October
Finally, there was a feeling. The feeling was: anger.
It was anger at myself. It was anger at everything. Just like that: anger.
It was yesterday, Tuesday. It was in the morning. It was after writing, just before I left the apartment to drive to the office.
This anger was physically felt. At the same time, it confused my thinking. And it covered everything else I could have felt. Apart from anger, there was no room for other feelings. Besides anger, there was also no room for so-called rational thinking. There was anger. Nothing else.
For a long time, I had been looking for some strong feelings. I had no feelings. For so long I had repressed feelings. I just wanted to be reasonable. At some point I had noticed that I somehow did not feel any emotions. Where are my feelings? I had thought. But there was nothing. I tried to remember: What was it like the last time I had an “emotion”? I had forgotten what that is: emotions. It didn’t occur to me. I had really forgotten. But that couldn’t be. Everyone has feelings. Where are mine? Perplexed, I stared in front of me. Was there a way to get back to emotions? What did I have to do to feel my emotions again?
To do something, I had made a list. Lists are always good. First write down what it’s all about. So, make a list with words that denote emotions:
“Love”
“Envy”
“Hope”
“Fear”
I hadn’t thought of much more at first. I literally had to rummage through my memory to bring out the words, the words that stood for emotions.
And now, suddenly, there was a feeling: anger. Just like that. For no reason.
The anger shone inside me. It glowed. It was horrible. And it was wonderful: suddenly there was something I had been looking for a long time: a strong feeling.
Fury!
Finally, finally, finally there was no more suppression of emotions. There was no neutrality left. And there was no crappy niceness left, which I had become accustomed to for repressing emotions.
And it went even further: Even in the evening in the cinema I had strong emotions. I was touched. It felt cheesy. Tears had come to my eyes.
Where had the tears been, so long? Where had the anger been, so long? Where had the feelings been, so long?
I had pushed feelings away from me. All feelings. I didn’t want to feel anything.
Feelings had unsettled me.
Life was safer without emotions.
Being reasonable was better than having emotions. It was safer.
It was only because people had emotions that the great disasters had happened. This was clear: if people had been reasonable, there would have been no Holocaust. This is what I had told myself when I was young. I wanted so much to be reasonable. I also wanted to know everything. Because the more you knew, the less you were dependent on emotions. Education was important. Education was the basis for being reasonable.
Emotions, on the other hand, could hurt. Feelings were dangerous.
And suddenly they were back, the feelings: Anger. Being touched.
Anger: Because of nothing. Just like that. For no reason.
Emotion: Because of the film.
The film was called “Another Round”. Written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, the Danish filmmaker.
Now, while writing, I think: Yes, the film was also cheesy. It was touching. The scene in which the teacher — standing under the influence of alcohol — letting the school class sing.
Later we talked about this scene. Was it too much of a good thing? Too opulent, too thickly applied? Kitschy? Kitschy! Kitschy is: untrue, false, lying. The truth would have been different. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t watch a movie to see the truth. I watch a movie to experience a story. The story of this movie touched me.
Because most of this movie wasn’t untrue, it wasn’t cheesy, it wasn’t a lie. But it was true.
It was a real man’s film about real men. About men in the so-called midlife crisis.
The men in the film: That was the director, the writer of the screenplay, and that was also the main actor, Mads Mikkelsen.
And the truth was: One of the men in the movie was me.
The idea of the film begins with the alleged thesis of a Norwegian psychiatrist: Man is born with 0.05% too little blood alcohol content. Life is right, it is simply better with 0.05% alcohol in the blood.
Agrees! In the meantime I know: Life is right when consciousness is switched off to a certain extent, when not everything always has to be reasonable. Life is right when the true self, the feeling self, becomes visible. And this visibility of the ego, which is not constantly surrounded by cold reason, can arise when you have some alcohol in your blood. When cold reason is switched off by a little alcohol.
This is not entirely wrong.
I can’t imagine how you saw this movie. Because you are not a man. We talked about it afterwards. You identified with the women in the film. With the women who hold everything together: the family, themselves, life. Unlike the men who don’t hold anything together: not the family, not themselves, not life. Because it does not remain with the little alcohol. It does not stop at 0.05%.
I wasn’t sure how the movie would end for the main character. In the end, the man reconciles with his wife. Nevertheless, he drinks again. He drinks more than just a glass. Much more. This time he does not drink with the elderly who want to rediscover their feelings, who want to free themselves from something that has inhibited them. But he drinks with the boys. He dances.
The man seems to be liberated. The crisis is over. The man seems to come to himself.
And then, suddenly, without any notice, without talking to anyone, he turns around and jumps into the water of the harbor basin. The last image is the man in the jump.
It is ambiguous.
It could be a happy ending.
But it can also be something else.
The end remains open.
Will it remain open?
Should we now decipher and interpret this? Just as you can decipher and interpret the meaning of a gesture in a seventeenth-century painting ? This is the baroque, the opulent in the film.
The film does not show life. That would be cooler, bleaker, simpler. With less color and with less sound. But why not look at a contemporary Baroque painting in the year two thousand twenty-one. It is well done; it is really very good. It’sa good movie.
And one day later, and today? What about myself? What do I want to feel today? Fury?
Probably not.
I want to write.
I want to do what needs to be done. Don’t fiddle around with your smartphone. Instead, I want to do simple things that make a difference. Which are not indifferent.
It’s Dorothy’s birthday today. She is two years old. At 5:30pm we want to go to see her.
It occurs to me that I have an appointment with Kate at the same time. To learn to breathe. For bodywork.
I get up, I activate the smartphone. I look at my calendar: Is it really the case that Kate and the planned visit to Dorothy collide in the calendar?
Yes.
The calendar says 5:15pm: “Kate”.
Do I cancel it? Or do I go to Kate and then go to visit Dorothy?
I open the app “Yahoo Mail” and start writing the cancellation email to Kate.
I hesitate. Idon’t go any further. I let the app open, but I don’t do anything.
I think back and forth.
What shall I do?
You’ll be disappointed if I come later to Dorothy´s birthday party.
For Dorothy, this has no meaning. It’s only her second birthday. She doesn’t know yet what it is: celebrating a birthday.
The real problem is that I had simply forgotten Dorothy´s birthday. I had arranged the other appointment without thinking about her birthday. But I should have thought about the birthday.
I feel that you will reproach me. You will be disappointed.
And now I don’t know what to do. I lack a sense of what is the right thing to do now.
I am trying to find a reasonable solution.
For example: I’m going to ask you what you think is better.
That means I don’t decide for myself.
But I let someone else decide.
Someone else should be responsible.
Or I don’t let you decide, but I decide for myself. And I decide the way you want it, the way I think you wanted. I submit to your — presumed — decision.
In the end, that’s still the case: someone else decides for me.
That’s convenient.
And then a question comes to me that I hadn’t asked myself before:
What do I want myself?
What is my preference?
My preference is: I want to please everyone.
And if I can’t do that, then at least someone else should take responsibility.
Stop!
Again, what is it that I really want? What is it that I want myself?
The answer is simple: I want to work on myself.
So?
To go to Dorothy: that would be to do something good for others.
To work on myself, go to see Kate: that would be to do something good for myself.
So, I stand by my mistake: not paying attention to Dorothy´s birthday. So, I’m going to go to Kate. Only later, maybe around 7pm will I come to the children’s birthday party.
I’m not sure.
I want to avoid the conflict. Especially the — feared — conflict with you. Can I stand the fact that you are disappointed? That you imagined something different?
Cancelling the meeting with Kate would not be a problem. I have to pay USD 70, even though I didn’t make the appointment. Penalty fee for negligence.
Here’s how I do it: Pay with money for inattention.
…..
So little sense of what the right thing is. Such a vacillation. So much ambiguity. So little reason. So little feeling.
…..
The right thing to do is to be with the family.
