Saturday 1 January 2011

Why am I happy when everybody else is miserable?

It is clear that I seem to dance with glee through days others find interminably miserable. This grey, calm, cold, day was music to my ears.
As I thought about it, especially when Julie and I broached such subjects in the pub, it was clear that Julie likes miserable films, while I might find fortitude in miserable life. This was an interesting discussion. For instance, when it comes to films, I can guarantee that for Julie only the most miserable, slow and desperate films, films where nothing happens for hours on end may bring joy. But for me, it's clear I enjoy the real thing in the atmosphere around me for as long as the day will last. She enjoys it by proxy, and there is nothing wrong or inauthentic about this. To be honest, it just makes us laugh!
But there are levels of misery in film. Julie described tonight's showing of 'Forgetting Sarah whoeveritis' starring Russell Brand as 'silly miserable' That may mean some notion of 'California miserable' which is misery within it's impossibility, hence immense neurosis (If I were Russell's therapist I'd ask him to bask in this notion a little). This is very different to Finnish misery for instance (which I have recently understood there may even be a gene for). Aki K (famous Finnish Film Director) burst into tears the moment he met an old friend of mine-who loved a vodka bottle up her arse -who was supposed to interview him in The French House one morning, the vodka was flowing way before noon. Humans are very curious creatures, read your Freud!
England's misery is dripped in either end of Empire or Mike Leigh or the terrible performances of the national football team, and is necessarily dunked in nostalgia. Russia's misery is being perennially one step from barbarism forever, and Americas by just being squashed by fuckheads in the name of freedom.

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