Fun to read. I feel like you’re missing the Greek-Tragic element, where due to dramatic irony, the viewer experiences a redeeming catharsis even though the characters themselves don’t. Maybe?
Se7en was such a dark movie I've avoided rewatching it for 30 years and probably never will. The nihilism vs optimism reminded me of a recently read Jung passage (CW 11, p509):
"During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. Many hundreds of patients have passed through my hands, the greater number being Protestants, a lesser number Jews, and not more than five or six believing Catholics. Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. This of course has nothing whatever to do with a particular creed or membership of a church."
In my experience, Jung's "religious outlook" is the ineffable true and vital connection to God / Life / Reality / the Universe, which many religious traditions point to but cannot codify.
Ah, but Hemingway committed suicide. There's the rub. I think nihilism is a perfect description of Donald Trump. The fact that so many want to fall off the cliff with him also speaks of our nihilism. Yet, there are small candle-lights of resistance. Let us hope they will burn brighter and brighter as time goes on.
You have to ASK??? Everything. All his lies. His lust for sheer power. His hatred of immigrants. His favoring the golden calf. His pettiness and meanness. Every single thing about Trump makes me sick to my stomach.
Since he's in the news constantly, that must be very challenging. You know emotions, even those that make us sick to our stomachs, can have a important messages for our lives. Have you ever examined that emotion in a safe, neutral space to look for it's wisdom?
Fun to read. I feel like you’re missing the Greek-Tragic element, where due to dramatic irony, the viewer experiences a redeeming catharsis even though the characters themselves don’t. Maybe?
Se7en was such a dark movie I've avoided rewatching it for 30 years and probably never will. The nihilism vs optimism reminded me of a recently read Jung passage (CW 11, p509):
"During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. Many hundreds of patients have passed through my hands, the greater number being Protestants, a lesser number Jews, and not more than five or six believing Catholics. Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. This of course has nothing whatever to do with a particular creed or membership of a church."
In my experience, Jung's "religious outlook" is the ineffable true and vital connection to God / Life / Reality / the Universe, which many religious traditions point to but cannot codify.
Ah, but Hemingway committed suicide. There's the rub. I think nihilism is a perfect description of Donald Trump. The fact that so many want to fall off the cliff with him also speaks of our nihilism. Yet, there are small candle-lights of resistance. Let us hope they will burn brighter and brighter as time goes on.
Interesting, that nihilism is worth hearing more about. What attributes of Trump do you see that perfectly describe him as nihilistic?
You have to ASK??? Everything. All his lies. His lust for sheer power. His hatred of immigrants. His favoring the golden calf. His pettiness and meanness. Every single thing about Trump makes me sick to my stomach.
Since he's in the news constantly, that must be very challenging. You know emotions, even those that make us sick to our stomachs, can have a important messages for our lives. Have you ever examined that emotion in a safe, neutral space to look for it's wisdom?