hunger games

There is a scene at the end of the Hunger Games when the gamemakers dispense a herd of “mutations,” or animal/human hybrids who have been genetically engineered to be horrible, blood-thirsty monsters. As it turns out, these killing-machines have the eyes and features of all of the predeceased children of the Hunger Games. They are essentially the spirits of the dead come back to haunt the living and seek vengeance on the remaining children in the games.

“just my fear of being caught being manifested as a person.” – reddit  

They make me think of all of the things/people that make me happy and why.                  

They make me think of all of the things/people that make me mad and why.

These things are very personal. People say oh an earthquake, a bombing, a war-crime, seeing sad orphans on TV, hearing of horrible crimes, listening to depressing statistics about hunger, famine, and lack….. they say that these things make them sad, mad, or any of the other “dark” emotions. And vice-versa about bright things….. babies crying, birds chirping, etc. etc. But I don’t feel much from things that are so far removed. And I wonder if people really do feel “dark” when they think of, hear, or see such things.

Personally, I like my emotions and feelings to be more personal, more intimate. I think that this gives me depth – makes me more human, more than just a person who laughs at what others laugh at, cry at what others cry at. More than a girl who cries at a funeral and laughs at a Disney movie – not that I don’t. But to me, emotions and feelings should be more personal than that. Otherwise who are we but shells of people who have nothing interesting to say and nothing genuine or authentic about us? 
      I can’t feel anything more than superficial tolerance for them (and by "them" I mean also myself) – I can’t connect with them or share deep things with them. I laugh at their jokes or shake my head at their misfortunes and empathize where I can, but I can’t help feeling a sense of emptiness, shallowness, callousness even. Then there are those special few, and really there are but handfuls, who are truly special. Who I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets with and share my brightest, wildest dreams with (it sounds like a relatively simple thing to be able to share your dreams, but most people will rationalize the shit out of your imagination or whip your dreams into submission).

They more than tolerate me and I more than tolerate them. They more than shake their head or chuckle at me and I more than shake my head or chuckle at them. They more than indulge me and I more than indulge them. They love me and I love them, not because some divine power says “love one another,” but because their has been some real growth-action that has happened between us for whatever reason. you have changed me and i have changed you. you have invited me to see, to appreciate differently. and i, you. 

Important: Lest I should begin to sound all high-and-mighty like I am always in touch with my feelings, my hurts, pains, loves, desires or like I always have something genuine and authentic to say, think my own thoughts, make up my own mind, I should clarify that this is definitely NOT the case.
There are times, frequently, when I forget all of these things. We all do. There are times when I forget who and what I love and why. I guess the trick, then, is to make it a point to somehow, someway remember once you have forgotten.

The Hunger Games movie was difficult to watch for the exact same reason why people (myself included) are often difficult to be around.

Everyone was so flat. I didn't feel connected in any way to any of the characters at all. There was little to no character development or motives behind many of the actions that had the potential of being heart-wrenching (like they were in the book). And they left out what was, in my humble opinion, the best part of the book.... (spoiler alert?); when the human/animal mutations return as "spirits" of the predeceased players to attack the remaining players - this is the part that made me cry in the book and what made the whole story personal - what made it all come full circle; everyone has fears/skeletons in the closet/ghosts of the past that manifest themselves and attack us in many different forms/ways – this part made me think of my own life - what I truly love and why - what I truly despise and why.... but of course if you don't take the time to develop the characters themselves then it doesn't make sense that after they are dead their second coming should mean anything at all. i remember feeling the same way about Harry Potter after having read the books - "where is everything and WHO ARE these people?! Why do they do the things they do and what motivates them to action?" Reading the Hunger Games was so personal and fulfilling; watching it felt like everyone was just going through the motions. I was pretty numb the entire time.

I hate feeling this way around people; why do you do the things you do, love the things you love, hate the things you hate? Have you let yourself be vulnerable enough to experience or feel anything real, anything at all? Or do you do and feel and say and think things because it’s what everyone else is doing and feeling and saying and thinking? Hi self, I'm talking mostly to you.  

PERSPECTIVE

I wonder if the “mutations” in the Hunger Games looked different to the different characters who were left to fend them off? There was Cato, who had been ruthless to almost all of the players. There was Peeta, who had befriended and then stabbed some of them in the back. There was Everdeen, who had done the same, but was an angel to some like Rue. Essentially, human beings are all programmed the same. We all have the capacity for brightness and goodness, but also darkness and evil. Religion teaches us this and also teaches us forgiveness, because we are all God’s children. Etc. etc. blah blah… I used to think “so why not pick just anyone to marry or the first person you date, anyone to befriend, anyone to serve as your confident, to be close with, if we are all just the same?” …….  because we're not.... sure, we are all special, but for whatever reason, we connect with some over others...  

At the end of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the killer says to his latest victim “We have the same urges, you and I, except mine requires more towels.” And tis’ true.  

I guess it’s what we do with these urges, with these emotions, how we empathize, if we forgive, how different people, activities, and experiences bring sadness, happiness, grief, and misery to us in our childhoods that determine our attractions, our aversions, who we end up with, how we connect to people, what we desire….

At the end of the Hunger Games, Everdeen, having professed her “true feelings” to Peeta in what may or may not be an authentic admission of “love,” realizes that she really loves Gale, the boy who she had grown up with. they had been hunters together, growing through and with one another for a greater cause (survival). He was home to her and home feels very different for every which person.

 Home is so personal....… 

emotional party

         There’s an improv game called Emotional Party. It’s played with a bunch of people all in the same room. One person chooses an emotion that they physically display. It could be sadness and I could cry. It could be happiness and I could hug myself, smile, and skip. It could be anger and I could stomp. It could be jealousy and I could go from person to person turning my back. It could be shyness and I could walk around looking down. Whatever the emotion is everyone has to take it on. So if I am sad, then everyone is sad. If I am happy, then everyone is happy. If I am mad then everyone is mad.

Imagine a world in which you can close your eyes and travel to a world where everyone is feeling what you are feeling? A world of anguish, despair, neutrality, ecstatic love, immense fear. Imagine if, just by closing your eyes, everyone that you loved could come with you and be enveloped by whatever emotion you were being consumed by. How would this feel? Comforting? Alienating? Constraining? Self-indulgent?

Based on the idea that a lot of times society expects us and anticipates us feeling a certain way and we generally accept that they are right. We should feel sad at a funeral, happy at the end of a Disney movie. There is a general lack of acceptance of radical emotions or expressions that do not fit this mold. We just label people crazy when their emotions are not predictable or mold-fitting. There is no place for them in society. A society of emotional obedience has led to a numb nation.  

The human survival instinct is often at odds with the pervasive longing for love, camaraderie, community, and affection. We aspire to live and to live well. But we also long to live happily with people who understand us, who elevate our egos, and carve us into something rather than nothing. I am only me because of you. You breath life into me, shape my personality. As it pertains to me, what you laugh at, what you smile at, what you hate, what you love, what annoys you, what pleases you; these all hold baring on how I act, how I think, how I imagine, and what I dream. I am you and you are me and there is a point at which, having spent so much time together, we can say that we are one consciousness. When our survival is at stake, would we risk surviving and living alone, or would we rather die in the company of others? I may be the greatest, strongest, fastest out there, but I am only made known in the presence of others. They make an audience out of millions, they make me out to be the strongest, fastest, smartest, wildest. And if there is someone out there living in obscurity who is stonger, faster, smarter, wilder than I, but who’s presence is not made known, than what is the point? Why strive to be better, stronger, or faster if not in the eye of the public? We wish to survive, and when we know we can, we wish to survive and be happy. When we are happy, we wish to be as happy as the happiest man and then some. In striving to get happier and happier, we become bitter, manipulative, raging in our pursuits of the happiest happiness of all happinesses. And then we become sad and make ourselves sick because some of the hardest, healthiest decisions to make can only be made by someone who is not at odds with themselves and others. And then we wish only to survive, because we feel bad and are sad. And once we get better and realize that we are surviving, we long to be happy; as happy as the happiest man……….