THE ASSISTANT 2019: SIGNS OF ABUSE

 

Something's wrong within your friend circle, the vibe is off and there are signs of some power struggle. Or maybe it's online; a vacuum of non-information left like a gas signature.

The Assistant (2019) is a movie totally dedicated to the semi-invisible signs left by abuse, in this case, within the film industry. The main character swims through these signs, at the height of the film coming into direct opposition with the source, before returning to normality.

Signs of abuse modeled in the film:

• loud sounds no one will discuss
• misogynisitic jokes/ casually cruel jokes about known persons
  
• exhausted, unhappy people
• confused victims seeking help ineffectually
• the naïve positivity of pre-victims sticking out in context
• people giving up on the possibility of justice 
• direct verbal abuse, and a culture thereof
• threats to destroy people's careers, etc.
• disposability-- a revolving door of people
• new faces being brought in, and the haggard faces of those leaving or on their way out
• things happening where they shouldn't-- typically, sex.

If there exists a pathway for many people to enter, then exit someone's life, this may be a conduit for abuse. Ties of anonymity benefit those who burn through people. And abusers require fresh streams of people constantly.

This is sort of the human condition, too. We are all, mostly, folding new strings of people into our lives, and then watching some of them leave. Abuse, then, may leave patterns visible in the peoples exiting one's life. Outsiders may observe these patterns, subtle, semi-invisible, instinctually perceived...

LUST-BLOGGERY

 I think so often Lust, and by extension, Blogging, is an admission that we feel something, want to love, want to be a part of it.

An admission of desire, a seeming want to compete in a worldwide network of such admissions. To lust is to struggle, (as it is to Blog).

Lust is the desire to participate. To not only join the universal human struggle but to direct it, at least a little. For your direction to matter.

The experience we have culminates in taste. Lust is often the desire to have our tastes be actualized, applied, and viewed. Lust is tied to our desire for family to support us. Lust is a desire for the world to accept us. 

We are on here because of Lust. The desire to be read is Lustful. Publishing absolutely is a seeking of appreciation. Selling yourself as a person with attractive ideas.

This is why there's this glamour-preening network of bloggers, tweeters, facebook-users... Trying to meld themselves into appealing ink. We want to be read, we want to feel the adulation.  

Disco Elysium Review'd

I am constantly battered by ideas and impulses. There is no definitive goal that seems easy to achieve. The more concrete the outcome, the more it competes with a world of outcomes.

The feeling in my life currently is: sedentary body stresses. The thin headache from morning coffee and its aftertaste which I still have from yesterday. 

I finished up Disco Elysium today, it was cathartic. Existential art speaks to my stranded being. It's a video game, and my tenuous roleplay within it led to tenuous outcomes.

This game offers context for everything. This context underwrites and complicates all of your choices. Each story thread usually has deep rewards near the end that you will often get locked out of ever achieving. This tightwaddedness is good for games which use secrets as currency. In many dialogue-path adventure stories, the depth of the threads feels achievable after one playthrough. But Disco Elysium withholds a lot.

It makes you reliant on the game's market-society of actors. They want different compromises or are simply uninterested with you. Dealing with them often implies future losses.

I think having to permanently fail a lot in order to bargain for whatever (petty?) ultimate goal you have in mind is a good place to be for catharsis. I was invited to have troubles and I am happy that I ended up with battle scars, lost pathways, and negotiated victories. That's life!  (Post Written May 16th 2020)