V for Vendetta (2005)
V: Fortunately, I got to you before they did.
Evey Hammond: You got to me? You did this to me? You cut my hair? You tortured me? You tortured me! Why?
V: You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there'd been an easier way, but there wasn't.
[Evey whispers, "Oh my God...?]
V: I know you may never forgive me... but nor will you understand how hard it was for me to do what I did. Every day I saw in myself everything you see in me now. Every day I wanted to end it, but each time you refused to give in, I knew I couldn't.
Evey Hammond: You're *sick*! You're *evil*!
V: *You* could've ended it, Evey, you could've given in. But you didn't. Why?
Evey Hammond: Leave me alone! I *hate* you!
V: That's it! See, at first I thought it was hate, too. Hate was all I knew, it built my world, it imprisoned me, taught me how to eat, how to drink, how to breathe. I thought I'd die with all my hate in my veins. But then something happened. It happened to me... just as it happened to you.
Evey Hammond: Shut up! I *don't* want to hear your lies!
V: Your own father said that artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.
Evey Hammond: No.
V: What was true in that cell is just as true now. What you felt in there has nothing to do with me.
Evey Hammond: I can't feel *anything* anymore!
V: Don't run from it, Evey. You've been running all your life.
Evey Hammond: [gasps] I can't... can't breathe. Asthma... asthma! When I was little...
[V reaches out his hand, Evey grabs it, they fall to the ground together]
V: Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it.
[Evey continues sobbing]
V: They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you.
[Evey groans]
V: They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn't you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn't, was it?
[Evey sobs, "Oh please...?]
V: You found something else. In that cell you found something that mattered more to you than life. It was when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted... you told them you'd rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still.
[Evey continues gasping]
V: Try to feel now what you felt then.
Evey Hammond: [breathes heavily] Oh God... I felt...
V: Yes?
Evey Hammond: I'm dizzy. I need air. Please, I need to be outside.
V: I told you, only truth. For 20 years, I sought only this day. Nothing else existed... until I saw you. Then everything changed. I fell in love with you Evey. And to think I no longer believed I could.
Evey Hammond: But I don't want you to die.
V: That's the most beautiful thing you could have ever given me.
Valerie: In 2002, I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn't have done it without Chris holding my hand. My father wouldn't look at me. He told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing. But I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free. I'd always known what I wanted to do with my life and in 2015 I starred in my first film, The Salt Flats. It was the most important role of my life. Not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again. We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew Scarlet Carsons for me in our window box and our place always smelt of roses. Those were the best years of my life.
Valerie: It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must NEVER let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the worlds turns, and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you. Valerie.
Evey Hammond: [reads] Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.
V: [translates] By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Evey Hammond: Personal motto?
V: From "Faust".
Evey Hammond: That's about trying to cheat the devil, isn't it?
V: It is.
Evey Hammond: Is everything a joke to you, Gordon?
Gordon Deitrich: Only the things that matter.
Gordon Deitrich: You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Forrest Gump: Will you marry me?
[Jenny turns and looks at him]
Forrest Gump: I'd make a good husband, Jenny.
Jenny Curran: You would, Forrest.
Forrest Gump: ...But you won't marry me.
Jenny Curran: [sadly] ... You don't wanna marry me.
Forrest Gump: Why don't you love me, Jenny?
[Jenny says nothing]
Forrest Gump: I'm not a smart man... but I know what love is.
Drill Sergeant: Gump! What's your sole purpose in this army?
Forrest Gump: To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!
Drill Sergeant: God damn it, Gump! You're a god damn genius! This is the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamn gifted, Private Gump. Listen up, people...
Forrest Gump: [narrates] Now for some reason I fit in the army like one of them round pegs. It's not really hard. You just make your bed real neat and remember to stand up straight and always answer every question with "Yes, drill sergeant."
Drill Sergeant: ...Is that clear?
Forrest Gump: Yes, drill sergeant!
Forrest Gump: [running] I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.
Forrest Gump: I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both.
Forrest Gump: You died on a Saturday morning. And I had you placed here under our tree. And I had that house of your father's bulldozed to the ground. Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't. Little Forrest, he's doing just fine. About to start school again soon. I make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I make sure he combs his hair and brushes his teeth every day. Teaching him how to play ping-pong. He's really good. We fish a lot. And every night, we read a book. He's so smart, Jenny. You'd be so proud of him. I am. He, uh, wrote a letter, and he says I can't read it. I'm not supposed to, so I'll just leave it here for you. Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away.
Forrest Gump: You know it's funny what a young man recollects? 'Cause I don't remember bein' born. I don't recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don't know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. But I do remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the wide world.
Forrest Gump: We was always taking long walks, and we was always looking for a guy named "Charlie".
Forrest Gump: My Mama always said you've got to put the past behind you before you can move on.
So I'm in the middle of editting the final draft of my 7th script and most likely my third feature film. I believe I've achieved Catharsis. "a sudden emotional climax that evokes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow, pity, laughter or any other extreme change in emotion, resulting in restoration, renewal and revitalization in members of the audience". Much of my research used for the first episode in a previous script coupled with an itch of truly understanding Philos-aphilos "Love-in-hate". Let's premise that the maximum love one can give is unconditional love and self sacrifice for belief in that. Now if Philos-aphilos is a parallel in the ancient greek world to the ying and yang symbol of Zen then the maximum hate would be Rage, Masachism, and murder. I believe that simple romantic love is mirrored with hate as to say that whenever that love grows stronger the void it's absence would bring is equally hateful. Throughout ones life there are markers. Emotional mental tabs if I may. These pages are only maximized when situations bring to light familiar feelings which in turn cause a current of reaction uncontrollable. These reactions are only controllable when you isolate them separate to the event at hand like a spiritual awakening.
Most of the time we are creatures of habit. We awake. We feed, clean, and dress ourselves then bus our asses to work. These are simple examples of habit. While more complicated habits are defense mechanisms or codependancy issues. A death close to you in your youth may result in you having strong abandonment issues. In some cases holding on too tightly and in others constantly running away. These are often refered to as walls as well. Why do we put up walls? To protect ourselves, duh. The irony of coarse is that we put up walls to protect ourselves but in the habit of that protection also block or thwart the best things in life. Which to go back to a previous blog is to live in the present. I trust my feeling just as much as the next person but as I have explored more and more my own walls, reactions, and emotions in a somewhat safe environment I've noticed some of these feelings have no place. They're not provoked or enabled by the present. They're enabled by the past and strangely enough that past isn't the truth, it's a lie. It's the way that I decifered a past in a momentary protection reaction. In order to truly have closure and confront this lie, a situation has to arise that's similar or you need to meditate on the specific situation and sit with it. Break it down scientifically like what exactly do I remember, was there someone else there as a witness? What were the causes?
To go back to what I was saying in the beginning about Catharsis. I believe when you take a story that may or may not easily be qualified in such a broad audience of people, one character's reactions can be understood. So that if the story is told correctly you put yourself in their shoes. In previous scripts I've put in way too much dialogue, which now being somewhat pleased with myself and my growth and maturity I see as filler. This tale however needs no filler. Self discovery and hidden pockets of support and good will is enough of a driving force to bring forgiveness center stage. I'm buying my website back. The script will be posted there on November 7th along with the production schedule, crew listings, and musical soundtrack for all whose interested.
Btw it has occurred to me that all these films I've posted are majority from 2000 or the 90's come January as a motion to surpress and knowledgefully reflect (not cause I'm going back to school and will be forced to or anything I swear) the past past, oh yes primarily B&W.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats
Gattaca (1997)
Vincent: There's no gene for fate.
Vincent: He had everything except desire
Vincent: I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it
Vincent: They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore
Vincent: [narrating] I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science.
Jerome: I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream
Vincent: Is the only way you can succeed is to see me fail?
Vincent: You are the authority on what is not possible, aren't you Irene? They've got you looking for any flaw, that after a while that's all you see. For what it's worth, I'm here to tell you that it is possible. It is possible.
Vincent: A year is a long time.
Irene: Not so long. Just once around the sun.
Title Card: "Consider God's handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked?" - Ecclesiastes 7:13
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Sofía: I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats.
David: Do you remember what you told me once? That every passing minute is a another chance to turn it all around.
Sofía: I'll find you again.
David: I'll see you in another life... when we are both cats.
Brian: Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and I know the sour.
David: My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams I'm an idiot... who knows he's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep. But I can't. I try to tell myself what to dream. I try to dream that I am flying. Something free. It never works...
Julie: Don't you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not.
David: See, I've got this little problem. I've got a stalker.
Sofía: It doesn't sound life threatening.
David: But I need a cover. I need for you to pretend we're having a scintillating conversation, and you are wildly entertained.
[Both laugh]
David: I know it's tough.
Sofía: I'll improvise.
David: Look at us. I'm frozen and you're dead, and I love you.
Sofía: It's a problem.
David: I lost you when I got in that car. I'm sorry.
Brian: You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy, who goes home alone.
David: My father wrote about this in his book. Chapter 1... Page 1... Paragraph 1: What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions?... Money.
David: Doc, once you've been driven off a bridge at 80 miles an hour, somehow you don't invite happiness in without a full body search.
David: I want to live a real life... I don't want to dream any longer.
Sofía: Do you love me? I mean really love me. Because if you don't... I'll just have to kill you.
David: I like your life.
Sofía: Well, it's mine and you can't have it!
Edmund: There are no guarantees, but remember: Even in the future, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour.
Edmund: You were missed, David. It was Sofia who never fully recovered. It was she who some how knew you best... and like you, she never forgot that one night where true love seemed possible.
This morning I'd like to take a brief moment to talk about 2 topics. First off, rebirth. How much time does one need to spend in preverbial shadow and night before being reborn into a new reality of their own design. For the past 6 months I've lingered in darkness, perpetual night both literally and non-literal. I've slept all day and been awake all night. This morning I woke up at 6 am and walked to the beach and greeted the day with kisses of sunlight caressing my eyelids awake. In the program I've been Auditing (Friends of Bill) they talk often about how people with this affliction hold onto resentment indefinately unless they're honest with A. It's origins, and B. the nature in which it affects you, specifically. This morning I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes. There are possibilities. No longer do I need to hold onto things and feverish thoughts that have held me down. If I want to make another film, I need a script that sells itself which will take some tweeking on scripts I've done but it's do-able. I start school again in January and I've been trying to figure out what position is more of a settled down career like teaching or business, law, or banking. But there's still plenty of fight left to do something harder then follow the group. Just because I'm surrounded by this standardized life like settle into a stable career, get married, and buy stuff doesn't mean that I have to follow suit.
The struggle is important. The second topic I wanted to discuss is destiny. Are we pre-destined. Is what we become imprinted on our DNA before we even get started doing. I ask this because my father around this time in his life 29, still had about a year left of school and was thinking what job he should be doing to marry my mother and settle down. I'm left pondering often if I can follow suit and if I want to. And I don't. I'd like to be more, do more, help more. While in hibernation I've noticed things getting more and more closed. I had to privatize my myspace and facebook cause the new way of shutting down a prospective employee is looking at how much scandalus stuff they have on there page. How much failure does it take to callit quits and the correct answer is there is never enough failure. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. This morning I'm willing to be taught. My clay has still not hardened.
Today's gonna be a great day, don't ask me how I know. Somehow I just know which is a great F'en feeling. I think I've had enough of the sour to appreciate the sweet. The resentment and bitterness has been around long enough for me to stop thinking "once you've been driven off a bridge at 80 miles an hour, somehow you don't invite happiness in without a full body search". It's time to just let it in.
Vincent: There's no gene for fate.
Vincent: He had everything except desire
Vincent: I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it
Vincent: They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore
Vincent: [narrating] I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science.
Jerome: I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream
Vincent: Is the only way you can succeed is to see me fail?
Vincent: You are the authority on what is not possible, aren't you Irene? They've got you looking for any flaw, that after a while that's all you see. For what it's worth, I'm here to tell you that it is possible. It is possible.
Vincent: A year is a long time.
Irene: Not so long. Just once around the sun.
Title Card: "Consider God's handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked?" - Ecclesiastes 7:13
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Sofía: I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats.
David: Do you remember what you told me once? That every passing minute is a another chance to turn it all around.
Sofía: I'll find you again.
David: I'll see you in another life... when we are both cats.
Brian: Just remember, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and I know the sour.
David: My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams I'm an idiot... who knows he's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep. But I can't. I try to tell myself what to dream. I try to dream that I am flying. Something free. It never works...
Julie: Don't you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not.
David: See, I've got this little problem. I've got a stalker.
Sofía: It doesn't sound life threatening.
David: But I need a cover. I need for you to pretend we're having a scintillating conversation, and you are wildly entertained.
[Both laugh]
David: I know it's tough.
Sofía: I'll improvise.
David: Look at us. I'm frozen and you're dead, and I love you.
Sofía: It's a problem.
David: I lost you when I got in that car. I'm sorry.
Brian: You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy, who goes home alone.
David: My father wrote about this in his book. Chapter 1... Page 1... Paragraph 1: What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions?... Money.
David: Doc, once you've been driven off a bridge at 80 miles an hour, somehow you don't invite happiness in without a full body search.
David: I want to live a real life... I don't want to dream any longer.
Sofía: Do you love me? I mean really love me. Because if you don't... I'll just have to kill you.
David: I like your life.
Sofía: Well, it's mine and you can't have it!
Edmund: There are no guarantees, but remember: Even in the future, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour.
Edmund: You were missed, David. It was Sofia who never fully recovered. It was she who some how knew you best... and like you, she never forgot that one night where true love seemed possible.
This morning I'd like to take a brief moment to talk about 2 topics. First off, rebirth. How much time does one need to spend in preverbial shadow and night before being reborn into a new reality of their own design. For the past 6 months I've lingered in darkness, perpetual night both literally and non-literal. I've slept all day and been awake all night. This morning I woke up at 6 am and walked to the beach and greeted the day with kisses of sunlight caressing my eyelids awake. In the program I've been Auditing (Friends of Bill) they talk often about how people with this affliction hold onto resentment indefinately unless they're honest with A. It's origins, and B. the nature in which it affects you, specifically. This morning I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes. There are possibilities. No longer do I need to hold onto things and feverish thoughts that have held me down. If I want to make another film, I need a script that sells itself which will take some tweeking on scripts I've done but it's do-able. I start school again in January and I've been trying to figure out what position is more of a settled down career like teaching or business, law, or banking. But there's still plenty of fight left to do something harder then follow the group. Just because I'm surrounded by this standardized life like settle into a stable career, get married, and buy stuff doesn't mean that I have to follow suit.
The struggle is important. The second topic I wanted to discuss is destiny. Are we pre-destined. Is what we become imprinted on our DNA before we even get started doing. I ask this because my father around this time in his life 29, still had about a year left of school and was thinking what job he should be doing to marry my mother and settle down. I'm left pondering often if I can follow suit and if I want to. And I don't. I'd like to be more, do more, help more. While in hibernation I've noticed things getting more and more closed. I had to privatize my myspace and facebook cause the new way of shutting down a prospective employee is looking at how much scandalus stuff they have on there page. How much failure does it take to callit quits and the correct answer is there is never enough failure. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. This morning I'm willing to be taught. My clay has still not hardened.
Today's gonna be a great day, don't ask me how I know. Somehow I just know which is a great F'en feeling. I think I've had enough of the sour to appreciate the sweet. The resentment and bitterness has been around long enough for me to stop thinking "once you've been driven off a bridge at 80 miles an hour, somehow you don't invite happiness in without a full body search". It's time to just let it in.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
You believe a man can change his destiny... I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
The Last Samurai (2003)
Emperor Meiji: Tell me how he died.
Algren: I will tell you how he lived.
Algren: There is Life in every breath...
Katsumoto: That is, Bushido.
Algren: I will miss our conversations.
Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
Algren: [shouting] What do you want from me?
Katsumoto: What do you want for yourself?
Katsumoto: The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.
Algren: This is Katsumoto's sword. He would have wanted you to have it. He hoped with his dying breath that you would remember his ancestors who held it, and what they died for. May the strength of the Samurai always be with you.
Algren: There was once a battle at a place called Thermopylae, where three hundred brave Greeks held off a Persian army of a million men... a million, you understand this number?
Katsumoto: I understand this number.
Algren: [narrating] They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seem such discipline. I am surprised to learn that the word Samurai means, 'to serve', and that Katsumoto believes his rebellion to be in the service of the Emperor.
Algren: [narrating] Winter, 1877. What does it mean to be Samurai? To devote yourself utterly to a set of moral principles. To seek a stillness of your mind. And to master the way of the sword.
Algren: [narrating] Spring, 1877. This marks the longest I've stayed in one place since I left the farm at 17. There is so much here I will never understand. I've never been a church going man, and what I've seen on the field of battle has led me to question God's purpose. But there is indeed something spiritual in this place. And though it may forever be obscure to me, I cannot but be aware of its power. I do know that it is here that I've known my first untroubled sleep in many years.
Emperor Meiji: My ancestors have ruled Japan for 2,000 years. And for all that time we have slept. During my sleep I have dreamed. I dreamed of a unified Japan. Of a country strong and independent and modern... And now we are awake. We have railroads and cannon and Western clothing. But we cannot forget who we are. Or where we come from.
Katsumoto: What happened to the warriors at Thermopylae?
Algren: Dead to the last man.
Higen: Will you fight the white men, too?
Algren: If they come here, yes.
Higen: Why?
Algren: Because they come to destroy what I have come to love.
300 (2006)
Xerxes: There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories! Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned. Every Greek historian, and every scribe shall have their eyes pulled out, and their tongues cut from their mouths. Why, uttering the very name of Sparta, or Leonidas, will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all!
King Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.
Dilios: "Remember us." As simple an order as a king can give. "Remember why we died." For he did not wish tribute, nor song, nor monuments nor poems of war and valor. His wish was simple. "Remember us," he said to me. That was his hope, should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be. May all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones, "Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here by Spartan law, we lie."
Stelios: It's an honor to die at your side.
King Leonidas: It's an honor to have lived at yours.
Queen Gorgo: Spartan!
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady?
Queen Gorgo: Come back with your shield, or on it.
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady.
Dilios: The old ones say we Spartans are descended from Hercules himself. Bold Leonidas gives testament to our bloodline. His roar is long and loud.
[Gorgo waking up from Leonidas stroking her back]
Queen Gorgo: Your lips can finish what your fingers have started... or has the Oracle robbed you of your desire as well?
King Leonidas: It would take more than the words than a drunken adolescent girl to rob me of my desire of you.
Messenger: What makes this woman think she can speak among men?
Queen Gorgo: Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.
Queen Gorgo: Freedom isn't free at all, that it comes with the highest of costs. The cost of blood.
King Leonidas: Then what must a king do to save his world when the very laws he has sworn to protect force him to do nothing?
Queen Gorgo: It is not a question of what a Spartan citizen should do, nor a husband, nor a king. Instead, ask yourself, my dearest love, what should a free man do?
Xerxes: It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
King Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.
Spartan King Leonidas: Give them nothing! But take from them everything!
Dilios: "Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong.
Dilios: Sire, any message...?
King Leonidas: For the Queen?
[Dilios nods. Leonidas removes the wolf's fang pendant from around his neck, and presses it into Dilios's hand]
King Leonidas: None that need be spoken.
Belief, faith, and will. These things ring throughout my head and heart of late. I wish to no longer question. Just to know for a bit what my plite is and stay the coarse without fear of rejection or mistake. How long can I go with minimal doubt of what's going on. This life is a rollercoaster. Often I go 2 or 3 days without any doubt. Considerable confidence and not a single thought of fear, loneliness, or anger, but then without warning as if the rug I had been standing on that had given me the strength to do, feel, and speak so had been taken from beneath my feet. I'm then left to wait for it to pass. What I've noticed more and more though is that the moment I can get out of myself, or listen to someone elses problems or thoughts I feel better.
I've wanted to site these movies for sometime. Trying to find a connection between them and me without stating the obvious because listed here are a variety of movies about war. I wouldn't consider myself a warrior nor have I really had an desire to kill. But I appreciate the simple man that can. I appreciate people that have that virtue. Something they believe in so much that they would give their life to uphold it. The more I think about it the more it rings true that that belief is their life force. Much similiar to a priest who believe god has indeed given him a calling.
In this modern age of man the struggles of man vs himself and environment is like war. You can't control what other people think about you but you can limit how much of yourself they get to see. Even though it's not said in the 300 but there's hints at it. It is said in The Last Samurai. Algren is sitting on the porch with the son of this warriors that he killed. The kid says in Japanesse that he would be afraid to die in battle and Algren says so would he and the kid is like but you've been in so many battles and Algeren is like I've been afraid everytime. One of the last quotes that I posted from the 300 is " Dilios: "Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong. " I think that there's no place for weakness in the public eye. There is weakness but the point is to never show it.
I think the human condition is to share it. To have someone or a connection to someone to let that out. It's written in some of the texts I'm reading but not everyone is that person. I think it takes more patience just to find people of that likeness, that like you for you and have taken the time which is a lot longer than a couple of months to get to know that about you. I think women do see sensitive men as weak. While as other men or other sensitive men see it as normal. It's strange talking about it. But I've found that I find strength hearing other peoples insecurities. I don't feel completely overwhelmed by my past. What I might have done different does make me question. A friend said earlier tonight that until you have all your needs, habits, and solutions to satisfy and confront them honestly that it doesn't matter what other catylists or people or things you add to the mix. You need to dismantle yourself everyday. He countiued to say that before you had baggage or experiences that dictates your habits now, your emotions and feelings and reactions helped you get out of yourself, while now as I have noticed as well they hinder in the process. Which is why he preceeded to tell me other people and their take on things helps you.
He said help others. Which in simplicist terms is an ear and a hug. If you can do that for someone else it'll make it easier to accept it yourself. It helps in allowing yourself to be forgiven by forgiving someone else. Anyway just my thoughts tonight.
Emperor Meiji: Tell me how he died.
Algren: I will tell you how he lived.
Algren: There is Life in every breath...
Katsumoto: That is, Bushido.
Algren: I will miss our conversations.
Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
Algren: [shouting] What do you want from me?
Katsumoto: What do you want for yourself?
Katsumoto: The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.
Algren: This is Katsumoto's sword. He would have wanted you to have it. He hoped with his dying breath that you would remember his ancestors who held it, and what they died for. May the strength of the Samurai always be with you.
Algren: There was once a battle at a place called Thermopylae, where three hundred brave Greeks held off a Persian army of a million men... a million, you understand this number?
Katsumoto: I understand this number.
Algren: [narrating] They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seem such discipline. I am surprised to learn that the word Samurai means, 'to serve', and that Katsumoto believes his rebellion to be in the service of the Emperor.
Algren: [narrating] Winter, 1877. What does it mean to be Samurai? To devote yourself utterly to a set of moral principles. To seek a stillness of your mind. And to master the way of the sword.
Algren: [narrating] Spring, 1877. This marks the longest I've stayed in one place since I left the farm at 17. There is so much here I will never understand. I've never been a church going man, and what I've seen on the field of battle has led me to question God's purpose. But there is indeed something spiritual in this place. And though it may forever be obscure to me, I cannot but be aware of its power. I do know that it is here that I've known my first untroubled sleep in many years.
Emperor Meiji: My ancestors have ruled Japan for 2,000 years. And for all that time we have slept. During my sleep I have dreamed. I dreamed of a unified Japan. Of a country strong and independent and modern... And now we are awake. We have railroads and cannon and Western clothing. But we cannot forget who we are. Or where we come from.
Katsumoto: What happened to the warriors at Thermopylae?
Algren: Dead to the last man.
Higen: Will you fight the white men, too?
Algren: If they come here, yes.
Higen: Why?
Algren: Because they come to destroy what I have come to love.
300 (2006)
Xerxes: There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories! Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned. Every Greek historian, and every scribe shall have their eyes pulled out, and their tongues cut from their mouths. Why, uttering the very name of Sparta, or Leonidas, will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all!
King Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.
Dilios: "Remember us." As simple an order as a king can give. "Remember why we died." For he did not wish tribute, nor song, nor monuments nor poems of war and valor. His wish was simple. "Remember us," he said to me. That was his hope, should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be. May all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones, "Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here by Spartan law, we lie."
Stelios: It's an honor to die at your side.
King Leonidas: It's an honor to have lived at yours.
Queen Gorgo: Spartan!
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady?
Queen Gorgo: Come back with your shield, or on it.
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady.
Dilios: The old ones say we Spartans are descended from Hercules himself. Bold Leonidas gives testament to our bloodline. His roar is long and loud.
[Gorgo waking up from Leonidas stroking her back]
Queen Gorgo: Your lips can finish what your fingers have started... or has the Oracle robbed you of your desire as well?
King Leonidas: It would take more than the words than a drunken adolescent girl to rob me of my desire of you.
Messenger: What makes this woman think she can speak among men?
Queen Gorgo: Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.
Queen Gorgo: Freedom isn't free at all, that it comes with the highest of costs. The cost of blood.
King Leonidas: Then what must a king do to save his world when the very laws he has sworn to protect force him to do nothing?
Queen Gorgo: It is not a question of what a Spartan citizen should do, nor a husband, nor a king. Instead, ask yourself, my dearest love, what should a free man do?
Xerxes: It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
King Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.
Spartan King Leonidas: Give them nothing! But take from them everything!
Dilios: "Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong.
Dilios: Sire, any message...?
King Leonidas: For the Queen?
[Dilios nods. Leonidas removes the wolf's fang pendant from around his neck, and presses it into Dilios's hand]
King Leonidas: None that need be spoken.
Belief, faith, and will. These things ring throughout my head and heart of late. I wish to no longer question. Just to know for a bit what my plite is and stay the coarse without fear of rejection or mistake. How long can I go with minimal doubt of what's going on. This life is a rollercoaster. Often I go 2 or 3 days without any doubt. Considerable confidence and not a single thought of fear, loneliness, or anger, but then without warning as if the rug I had been standing on that had given me the strength to do, feel, and speak so had been taken from beneath my feet. I'm then left to wait for it to pass. What I've noticed more and more though is that the moment I can get out of myself, or listen to someone elses problems or thoughts I feel better.
I've wanted to site these movies for sometime. Trying to find a connection between them and me without stating the obvious because listed here are a variety of movies about war. I wouldn't consider myself a warrior nor have I really had an desire to kill. But I appreciate the simple man that can. I appreciate people that have that virtue. Something they believe in so much that they would give their life to uphold it. The more I think about it the more it rings true that that belief is their life force. Much similiar to a priest who believe god has indeed given him a calling.
In this modern age of man the struggles of man vs himself and environment is like war. You can't control what other people think about you but you can limit how much of yourself they get to see. Even though it's not said in the 300 but there's hints at it. It is said in The Last Samurai. Algren is sitting on the porch with the son of this warriors that he killed. The kid says in Japanesse that he would be afraid to die in battle and Algren says so would he and the kid is like but you've been in so many battles and Algeren is like I've been afraid everytime. One of the last quotes that I posted from the 300 is " Dilios: "Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong. " I think that there's no place for weakness in the public eye. There is weakness but the point is to never show it.
I think the human condition is to share it. To have someone or a connection to someone to let that out. It's written in some of the texts I'm reading but not everyone is that person. I think it takes more patience just to find people of that likeness, that like you for you and have taken the time which is a lot longer than a couple of months to get to know that about you. I think women do see sensitive men as weak. While as other men or other sensitive men see it as normal. It's strange talking about it. But I've found that I find strength hearing other peoples insecurities. I don't feel completely overwhelmed by my past. What I might have done different does make me question. A friend said earlier tonight that until you have all your needs, habits, and solutions to satisfy and confront them honestly that it doesn't matter what other catylists or people or things you add to the mix. You need to dismantle yourself everyday. He countiued to say that before you had baggage or experiences that dictates your habits now, your emotions and feelings and reactions helped you get out of yourself, while now as I have noticed as well they hinder in the process. Which is why he preceeded to tell me other people and their take on things helps you.
He said help others. Which in simplicist terms is an ear and a hug. If you can do that for someone else it'll make it easier to accept it yourself. It helps in allowing yourself to be forgiven by forgiving someone else. Anyway just my thoughts tonight.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Confront me if I don't ask for help
Trainspotting (1996)
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: I don't feel the sickness yet, but it's in the post. That's for sure. I'm in the junkie limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep. Too tired to stay awake, but the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea. Pain and craving. A need like nothing else I've ever known will soon take hold of me. It's on its way.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Swanney taught us to adore and respect the national health service. For it was the source of much of our gear. We stole drugs. We stole prescriptions or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them. Or traded drugs with cancer victims, alcoholics, old-age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics, and bored housewives.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Thank you, your honor. With God's help I'll conquer this terrible affliction.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] I wished that I'd gone down instead of Spud. Here I was surrounded by my family and my so-called mates and I've never felt so alone. Never in all my puff. Since I was on remand, they've had me on this program, this state sponsored addiction. Three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack. But it's never enough. And at the moment it's nowhere near enough. I took all three this morning and now I've got eighteen hours to go until my next shot. I've got sweat on my back like a layer of frost. I need to visit the Mother Superior for one hit. One final hit to get us over this long, hard day.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What's on the menu this evening, Sir?
Swanney: Your favorite dish.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Excellent.
Swanney: Your usual table, Sir.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, why thank you.
Swanney: Would Sir care to pay for his bill in advance?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: No. Stick it on my tab.
Swanney: Ah, regret to inform, sir, credit limit was reached and breached quite some time ago.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, well in that case...
[hands him some cash]
Swanney: Ah, hard currency. Thank you, Sir. Can't be too careful these days. Would Sir care for a starter of some garlic bread perhaps?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: No, thank you. I will proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Take the best orgasm you've ever had... multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it.
Allison: It beats any meat injection. That beats any fucking cock in the world.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
28 Days (2000)
Gwen Cummings: Don't be someone else's slogan because you are poetry
Gwen Cummings: I am having a bad day! The worst damn day of my whole damn life! If it is not too much to ask will you all just back the fuck off!
Lily: Gwen, you make it impossible to love you.
Gwen Cummings: God, I love afternoons like this. You know what's missing in this afternoon? That I don't have a very dry vodka martini with two olives in a chilled glass. God, I miss that.
Eddie Boone: You know, lately I've been lying awake at night thinking of all the dumb-ass things I've done when i was messed up. One night last year, at dinner, I threw up all over my glazed ham. Then I was thinking, "Well, maybe nobody noticed."
Gwen Cummings: I don't think of it as a garnish.
Eddie Boone: Yeah, I'm a winner. Oh, God. You know what the worse one was? For me? My best friend in the whole world. Grew up playing ball, hunting and fishing. One Sunday morning, he walks in on me and his wife in bed. You never live that one down. Tell me one of yours.
Gwen Cummings: Excuse me?
Eddie Boone: What's the worse thing you ever did when you were messed up.
Gwen Cummings: Oh... Uh. I don't know
Eddie Boone: Oh, come on. Give me a couple, I'll pick one.
Gwen Cummings: I don't really remember any.
Eddie Boone: I just told you some stuff that's... you know.
Gwen Cummings: I'm a drunk. Drunks forget everything, you know?
Eddie Boone: Come on.
Gwen Cummings: Why? So I recount the last 15 disgusting years of my life to humilate myself? No thanks.
Eddie Boone: Why not?
Gwen Cummings: Because I don't feel like it. I don't feel like talking about it.
Eddie Boone: What's a matter? You too good for me?
Gwen Cummings: What, are you dense? Did your mom drop you on your head? I said No I don't want to talk about it, so just drop it.
Gwen Cummings: It was the most unbelievable episode. I wish you'd seen it. Everyone was losing their minds. What are you doing?
Andrea: Packing. What does it look like?
Gwen Cummings: You're not leaving for another couple of days.
Andrea: So? I am leaving. Might as well get ready. There's no point in making this room all homey if I'm only going to be here for only, like, 42 more hours.
Gwen Cummings: Come on. There's twenty minutes left til curfew. Let's get some ice cream. Satisify those sugar cravings of yours.
Andrea: No thanks.
Gwen Cummings: You don't have to do this, you know.
Andrea: Do what? How do you know what I have to do? Have you ever left rehab before?
Gwen Cummings: No but I...
Andrea: Okay, but nothing. You've never left rehab before, so you don't know what you're talking about.
Gwen Cummings: True, but I have been a part of some very emotional sing outs...
Andrea: Oh, God. I'm sorry. You sang "Lean on Me" a few times. The stupidest freaking cheesy song ever. Oh well, my mistake. You must know about leaving rehab better than anyone.
Lily: The only thing I told you was how a pain in the ass you were.
Gwen Cummings: well I am a pain in the ass
Lily: Even a pain in the ass needs, someone, to take care of them. I didn't do that, I didn't and, I should have. I should have helped you with your homework, I should have walked you home after school. Sometimes I'd be walking with my friends and I'd see you half a block ahead, all alone. You were so little.
Gwen Cummings: Well so where you
Lily: Yeh
Gwen Cummings: Well, I never asked for help so...
Lily: But you needed it, didn't you. I mean everybody does
Gwen Cummings: Yep... I'm sorry I make it so impossible to love me...
[crying]
Lily: You make it impossible for me not to love you
Gwen Cummings: Yeah, I know I drink a lot, I know I do because I'm a writer and that's what I do, I drink. I'm not like those people out there, I can control myself! I can, if - that - if I wanted to, I could, if I wanted. I can! I can!
Andrea: Just so you know, I wasn't trying to off myself or anything.
Gwen Cummings: Okay.
Andrea: It's just something I do sometimes.
Gwen Cummings: Doesn't it hurt?
Andrea: Feels better.
Gwen Cummings: Than what?
Andrea: Everything else.
Jasper: No one adult human being is happy! People are born, they have a limited amount of time going around thinking life is dandy but then, inevitably, tragedy strikes and they realise life equals loss! The whole point of the game is to minimise the pain caused by that equation! Now some people do it by having kids, or making money, or taking up coin collecting, and others do it by getting wasted.
Gwen Cummings: Nobody gets hurt collecting coins.
Jasper: Everybody hurts everybody it's the human condition!
Gwen Cummings: Why do you want me Jasper? I am such a mess.
Jasper: Maybe I like mess.
Betty: Tonight's lecture: Are you a blackout drunk, or don't you remember?
Twelve Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
So I've been sober for 42 days, woohoo the crowd goes wild, however in many of the rooms I spend my evenings in there are lots of old folks who have 8+ years of sobriety under their belts. I've been to A.A. before. Once in 2000 after being released from the Dutchess County Mental Health Center, then again in 2002 quickly after my release from the Mercy Hospital Psych ward. Both times I never lasted as long as I have now and when I think back in actuality these 42 days is most likely the longest I've been sober consecutively in a decade. It's weird, in the meetings there are hand fulls of people my age who are mandated to be there for stepping outside the lines of societal acception. That's right criminals. It's hard coming to terms that you have a problem. My problem isn't alcohol. My problem is more. I'm addicted to more. I'm an alcoholic cause it's the most easily accessable. I could go out right now and a grab a bottle and be tanked an hour from now. I'd prefer exctasy though. Out of everything I've used alcohol, coke, acid, mushrooms, pcp, coke, crack, weed, codein, vikatin, ether, sex, and paint thinner. If I could go to the pharmacy or a descently unskeevy unshady drug dealer, exctasy would be the "more" that I'd prefer. I have antic dotes that get me by like when I'm offered something I say I do drink poisen.
I started drinking when I was 14 from greek social gatherings to stealing bottles of liquer from my parents liquir cabinet for camping trips. An A.A. member spoke earlier last week and his words really hit home. He said when we start out drinking it's all in good fun with the consequences being tiny not even noticeable things, however as time passes the consequences get bigger and bigger. Jail time and death being the most notiable. Quick story, a year ago this past May I got out of a moving car doing about 40 km an hour, got off the pavement with my shoulder broken gushing blood out of my face and arm and went home and thought I'd just sleep it off. Thank god my roommate was awake and responsible, I'd probably be dead. As soon as I cross over from slightly buzzed to drunk my cute charming personality turns into a godlike fierce ego trip which is unstoppable. For the past 6 months my drinking and drug use was primarily a tool for escape and escape alone, until finally 3 days in a row, 42 days ago, I just didn't want to wake up, I wished I was dead. It had made my life unmanageable and what good things I do have going for me were no where in sight. I needed hope that it could get better. That there's more to life then self pity for the countless mistakes, that even though I don't have a clean slate, this life deserves a second chance.
I want it to take. Like as much as I have said in the past that you have subconsious baggage that weighs you down, you got a duality of how other percieve you and how you percieve yourself, you have emotions and feelings that run wild at certain times with catalysts, I want to believe you can reprogram yourself. I will soon know that with the addition of drugs and alcohol people like a part of me which isn't me. At least without that addition I know what I'm doing, where I've been, and what I've said. That kind of truth is sobering. I want this. I want to know that there is a real me that's reacting or impacting a real reality. This person is responsible for his actions.
I put the twelve steps up, cause they're repeated over and over again at each meeting I attend. The first step I've accepted as true. Your not allowed to skip steps or do them at your own conveince. So I haven't really come to terms with that power greater than myself. I consider myself spiritual but as for a definition of what or who to pray to in that instance. Furthermore they imply you should ask for help and share your feelings (a truly north american concept) which I'm still struggling with. I pray in the near future that I can let go of not just past experiences that lead to my desire for an emotion numbing thingy to make me feel better but just the control. It's a constant and extremely hard to get a handle on. In a previous blog I talked about Zen. So I might turn to the Buddha to be my higher power and hopefully effectively catch myself when my ego thinks it has or can find all the answers, ideally stop it before it makes frustration and anger and uncontrollable force. In 28 days, Gwenn is forced to wear a sign around her neck that says "confront me if I don't ask for help", brilliant, I can relate.
Earlier today I was watching a documentary called "What the bleep do we know". Again another good foundation for letting go and making something that seems impossible.... possible.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: I don't feel the sickness yet, but it's in the post. That's for sure. I'm in the junkie limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep. Too tired to stay awake, but the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea. Pain and craving. A need like nothing else I've ever known will soon take hold of me. It's on its way.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Swanney taught us to adore and respect the national health service. For it was the source of much of our gear. We stole drugs. We stole prescriptions or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them. Or traded drugs with cancer victims, alcoholics, old-age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics, and bored housewives.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Thank you, your honor. With God's help I'll conquer this terrible affliction.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] I wished that I'd gone down instead of Spud. Here I was surrounded by my family and my so-called mates and I've never felt so alone. Never in all my puff. Since I was on remand, they've had me on this program, this state sponsored addiction. Three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack. But it's never enough. And at the moment it's nowhere near enough. I took all three this morning and now I've got eighteen hours to go until my next shot. I've got sweat on my back like a layer of frost. I need to visit the Mother Superior for one hit. One final hit to get us over this long, hard day.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What's on the menu this evening, Sir?
Swanney: Your favorite dish.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Excellent.
Swanney: Your usual table, Sir.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, why thank you.
Swanney: Would Sir care to pay for his bill in advance?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: No. Stick it on my tab.
Swanney: Ah, regret to inform, sir, credit limit was reached and breached quite some time ago.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Oh, well in that case...
[hands him some cash]
Swanney: Ah, hard currency. Thank you, Sir. Can't be too careful these days. Would Sir care for a starter of some garlic bread perhaps?
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: No, thank you. I will proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Take the best orgasm you've ever had... multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it.
Allison: It beats any meat injection. That beats any fucking cock in the world.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
28 Days (2000)
Gwen Cummings: Don't be someone else's slogan because you are poetry
Gwen Cummings: I am having a bad day! The worst damn day of my whole damn life! If it is not too much to ask will you all just back the fuck off!
Lily: Gwen, you make it impossible to love you.
Gwen Cummings: God, I love afternoons like this. You know what's missing in this afternoon? That I don't have a very dry vodka martini with two olives in a chilled glass. God, I miss that.
Eddie Boone: You know, lately I've been lying awake at night thinking of all the dumb-ass things I've done when i was messed up. One night last year, at dinner, I threw up all over my glazed ham. Then I was thinking, "Well, maybe nobody noticed."
Gwen Cummings: I don't think of it as a garnish.
Eddie Boone: Yeah, I'm a winner. Oh, God. You know what the worse one was? For me? My best friend in the whole world. Grew up playing ball, hunting and fishing. One Sunday morning, he walks in on me and his wife in bed. You never live that one down. Tell me one of yours.
Gwen Cummings: Excuse me?
Eddie Boone: What's the worse thing you ever did when you were messed up.
Gwen Cummings: Oh... Uh. I don't know
Eddie Boone: Oh, come on. Give me a couple, I'll pick one.
Gwen Cummings: I don't really remember any.
Eddie Boone: I just told you some stuff that's... you know.
Gwen Cummings: I'm a drunk. Drunks forget everything, you know?
Eddie Boone: Come on.
Gwen Cummings: Why? So I recount the last 15 disgusting years of my life to humilate myself? No thanks.
Eddie Boone: Why not?
Gwen Cummings: Because I don't feel like it. I don't feel like talking about it.
Eddie Boone: What's a matter? You too good for me?
Gwen Cummings: What, are you dense? Did your mom drop you on your head? I said No I don't want to talk about it, so just drop it.
Gwen Cummings: It was the most unbelievable episode. I wish you'd seen it. Everyone was losing their minds. What are you doing?
Andrea: Packing. What does it look like?
Gwen Cummings: You're not leaving for another couple of days.
Andrea: So? I am leaving. Might as well get ready. There's no point in making this room all homey if I'm only going to be here for only, like, 42 more hours.
Gwen Cummings: Come on. There's twenty minutes left til curfew. Let's get some ice cream. Satisify those sugar cravings of yours.
Andrea: No thanks.
Gwen Cummings: You don't have to do this, you know.
Andrea: Do what? How do you know what I have to do? Have you ever left rehab before?
Gwen Cummings: No but I...
Andrea: Okay, but nothing. You've never left rehab before, so you don't know what you're talking about.
Gwen Cummings: True, but I have been a part of some very emotional sing outs...
Andrea: Oh, God. I'm sorry. You sang "Lean on Me" a few times. The stupidest freaking cheesy song ever. Oh well, my mistake. You must know about leaving rehab better than anyone.
Lily: The only thing I told you was how a pain in the ass you were.
Gwen Cummings: well I am a pain in the ass
Lily: Even a pain in the ass needs, someone, to take care of them. I didn't do that, I didn't and, I should have. I should have helped you with your homework, I should have walked you home after school. Sometimes I'd be walking with my friends and I'd see you half a block ahead, all alone. You were so little.
Gwen Cummings: Well so where you
Lily: Yeh
Gwen Cummings: Well, I never asked for help so...
Lily: But you needed it, didn't you. I mean everybody does
Gwen Cummings: Yep... I'm sorry I make it so impossible to love me...
[crying]
Lily: You make it impossible for me not to love you
Gwen Cummings: Yeah, I know I drink a lot, I know I do because I'm a writer and that's what I do, I drink. I'm not like those people out there, I can control myself! I can, if - that - if I wanted to, I could, if I wanted. I can! I can!
Andrea: Just so you know, I wasn't trying to off myself or anything.
Gwen Cummings: Okay.
Andrea: It's just something I do sometimes.
Gwen Cummings: Doesn't it hurt?
Andrea: Feels better.
Gwen Cummings: Than what?
Andrea: Everything else.
Jasper: No one adult human being is happy! People are born, they have a limited amount of time going around thinking life is dandy but then, inevitably, tragedy strikes and they realise life equals loss! The whole point of the game is to minimise the pain caused by that equation! Now some people do it by having kids, or making money, or taking up coin collecting, and others do it by getting wasted.
Gwen Cummings: Nobody gets hurt collecting coins.
Jasper: Everybody hurts everybody it's the human condition!
Gwen Cummings: Why do you want me Jasper? I am such a mess.
Jasper: Maybe I like mess.
Betty: Tonight's lecture: Are you a blackout drunk, or don't you remember?
Twelve Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
So I've been sober for 42 days, woohoo the crowd goes wild, however in many of the rooms I spend my evenings in there are lots of old folks who have 8+ years of sobriety under their belts. I've been to A.A. before. Once in 2000 after being released from the Dutchess County Mental Health Center, then again in 2002 quickly after my release from the Mercy Hospital Psych ward. Both times I never lasted as long as I have now and when I think back in actuality these 42 days is most likely the longest I've been sober consecutively in a decade. It's weird, in the meetings there are hand fulls of people my age who are mandated to be there for stepping outside the lines of societal acception. That's right criminals. It's hard coming to terms that you have a problem. My problem isn't alcohol. My problem is more. I'm addicted to more. I'm an alcoholic cause it's the most easily accessable. I could go out right now and a grab a bottle and be tanked an hour from now. I'd prefer exctasy though. Out of everything I've used alcohol, coke, acid, mushrooms, pcp, coke, crack, weed, codein, vikatin, ether, sex, and paint thinner. If I could go to the pharmacy or a descently unskeevy unshady drug dealer, exctasy would be the "more" that I'd prefer. I have antic dotes that get me by like when I'm offered something I say I do drink poisen.
I started drinking when I was 14 from greek social gatherings to stealing bottles of liquer from my parents liquir cabinet for camping trips. An A.A. member spoke earlier last week and his words really hit home. He said when we start out drinking it's all in good fun with the consequences being tiny not even noticeable things, however as time passes the consequences get bigger and bigger. Jail time and death being the most notiable. Quick story, a year ago this past May I got out of a moving car doing about 40 km an hour, got off the pavement with my shoulder broken gushing blood out of my face and arm and went home and thought I'd just sleep it off. Thank god my roommate was awake and responsible, I'd probably be dead. As soon as I cross over from slightly buzzed to drunk my cute charming personality turns into a godlike fierce ego trip which is unstoppable. For the past 6 months my drinking and drug use was primarily a tool for escape and escape alone, until finally 3 days in a row, 42 days ago, I just didn't want to wake up, I wished I was dead. It had made my life unmanageable and what good things I do have going for me were no where in sight. I needed hope that it could get better. That there's more to life then self pity for the countless mistakes, that even though I don't have a clean slate, this life deserves a second chance.
I want it to take. Like as much as I have said in the past that you have subconsious baggage that weighs you down, you got a duality of how other percieve you and how you percieve yourself, you have emotions and feelings that run wild at certain times with catalysts, I want to believe you can reprogram yourself. I will soon know that with the addition of drugs and alcohol people like a part of me which isn't me. At least without that addition I know what I'm doing, where I've been, and what I've said. That kind of truth is sobering. I want this. I want to know that there is a real me that's reacting or impacting a real reality. This person is responsible for his actions.
I put the twelve steps up, cause they're repeated over and over again at each meeting I attend. The first step I've accepted as true. Your not allowed to skip steps or do them at your own conveince. So I haven't really come to terms with that power greater than myself. I consider myself spiritual but as for a definition of what or who to pray to in that instance. Furthermore they imply you should ask for help and share your feelings (a truly north american concept) which I'm still struggling with. I pray in the near future that I can let go of not just past experiences that lead to my desire for an emotion numbing thingy to make me feel better but just the control. It's a constant and extremely hard to get a handle on. In a previous blog I talked about Zen. So I might turn to the Buddha to be my higher power and hopefully effectively catch myself when my ego thinks it has or can find all the answers, ideally stop it before it makes frustration and anger and uncontrollable force. In 28 days, Gwenn is forced to wear a sign around her neck that says "confront me if I don't ask for help", brilliant, I can relate.
Earlier today I was watching a documentary called "What the bleep do we know". Again another good foundation for letting go and making something that seems impossible.... possible.
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