I just finished watching the latest
Moral Orel episode ("Sacrifice"). It really got me depressed, as Moral Orel episodes are wont to do, and thinking hard. The father, Clay, gives this amazing drunken rant that shows a humanity to his character I hadn't really seen before. This season of Moral Orel has been especially depressing. It's also probably the most heartfelt show I'm watching right now. Maybe it's because the writers know this is their last season and they only have 13 episodes to do what they had planned to carry out in a few more seasons, but every episode is just...it makes me amazed at the effect little puppet people can have on me. The puppet people are 'horrible people' yes, and also puppets, but the more I watch, the more I see myself in these stupid clay things.
But back to the rant, and the reason for this post. I'm just going to quote the majority of what Clay says, because otherwise it would just get really confusing.
"...and then when you finally get one of these...coveted pieces of tail that have been built up as the grand trophy in your nothing life, you try desperately to keep it. Not to protect it, but to hoard it. To keep it away from the other wolves and jackals circling your territory. And you realize, all too soon, that you're not good enough. That maybe there was a jerkoff called Darwin after all, and that you never acknowledged his existence because you knew deep inside that you were really what you feared you were: weak and passive and ultimately broken by the ones that were made the fittest. And that through your weaknesses you built up a poison that poisoned others around you...that you love. And the only true justice was to let those dominate jackals feed on you, survive off you."
The way that Clay speaks this...he should win an award of some kind. I think this monologue hit me so hard, not because I see myself as being this sucked-dry-poisonous-horrible-shell-of-a-person that Clay is, but because I see the potential for his words to become true in my life. I've come to a conclusion. A sometimes angering and desperate and painful conclusion, but a conclusion I hope to follow, so I don't wake up one day in the middle of a drunken stupor and find myself where Clay is. Too many people get into relationships when they clearly aren't ready for said relationships. And relationships between two people who aren't emotionally ready for a relationship inevitably fail, fall apart, or end up in a poisonous cycle of poison like the one between Clay and Bloberta. Sometimes even the thought of such a relationship is enough to make it fall apart before it even gets up and walking. These relationships inevitably fail because if one or both people is insecure, they will inevitably project that insecurity onto the other person and blame them for things that are their own fault (the "poison" Clay speaks of). I happen to have found myself in this category of people quite a few times. I've beat myself up wondering why I was somehow incapable of loving another human being, and found that I didn't even love myself. In finding that, I started to question what love even meant, and whether I had ever truly loved in my life. "Well, loving your family is a given," I thought, desperately trying to find some source of love in my life. "But is it? What the hell does that mean?" Did I come out of the womb loving my mother, my sister, my pappa? Or did I learn to love them? What is it even like to love yourself? To love someone else?
I am not totally against myself. I intend to create good in the world. Not huge things, but small, everyday things. I try to let others know how much they mean to me. Is that love? It feels like love. I know I'm not a really terrible person. I mean, I don't wish bad on anyone. Or at least, for the most part I don't.
...
Yesterday I was listening to This American Life. One of the acts focused on what happens when people die alone. I don't mean alone as in not married or whatever, but really alone alone. No relatives or friends or anybody. This woman had died alone and had built herself a life in her living room. I imagined the woman building herself a cocoon. A cocoon to comfort her, to tell her everything was fine, to tell her she was not alone. There was another woman whose husband had died in one of the World Wars. Her life froze the moment she found out. For decades she had refused to move forward, to build herself a new life. I thought all this was so sad and so beautiful.
...
Should I just turn my brain off for a while, jump in the ocean and hope I can figure out to swim before I drown? I am sure some people have found themselves, and learned to love themselves while in relationships. Haven't they? I just don't think this is my path. If it were, I'm sure my brain would allow this, instead of rejecting the idea.
Sometimes I feel so empty and I just want to fill the emptiness with things that will make me better. Maybe I just have to accept the emptiness as a constant, and try to love the emptiness. Then, will the emptiness get less? Or will the fullness just become greater than the emptiness, making the emptiness seem not so empty? Thank you Moral Orel, for sparking this thinking thing. For as depressing as you are, for as depressing as this post may appear on the outside, it really shouldn't be depressing at all. In fact, it is the opposite of depressing. It is growth. A growth toward something bigger and fuller and happier and fatter. I hope I will have nicer dreams tonight than the dreams I dream while I am awake.
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