I'm afraid of the sort of impact it has on me. I am afraid of uncertainties -- I often read the plot of movies/books and watch/read on that basis. Art used to be a revelatory experience. It had the power to reaffirm my faith in relationships and life. Now it seems taunting. And I don't quite know why. I don't know when and why I turned, from a girl who wolved down books at alarming rates, into a person who would much rather live inside her head. A person who is afraid of stories, be it in her own life or otherwise. A person who treats mere friendliness with unqualified suspicion, even hostility. A person who is more accustomed to having people afraid of her than not; indeed, to the extent that she doesn't know how to react to being approached normally. A person who has begun, sometimes, to think of herself in terms of instrumental value, as opposed to merely having a place in the universe. A person who's perpetually on the defensive and sometimes on the offensive, but rarely just being. A person who presumes that the worst opinion delivered is most likely to be the common view of a matter. A person whose instinctive reaction is now to walk away, because anything else is just too exhausting. A person who is reading these very words and thinking that even war veterans seem more optimistic about things, but is writing this nonetheless.
Each time I hear a story, I find more things to be envious of. The ache in me grows. It's almost like I have come to believe that these stories are not for me. That meaningful relationships are beyond me or, perhaps, that there is something inherently repulsive in me that I somehow can't get rid of. And so aches are all that one is left with.
But I watched Sherlock over a few days. And I went back to watch the scene where Sherlock knocks Neilson out and moves swiftly to kneel before Mrs Hudson and reassure her, and the one in which he tries to break the 'ice' with Watson, after having behaved horribly on feeling doubt. I went back and watched those scenes because there is always hope that human relationships can be forged and maintained. There is hope that you can be redeemed, both to yourself and others. And that is why new stories are so important -- they force you to hope when it's easier to just give in to the snarling, stony side of yourself. So I watched that suicide scene and I howled my eyes out and realised, that if art can cause me to feel so deeply about a character that I have only seen through the viewpoint of some director, perhaps I wouldn't want to miss out on the power of real human relationships, despite the pain, the judgement and the disillusionment that often comes gratis.
