I'm Gonna Go On A Rant Here, And Its Another Long One, So Just Bear With It And Sit With Me A Minute
I'm gonna go on a rant here, and its another long one, so just bear with it and sit with me a minute longer. Its been rough couple of days for me. And I have been tired and irritable. Its one of those moments where I find myself asking for guidance. And I found it this morning sitting on the couch watching TV. There's this one bit in The Phantom Menace when Anakin is placed before the Jedi Council on what I can only describe as an interview, and the Jedi Masters are questioning him, testing his abilities. Yoda asks Anakin how he is feeling, Anakin being the kid that he is, he answers that he is cold and he is missing his Mom. Yoda professes that they can see right through him, that they can sense great fear and anger in Anakin. Anakin kinda just shrugs it off like what does that have to do with anything. "Everything" Yoda says "Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering." And in all their combined wisdom of that council they decide that Anakin is not fit to be trained as a Jedi. They refuse this boy, who had only known the labours of slavery, and the heat of the two Tatooine Suns on his brow. Despite them knowing at that time that his midichlorian count was the highest ever seen, and they themselves seeing his 'attunement' with the force during their tests. He was prophesied, he was the Chosen One. They failed that boy. Qui-Gonn Jinn intercedes again in this boys life, he kinda just tells the council to shove it where even the two Tatooine Suns can't shine and he's gonna train that boy whether they like it or not. Qui-Gonn is killed shortly after that by a Sith. For some reason even after Qui-Gonn's death they reluctantly allow Obi-Wan Kenobi to train Anakin as his Padawan Learner. Emphasis on the Reluctantly. Every step of the way, one master or another is hounding him and scrutinizing him. Their own misdeeds and failures lead Anakin down a path that becomes the Dark Side of the Force. They tell him everything that he holds dear is wrong. Despite his feelings just being Human, he misses his Mom. He loves Padme. He's scared that hes gonna loose them. He's told he shouldn't be those things, and he's wrong for doing so. For a group that says only the Sith deal in absolutes, they have a lot of rules that say that this is thee correct way of doing things. I feel like if Qui-Gonn had lived Anakin would have gotten the support that he needed proper, and he never would have turned down the darkside. That is not to say Anakin is innocent in his future actions at all. But, he was almost only ever given fear and anger. And those things did lead to Suffering. For him, for his wife, his children. His friends, and ultimately the whole galaxy. I've spoken recently also in exhaustive detail about how I've been angry. It's a burden on my spirit. I am not comparing my anger here to a Sith Lord, but offering alternative solution one that Anakin was probably never given that wasn't in some pompous speech. You have been told that Anger leads to Suffering. But thats an abosulte. There's another choice. Forgiveness can also be followed by it. That is not to say to drop your resolve, to make the so clearly bloodened hands stainless, or the guilty blameless. But to Forgive, is to not feel Anger over it any longer. To not let resentment control you. And instead of teaching that Emotional Attachment becomes the Fear of Loss, they should have taught that there is No Such Thing as Seperation. Even in their tenets it says that there is no death, there is only the Force. And that if Love meant or was worth anything that it would still be worth something after they are gone. Fear and Anger are only falliable and Human. But to Forgive is something far greater. George R.R. Martin once wrote "The Gods have fashioned us for Love. That is our Great Glory." Hatred, Yet Forgivess. Anger, Yet Peace. And Love, even so come despite all these things. These things are that great Glory that we were fashioned for. This is the way.
More Posts from Thewritingchild and Others
I had a pretty terrible day yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night, and my brain was like "Why don't you make a self portrait but make it plum?" So I did. And this is what I landed on. I made this after a terrible day in a terrible year, where I have felt lost and confused. What I've learned while making this is that Identity and Narrative are things you have to give to yourself.
Life was like an ocean and she was a wave I was just getting tossed in.
If you have a limited world you become content with mediocre often times worthless things.
I'm just gonna talk here for a minute. I've been stuck at home a lot these last few days quarentining. I just have had thoughts I want to share I suppose and when you are single and live alone in the middle of a global pandemic, sometimes it's hard to find an ear. Like seriously TL;DR who wants to be lectured at. So sit with me for a minute or scroll past this I guess. A lot of us are probably familiar with the famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh as an Artist. He was born in 1853 to a middle class family in the Netherlands. He was kinda solemn and quiet. He worked as an art broker for a while in London, and even was a missionary for a time in Belguim. Before becoming a full time painter in France. In his life time he made over 800 Oil Paintings mostly in the last two years he was alive. He wasn't successful as an Artist until after his death. In life he only sold one painting. He was known to struggle with Mental Illness. A Great record of this is in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. They are available for reading for free through the Van Gogh Museum. This where I'm a lot more familiar with the artist. More as a Writer. There's over six hundred collected letters between him to his siblings, to other impressionist artists at the time or even to critics. Written across three languages, Dutch French and English. Most of the Letters are to his brother Theo van Gogh. In his Letters to Theo he writes with this sense of duty, and calling. Of Urgency. Vincent very often questions his place in the universe, and what he could be doing to better it. If I had time to annotate and write and comment about all 600 letters, I would. There is a lot of meat there to understand him as a person, and by extension an Artist. And when you understand someone else's story better you also sometimes understand your own better too. But I'm just gonna take some selected thoughts here and think alongside him. In April 1878 Vincent writes to Theo pontificating about the proverb "We are Today, what We were Yesterday.", to Segway to my next thought I want to say twelve years later in 1890 Vincent would die by a self-inflected gunshot wound. He was 37 at the time of his suicide. There's this book, "A Grief Observed" by British Author C.S. Lewis which was written in response to his wife's death, American Poet Joy Davidman. Lewis writes "The Pain I feel Now, is the Happiness I had before. That's the Deal" it's published almost a hundred years after Vincent's letter. I wonder if in those last few days of their respective lives if they had thoughts that looked like this often. Where Compassion decays into Despair, or "The Pain we are in Today, is the Happiness we had Yesterday". We can't ever know for certain what thoughts Vincent had on that sad height. But back in that April Letter, I think he finds some peace there. In his closing thoughts he writes "Woe-spiritedness is quite a good thing to have, if only one writes it as two words, woe is in all people, everyone has reason enough for it, but one must also have spirit". Almost all of Vincent's paintings were made in the last two years of his life. Those are the things he left behind. Those are things we inherited. His Woe, but also more importantly his Spirit.
thinking about how orpheus turning to look back at eurydice isn’t a sign of mortal frailness but a sign of love
Lemongrass in the Summer Sun. Just as bare feet dance so beautifully on the browns of the earth. A water hose then becomes the plaything of two people. Laughing Laughter that can still be heard.
If a single grain of rice can tip the scale then a single act of kindness can change the spirit.
what are some really good female led horror films? i know some classics but im only now getting into horror and ill take any rec (can be as obscure as u want, idk)
shock (1977), carnival of souls (1962), nekromantik 2 (1991), baby blood (1990), opera (1987), black christmas (1974), the blood spattered bride (1972), cat people (1942), the entity (1982), the haunting (1963), dans ma peau (2002), kissed (1996), let’s scare jessica to death (1971), the night of the hunted (1980), daddy’s deadly darling (1972), hausu (1977), lisa lisa (1974), der fan (1982), the witch who came from the sea (1976), the living dead girl (1982), thirst (2009), possession (1981), suspiria (1977), the beyond (1981), raw (2016), daughters of darkness (1971), dumplings (2004), the demon (1963), cathy’s curse (1977), taste of fear (1961), messiah of evil (1973), symptoms (1974), absentia (2011), starry eyes (2014), bug (2006), the iron rose (1973), lake mungo (2009), the grapes of death (1978), night of death (1980), the birds (1963), alice sweet alice (1976), the long hair of death (1980), the house on sorority row (1982), alucarda (1977), kitchen sink (1989), a nightmare on elm street (1984), a tale of two sisters (2003), images (1972), may (2002), femmine carnivore (1970), dark water (2002), phenomena (1985), one missed call (2003), the slumber party massacre (1982), blood and roses (1960), the psychic (1977), ms .45 (1981), hotel (2004), full circle (1977), macabre (1980), vampyres (1974), lisa and the devil (1973), the house that cried murder (1973), succubus (1968), i walked with a zombie (1943), tomie (1999), the seventh victim (1943), the obscene mirror (1973), all the colors of the dark (1972), the girl who knew too much (1963), daughters of fire (1978), the diabolical dr. z (1966), the perfume of the lady in black (1974), evil dead trap 2 (1991), dream demon (1988), folies meurtrières (1984), fatal frame (2014), the queen of black magic (1979).
