...Mostly Joy for me, too. 37 year old guy lol Mostly just because I've felt lost in life for a few years now. Like someone else mentioned, the fear that how I am is how I'll always be, since people always told me I'd outgrow my shyness, anxiety, and awkwardness, but I still pretty much feel the same as I did in high school, the same personality. Still feeling emotions deeply, still very sensitive, an empath, different from the norm. Confident people still confuse me and make me uncomfortable, they still seem fake to me. Still uncomfortable with the idea of having to be smooth and manipulative like most adults have to be to succeed in this world.
Plus I was trapped in my last job, was brave enough/burned out enough/broken down enough to leave, but am having trouble figuring out how to take the next step in life, regarding what to do with the rest of it. Since I miss the structure of school, of having your steps planned out and someone telling you what to do. So I'm trying to be brave and follow my heart for the first time, trying to live my own life, but its scary and not going so well at the moment. Was going well, seemed to have someone come into my life I thought could help me, but it seems I may have blown it and I'm really depressed about that.
Its not fair that adults are under so much more pressure to have it all together or at least act like we do. People say adolescence sucks so bad, and mine was no picnic either, but I feel life was simpler as a kid. Much less responsibility and expectation. I also feel I'd have done better if I'd been a girl. Or gay lol Since it seems there'd be less pressure to be confident, to be the alpha. You could just be yourself. Just exist. So maybe some people just aren't meant to be confident, since it never seems to work when I try it, like people don't take it seriously because they know its uncomfortable for me and I suck at it lol
Seems people are more understanding of a character's flaws when they're young, like Todd's Welcome to the Dollhouse protagonist, since things happen in life to affect your personality (bullying, flawed parents/troubled home life, abuse, etc) and people seem to understand that. Nature and nurture. But once you're an adult, all that empathy goes out the window and no one tries to understand anymore, they just judge. Even if you're basically the same person, due to whatever factors caused you to remain the same. That's messed up.
But yeah, its like I know who I am, but the trick is how to take that and turn it into something that could be successful and profitable in the world. Not that I want to conform to the world, but you still have to eat. So that's been tough. Since most of the things I'm naturally good at are considered "feminine" and not exactly money making skills that the world values.
Though most "normal" people won't understand that, someone trying to do their own thing, since this world is so based on competition and achievement, ambition and climbing ladders. Money, status, and power. Using people to "get ahead". All BS to me. Very rare when someone gets me. I hardly if ever see people posting stuff like this. So I relate to the part where Joy's sister tells her something like she always seemed doomed to failure. Since apparently I'm so hard to understand, so that's a worry of mine, other people seeing me as a failure (and sometimes seeing myself as one, since I'm one of my own toughest critics and its hard trying to go your own way in life). Similar line about failure in Todd's film Dark Horse, too.
Wow, sorry for all that lol Hope that made sense. Felt good to get it out. I guess if you can't say that stuff on a board for a Solondz movie, where can you? :-)
"That's the theme of my movies: The victory of the battered idealist in a cynical world."
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