Month: November 2011

Categories
Books Chooch Friends No Whining Podcast

From the Mouths of Podcasters

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m part of a group of podcasters talking about the HBO Game of Thrones series, called SpecFicMedia Presents: Beyond the Wall, A Game of Thrones Podcast. Oi, what a mouthful. I’ll just refer to it as BTWPodcast forever more in my personal blog.

As the HBO series season has ended, so has our podcast. For now. During one of the episodes, P.G. Holyfield made an observation about all the plotting and planning over the span of years being undone in an instant by a random and unpredictable event. While I agreed with the point at the time, it didn’t really sink in.

While running and doing a QA listen to the podcast before posting, it hit me like a brick wall. Rather than just knowing that as a fact of life, the concept has been brought home in a very painful way and absolutely resonates with me. No matter how sure your footing, with no regard to the most honorable of your intentions, things happen that can change things forever. If you’re very very lucky, you can recover. If you aren’t, then you have to find a way to move forward, if possible. In both cases, there is likely a price to pay.

Happily, unlike many events in the the book and series, we have landed in a safe and loving place. And while things are not perfect or what I ever would have imagined for myself at the age of 42, I have to say that I think we are recovering pretty well.

Categories
AFI's Top 100 Movies Chooch

The Wild Bunch, #79 on AFI’s Top 100 Films List

Uncle.

I have now attempted to watch this film twice and cannot make it through. My husband agrees and wouldn’t even give it another try.

There is actually nothing that compels me to finish the movie. I feel nothing for the characters or the story. I understand what is happening, I just don’t care enough to finish it.

I’m saddened because I intended to watch every single movie from beginning to end, but cannot expend any more of the rarest of all commodities – time – into this film.

I give the following as explanation for this movie being on the AFI list:

From Wikipedia:
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah[1] about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing “modern” world of 1913.

…

The Wild Bunch is noted for intricate, multi-angle editing, using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Green, Peckinpah, and Roy N. Sickner was nominated for a best-screenplay Academy Award; Jerry Fielding’s music was nominated for Best Original Score; Peckinpah was nominated for an Outstanding Directorial Achievement award by the Directors Guild of America; and cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography.[2]

In 1999, the U.S. National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the Library of Congress as culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. The film was ranked 80th in the American Film Institute’s 100 best American films, and the 69th most thrilling film.[3] In 2008, the AFI revealed its “10 Top 10” of the best ten films in ten genres: The Wild Bunch ranked as the sixth-best Western.[4][5]

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Back to Netflix it goes, as I eagerly await the arrival of Modern Times, my first full-length Charlie Chaplin movie!

While I wait for the post office to bring on the goodness, I will definitely be checking out Christiana and Mike’s discussion on The Wild Bunch as they are always able to find and appreciate things I miss. I guess it’s a damned good thing they are doing a podcast and not me!


Categories
Definitions You Know Mental

Definitions You Know: Powerless

As I mentioned in my last post, I have started therapy. One common thread in the sessions to date relates to my near constant feelings of guilt. I don’t know if it is how I was raised (Catholic, middle child/diplomat), the example set by my Mom (she could fix nearly any situation or problem, if you would just shut up and listen to her) or if it is just *me*, but I feel more guilt in a day than I can count. I actually did try to count one night last week, and had four rushes of guilt in an hour. And this was just light-hearted and fun conversation, not an argument or conflict in any way. There were just things that I wanted to do for loved ones, fix for them, surprise them with, things like that. And I felt guilty because I hadn’t or was unable to make these things happen for them.

When I mentioned this to my therapist yesterday, she assigned me homework that goes against everything I understand and know.  I have to remind myself throughout the day (and every time I feel guilt) that
“I am powerless in fixing things for other people. I can not fix any person, place or situation. I can be present for them to lend support, I can do acts of kindness, I can do fund-raising and any other efforts or attempts to help. But I can not fix it.”

It is completely logical and reasonable, yet it is a string of words that may as well be in a foreign language since I am unable to truly understand and accept it and make it a part of my inner monologue. I have it written on paper and have to constantly re-read it because I can’t memorize it. It is like memorizing a speech in an alien tongue, and will take time. And it doesn’t mean DON’T try to help people. It is simply meant to be a reminder that it is not in my control how much sadness or hardship others have in their life.

I currently have a lot of guilt in not being able to fix problems for a loved one that is weighing on me heavily. I have done a lot, and more than some have told me I should. And it’s entirely due to actions of said loved one, no victim of circumstance there. I am happy to say that I am making a huge difference in a tangential issue as a result of the person’s actions. And I take joy from the impact my husband and I are making on the life of this innocent victim. But… it’s not enough. I feel compelled to fix the whole thing and have been trapped for months in a pit of uselessness and guilt because of my inability to do so. I have literally done everything I can, and it is not enough. Not for me, and not for the person that got themself into this situation. In spite of it being all I can do, I am spiritually crushed under the weight of the guilt.

So I’m going back to the dictionary to re-learn this word. It seems to be at the core of my guilt, and if not, then it is at least a great place to start.

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pow·er·less

From dictionary.com

[pou-er-lis]

adjective

1. unable to produce an effect: a disease against which modern medicine is virtually powerless.
2. lacking power  to act; helpless: His legs crumpled, and he was powerless to rise.
Origin:
1545–55; power  + -less

Related forms
pow·er·less·ly, adverb
pow·er·less·ness, noun

Synonyms
1.  ineffective.
2.  feeble, impotent, prostrate, infirm.