we do not create our relationships -

our relationships create US.

I partly just wanted to see how that looked in black and white. But I also think it's true: We don't really EXIST outside of our relationships (the whole 'one hand clapping' thing, maybe). Our self-understanding is an amalgamation, a patchwork, a montage, whatever you want to call it, of all the different ways we are seen, and treated, by other people.

We HAVE no fixed character. I mean, there are certain aspects of us that seem to remain, relatively unchanged, and those must be the traits we were born with. But for the rest? It all seems to morph according to - actually, that's not true.

I just watched some interviews with a couple of actors from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Interestingly, the character who, in the movie, plays the 'uncertain', insecure one (Cameron) is, in the interview, the more solid, secure person. Whereas Matthew Broderick, who plays Bueller in the movie, seems much less 'himself' in the interview.

There's an odd combination of traits in Broderick: An almost scary need to please, to be liked, and yet, he wants to be liked for who he is, rather than simply for jumping through the hoops.

He's like the eternal little kid, the one who never grows up - who knows exactly what bullshit you (the adult) are trying to pull on him, and he calls you on it, in his inimitable way; and yet, at the same time, he never actually becomes the adult he seems so desperately to need.

He's like a foil - his job is to draw out that which is needed, in the other person, but he has no character himself.

It's like these words are typing themselves, no volition on my part, I'm trying to figure something out, and I'm hoping that if I just keep typing and typing, SOMETHING will become clear

Why do I relate to this Bueller character?

He grew up (in the movie - in my mind, I keep conflating Broderick with the character he plays) with these two relatively childlike parents with sort of incompletely formed personalities - like two high school students who suddenly found themselves responsible for a child, a job, a house, and have no idea how they ended up in this situation.

Just like MY parents. Probably just like MOST parents, if not all parents, if it comes down to it.

I mean, who is really ready to have a kid? No matter how much preparation you've done, no matter whether it's a 'planned' child instead of an unplanned one -

I'm suddenly remembering reading somewhere that the concepts of 'child' and 'childhood' are relatively modern ones - Victorian era, maybe? That children before that time were really just thought of as 'small humans', rather than being treated like practically a different species as they are today.

Hm. Something in that, can't quite grab it. Something to do with power, and development into a full human being?

***
There's something amiss, missing, AWOL in the whole picture.

There's something VITAL lost in the translation, transmission, what's the word? from teenager-hood to 'adult'hood.

Teenagers - maybe it's something to do with rites of passage? Where a child makes her way in the world on her own terms, rather than being forced into some pre-conceived mold?

And the 'adults' around her also went through this same passage, and therefore aren't burdened with all kinds of emotional baggage which they then try to foist off on their kids?

And so the kids don't end up being miniature adults long before they're ready, but instead make the 'crossing' in their own time, their own way?

But then I'm remembering from - National Velvet, is it? With Mickey Rooney and - I'm embarrassed to say i had to look this up - Elizabeth Taylor. What struck me about that film, and about a number of films made in that time period - what was it, 1950's? (I looked it up, that one was made in 1944). I was going to say, war-era - there was something very sincere and real and genuine about those movies. The children in them actually did seem very 'adult', often, and the adults, while often 'serious', seemed less - authoritarian? More gentle?

Now of course these are movies, and hardly likely to be particularly accurate reflections of the real people of the time, any more than current movies are. However, movies do tend to capture the - what's that word, zeitgeist? - sort of general 'feel' of a time period or generation.

And it seems like something was different then.

The Baby Boomers messed it all up. Somehow they are/were a pivotal generation, who 'took' something from both the generation before them AND the one after them, and left a kind of social vacuum behind, kind of like a sonic boom.

***
Maybe our world is just too narrow, too black and white? I've seen, more than once, the idea that we all must become 'specialists' to survive in the modern world.

But specialists, by definition, are people who have a pretty narrow view of things.

Is this really what we want, in terms of a healthy, balanced society and culture?

Or is this just the most convenient shape for the cogs that are needed to run the capitalist machine?

***
Movies give us the illusion that we can step outside the cage that those who crave power and wealth have created for the rest of us. But the fact is that, unless you are very greedy (and thus very driven to chase after wealth and power), the best you can ever hope to be is somebody's lap dog.

I mean, the guys who really pull the strings are the ones who can pull together the funding to make a movie that conveys whatever that person's 'message' is. Movies are the most powerful propaganda machine on the planet.

I wonder if the reason a guy like Matthew Broderick doesn't look very happy in middle age is because the parasites have fed off of him for too long? Movie directors seek out people (actors) who possess the qualities and characteristics that they, the movie directors, do not themselves possess.

They then parade these actors around a set the same way a little girl or boy plays with their dolls, making them act out the stories the director would like to imagine.

***
The kids, or actors, do what they're told. Within certain limits, if the actor (or child) is favored by the movie director (or parent), then that child/actor is 'rewarded' by being asked to do it again. To play the same role, over and over, to please the parent.

Something about how kids who naturally fit with their parents (good match) are rewarded by the parents; kids who are not a naturally good match with their parents are punished.

Kids who are rewarded for being nothing more than themselves grow up well adjusted, comfortable in their skin, confident, and trusting of authority.

Kids who grow up being punished for failing to conform to something that most parents don't even know they're asking for, end up spending their lives trying to 'please', and/or, alternately rebelling against authority figures out of residual resentment.

(Feels like I've got this big pile of puzzle pieces that I just KNOW fit together to make a really cool, interesting, and above all enlightening picture; but I can't seem to put them together fast enough.)

***
It's as if parents needed kids to pull their weight in the old days, because there was always so much to do, the kids pretty much had to take on adult responsibilities as soon as they were able to do so. And so the transition from childhood to adulthood was much smoother, or maybe it really felt like one continuous, natural movement?

Or, maybe the dividing line between 'work' and 'play' is much too artificial? That it's less about what's 'fun' or about eschewing responsibility...

***
It's almost as if there's simply not enough room for all these people on the planet to 'take their rightful place'. Like the parents are afraid that if they give the kids too much power - what? What will happen? What are they afraid of?

That the disrespect that they've shown these children will be thrown right back at them. And indeed, I think there is a backlash against the greed of the Baby Boomers, and the destruction they've visited on the planet in service of their insatiable appetites.

As kids get smarter and smarter, and are empowered by fancier technology that lets them learn at their own pace, they need adults less and less. But parents, feeling these young ones nipping at their heels to get the hell out of our way, stop IMPEDING us and slowing us down - are resentful? and also, don't really understand what they've created.

Also, the 'system' is not well integrated, the left hand and the right hand operate independently, without coordination. It's like this thing where we have car manufacturers designing faster and faster cars, and yet we're expected to only drive them at 60 m.p.h. It makes no sense.

I remember thinking something similar when I graduated from college and was looking for a job - in college, I'd been fed new information almost faster than I could handle it, the assumption was that I was smart, and you push kids as hard as you can when they're young and their minds are ripe for learning.

And yet, the instant they're out of the classroom and into the work world, suddenly they're only allowed to learn as quickly as the lowest common denominator will let them, namely, the boss. So you've gone from one set of parents who constantly expect you to 'drive with the brakes on', to school where you're completely overwhelmed, back to an out-of-control authority figure whose sole aim in life seems to be to squash you and hold you back.

Argh.

***
There's also the question of whether we fit the roles the people around us assign us to or not. Sometimes we're assigned roles because that's what's needed, that's what's convenient for everybody else. And if we happen to naturally fit that role, great. But if we don't? If we're being shoe-horned or forced into some role that we don't fit? Not good.

It's especially difficult when it's a parent who thinks they're doing 'what's best' for a child, when what they're really doing is blindly imposing their own needs upon said child without really seeing the actual child's strengths, weaknesses and needs.

***
So you have parents who aren't paying attention and parents who push us this way and that like overgrown chess pieces or furniture on the stage set of their own life, or sometimes parents who alternate between the two, sometimes fixing you in the glare of their own high-beam ambitions, dragging you into their ventures, then abandoning you to your own devices when you turn out not to be what they expected and/or hoped for.

***
Or maybe the reason Broderick doesn't look very happy these days is that he's no longer the Golden Boy? It's as if he doesn't know that being the Golden One requires an admirer in order to BE Golden - just as the moon has no light without the sun, and a pretty woman's 'power' is only so in the eyes of one who findes her attractive - being 'golden' is not an absolute, intrinsic power like being the strongest or smartest or fastest. It's a REFLECTED power, and thus subject to the whims and vagaries of the person conferring that power with their favor.

In other words, we're back to the lap dog idea. I'm not sure, but maybe Broderick thought charm was a - somebody said this better recently, have to see if I can find the words she used - an ABSOLUTE power as opposed to a REFLECTED power. I think the words this other person used were 'coercive' and 'persuasive'. Charm depends on your ability to persuade the other person to like you; coersion requires only that you be strong enough (either literally, physically, or by controlling the wealth or other resources that allow you to puchase said power) to control other people directly.

***
I keep thinking I *almost* understand how all these pieces fit together, and then the picture escapes, eludes me. But I'm pretty sure it's all about power: Who has it, and who doesn't.

***
Actors are people-pleasers. They keep wanting to be liked for who they are, but they keep getting 'assigned' roles that limit them to just that one facet of themselves that the director/parent has latched onto. Maybe that's why I liked Paper Heart? The girl in that movie seemed as free from the director's preconceptions as I've ever seen - it's almost as if he said, here's a really cool person, I'm just going to follow her around for a while and see what she does. But maybe that's how the movie was written. Sigh. Round and round. Maybe there's no such thing as reality? Or, what is it Calvin says? "Reality continues to ruin my life."