The Meltdown

The thing people don’t often realize about me is how excitable I am. Behind the veneer of higher education, an extensive vocabulary and thirty plus years of finely honed sarcasm, there is a part of me that I desperately try to protect. The part that gets teary eyed, when seeing a particularly well-crafted trailer, the part that is blown away by powerfully orchestrated soundtracks – the part that still gets most of its life lessons from movies.

For me it’s a no-brainer, why this part has to be thoroughly hidden away. It’s not a coincidence that the phrase “the world is a cruel place” is an all-time, all-encompassing classic, passed down from one well-meaning generation to another in an endless cycle of despair and encouragement. I’m constantly vigilant about this part showing, always tugging on a badly sitting proverbial tank top to prevent anything falling out.

Don’t be too emotional while discussing movies, I remind myself, while talking to my partner’s colleagues at a casual dinner; don’t show your ridiculous investment in the Frozen sequel, don’t draw attention the tears welling up, when the universal sound starts blaring from the surround sound loudspeakers of a movie theater and, for the love of God, don’t talk about the anti-feminist notions that still plague the characterization of female characters in modern cinema. It’s not worth it. Just be normal, breathe in, breathe out.

Be normal, I constantly remind myself. Normal, unfeeling, casual, nonchalant. Listening to the conversations around me, I find very few things about which I’m allowed to feel passionate about, without fear of ridicule. Taxes are a big one, how the man is ripping everyone off, if you’re conservative, or how awesome taxes are for the good of society, if you’re socialistically inclined. How taxes are complicated and how it’s that season again, where we have to collectively file out tax forms. Travel is another one, casually discussing travel destinations, prices, food and booze.  Riveting stuff really. Common denominators most people can connect to. The topics that don’t make anyone uncomfortable, that can be policed from within the conversation to be as bland and unassuming as possible.

Lately I find myself struggling with the containment of this little excitable core and I oftentimes feel it reaching its melting point, as though the cooling system, the one mechanism that shields it from ridicule has started to malfunction probably due to wear and tear. Time and time again I end up talking about uncomfortable talking points that take up so much space in my head that they inevitably escape, every time I don’t pay close attention. - Society is in shambles. Nothing is moving. We are stuck in an endless loop of misogyny, homophobia and good old racism. Here is an example from an obscure movie, because film reflects reality and irreality at the same time. More wine? - Although it didn’t sound as dramatic in my head, it comes out as a desperate onrush of badly suppressed words and emotions, like a toddler trying to tell you about their first day at school. Every time I have that jarring feeling of having to talk, of wanting someone to listen and every time, I see the alienation I wreak upon the nice quiet dinner I’ve planned with my best friend. It’s not surprising that I’ve been told to tone it down multiple times and even if I didn’t get verbal feedback, I could see the exhaustion on their faces. The disappointment of an evening ruined by frantic talk about social issues or a TED-talk-esque tirade about the latest Marvel product that no one has, or let’s be honest, will ever see and its implications for society and film at large. After the get together has ended, the shame kicks in immediately. Why did I talk so much? Do they hate me now? Why can’t I be chill about anything? Those questions eat at me for days, before inevitably the next dinner party and the next faux pas on my part. It’s excruciating really.

Well, that is easy to remedy, you might think. My friends are simply not into movies or that politically interested, after all they have normal jobs and kids to think about. Just find a like-minded community; we do live on the internet for crying out loud, how hard can it be to find people who care about the same stuff?

This is, of course, a rhetorical question. It’s hard. People are lonelier than they’ve ever been. Mostly wallowing in the uniqueness and solitude of their own opinion, as the internet has destroyed any notion of nuance and having a personal opinion invites an amount of vitriol that makes it quite impossible to find connection in any online spaces. 

But this is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Connection.

Connection in the small supposedly irrelevant small talk about weather, in tirades about taxes, sharing the latest travel destination or, the best topic of all, cats.

As a personal essayist I’m inclined to look into myself, my feelings, my interpretations of the world to find inspiration, but sometimes even I start wondering whether my reaction to the world is too harsh, whether I’ve taken the age-old wisdom about the world being a cruel place too close to heart. Am I interpreting my friend’s facial expressions wrong? Do I conflate their expression of contemplation with my own desire to preemptively protect myself? Most probably - yes.

Because, let’s be honest, we all - my supposedly disinterested friends, the vitriolic online communities, the poor taxi driver I’ve harassed about late-stage capitalism that one time and even the guy that lectured me about, how to correctly express my feelings in a comment thread – have little excitable cores to protect. Cores that were protected for so long that they are ready to burst at any moment, spilling forth a cornucopia of beautiful, freaky, exciting interests and passions. We should be able to get lost in the moment of frenzy, a whirlwind of inspiration without fear of repercussion from our peers and I genuinely think that we are. After all, my friends are still talking to me after one supposed faux pas after the other, some of them even participating in these conversations exasperatedly trying to make a point about art. The taxi driver had some really interesting stuff to say about capitalism and, well, online spaces are still online spaces, some wholesome and some… not.

So, in the spirit of this feeling of liberation and total connection to ourselves and everyone around us. Let's find a new way to communicate. Let's connect on multiple levels. It's so worth it.