Existence ≠ Existence
Existence is Existence is Existence
We scroll, watch, type, dread, scroll, clean, watch, run, dare, barely, we don’t look too closely sometimes and sometimes things aren’t looking closely back at us.
What about that feeling where nothing is satisfying. That feeling of scrolling through your music playlist hoping something hits and it never does. The line in the song you would listen to on repeat that you no longer relate to. The beat switch that gave you chills and does nothing now. The movie that once made you feel relentless now feels calm and joyless. You switch from show to show on Netflix just to hop back into another season of Greys Anatomy or Friends because you don’t want to leave the comfort of familiarity.
Is this why we get up at 1 am to clean and do push ups? To feel like we did something to earn the rest? Some people wake up and reorganize entire rooms. Clean other peoples homes because the mess is too much for them. Sterilizing themselves in the process. This willingness to hold on or the unwillingness to let go is a dreadful process of self isolation. A mind fixated on a problem not meant for this moment. A mind drawn by something unreachable so we fix what we can in the moment. Relying on motivation as a crutch will ensure anyones crutch will be kicked out of their balance. What happens if theres no motivation to demotivate. Sure, we can get stuck in a spiral of nonchalance and pretend none of this really matters. We can bust our friends balls endlessly to laugh it off and pretend like what just happened is totally normal and not heartbreaking. Lets laugh it off some more until we’re bone dry and unaware. Lets keep laughing at ourselves and each other until our throats dry out and form a river of glass that pours out like molasses. A red esophageal sea of shame splitting wide open for us all to enjoy until the madness of laughter is all we have.
Existence is no longer even existence. We don’t even have the balls to look at each other and admit that we’re a little lost.
Formative Fear
It all begins with an idea.
Horror as a genre is so well fed these days. In the last few years we’ve sat with Oz Perkins and a high strung and terrifying Nicolas Cage with Longlegs. On Christmas, Robert Eggers crafted a masterful syndrome of bite that was relentless to the end, in Nosferatu. A stark experience of dread, leaving you driving home with no radio after. Underground boiling hits like Skinamarink and cult followings like The Terrifier are even seeing success. These stories are great for those of us who are older, with barely any innocence to hold onto and its easy for a lot of adults to say “been there done that”. This artful renaissance of horror is much needed and welcome but there is an area where horror needs to be injected that needs it the most. We need to scare our children again!
This came up as a conversation recently when I was discussing the recent animated spider man releases with my baby brother. The prowler is a threatening presence on screen but in the mind of a child who may not know better, the prowler is a threatening presence on screen! It reminded me of the feeling an animated film would predicate itself on. That nothing lasts forever because if it did you wouldn’t feel this moment in the film waking you up right now. Many probably have their kids wait until their first parrot or grandmother passes away to have that difficult conversation. Call me crazy but I think this is a much better safety net to present difficult conversations.
Horror simply belongs in a childrens movie not because of a prevailing notion I hear often such as “Kids these days have it too easy”, “kids these days are too sensitive”, whatever, I’m not even going into that right now. This is about a child being guided through sensory emotion at a skilled pace by a storyteller who knows what they’re doing. A proper place for children to learn about the true rhythm of life. That at times it can be great but at other times it isn’t going to be so good.
Films like Bambi and The Land Before Time struck many of us at a younger age. The subtle reminder that none of our mothers will be here our whole lives and to embrace the time you do have. The lion king reminding us the same of our fathers. Not just the notion itself, but reminisce with me for a second on the scenes before hand. The subtle crafting to a drift into something unfamiliar. Neither of these movies opens with complete panic outside of land before time which I could argue furthers the point. The Lion King begins with a sense of celebration and new life, presented beautifully with the help of Hans Zimmer and the animators by Disney. Simba raised above the cliff. Who could forget? Then theres the mystery. The places unseen, Hyenas cackle in a sea of skull and bone marrow, Scar now a slow and steady stalker of his prey, and of course the growing drumroll of the stampede steering into an unforgettable moment for all of us. What makes these moments work so well is not just the horror but the hand of a creator who cares enough to tell us the truth. If we don’t allow our children to process the brutal truth in a safe space like art, they’ll stumble onto it alone and they wont know where to put it.