Playing Hard to Get

http://thoughtcatalog.com/tatiana-perez/2013/08/the-science-of-playing-hard-to-get/

An easy read on playing hard to get.

Reminds me of a quote from the book "Our Tragic Universe" by Scarlette Thomas: “I realized that when someone plays hard to get, they are making themselves into a character in a story, and they chose the story that leads to the outcome they want. If a woman puts a dragon between herself and the hero, it becomes an obstacle to be overcome. If she goes and knocks on his door and says ‘fancy a bunk up?’ she becomes a slut: basically a conquest with no obstacles and therefore no value. It was like people wanted to put everything in a story because otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense” (278).

Let's Talk a Little About Psychoanalysis

Everyone has a movie that they can't get tired of watching. I have two of them on my list: Pulp Fiction and Like Crazy. The latter is less known and, if you know the story, you'd probably find it underwhelming: a couple striving to maintain a long distance relationship.

Despite the exquisite cinematography and the radiant chemistry between the actors which transcends a lack of dialogues, what I love about the movie is the piercingly heartbreaking ending displayed in an extremely minimalistic, subtle way: the couple finally reunited, found themselves in the shower together, and after replaying in their heads a mosaic of memories from their past, they looked at the person in front of their eyes, loosened the embrace, and the girl walked away.

It is an unexpected ending to some, knowing that the couple has endured longings for each other for years to finally be united. However, among the people I've talked to, those who have experienced long distance relationships seem to relate to the decision made by Anna and Jacob, the characters in the movie. One conversation I had with a friend who had studied Jung's psychoanalytic theory shined a light on why relationships, especially the long distance ones, don't work out the way we expect them to.

Some background: archetypes, according to Jung, are structural components of our psyches. One of the four components, anima/animus, is the feminine portion of a male's personality, or the masculine portion of a female's personality. Men and women tend to repress their anima/animus, and instead these split-off qualities form a complex that tends to be reflected on others. In other words, men and women see a part of themselves on others that they themselves have repressed, if they do see these lost qualities on another person, they tend to be attracted to him or her because this person makes them feel a sense of wholeness.

In the movie, Anna and Jacob have gone through long periods of time without seeing each other. What maintains their relationship is their perceived images about one another, with Anna becoming the object of projection of Jacob's desired qualities that he himself had lost, and vice versa. So eventually when they meet again, the reality unmasked and they see that the other is no longer the person who lives in their imagination.

Credits to: Justin Haver

Piece about the Cinematographic History of Kissing

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/magazine/a-brief-history-of-kissing-in-movies.html?_r=0

I found any articles exploring the history of mundane trivial details in everyday life extremely interesting. Because these everyday happenings, although not as spectacular as historical events, are deeply rooted, they reflect the fundamental features of a particular period of time.

I've learned a little about the history of movies and cinema in my media class: The first cinemas in the United States are called nickelodeons--movie theatres that cost a nickel. They are scattered around commercial streets where working class people are active. The 15-20 minute programs consisted of even shorter movie clips were extremely popular because they were silent, catering to different language speakers including immigrants. They also provided a less crammed, more comfortable and relaxing environment from the difficult working and living conditions of the day. Reflecting to the parallel history of kissing on screen discussed in the article, the public setting, the length requirement, and the audience of the films are all contributors to the comic feature of the first kissing scene.

Movie industries then went through an extension to more affluent, middle class audience. Thomas Edison's motion picture patent company The Trust, which more or less had a monopoly in the industry started to favor exhibitors in middle class neighborhoods. This means that the movies themselves would represent a middle class culture.

Along came the age of television starting from the 1940s. As more people started to watch TV, movie attendances fell. Post-war population's migration to the sub-urbs had also reduced cinema developments. Movie makers started to strategize for higher attendance level by providing what TV can't offer: for example, sex and violence--it is apparent in O'Hara's poem that movie was a source for "darker joys", which he implies was unattainable in ordinary households.

I believe that in the past as much as today, love is an inspiring, universal theme, thus explained the sometimes cliched, yet inexhaustible use of lip-mushing scenes on every big screen.

Love's Metaphors

Anthropologists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggest that our thought patterns occur along the lines of certain conceptual systems. Sometimes these lines are not very obvious, and one way to figure out what they are, according to Lakoff and Johnson, is to look at languages, since talking and communicating is basically thinking. What they found through studying our use of languages is that, a lot of our concepts, displayed in our colloquial speech and written texts, are metaphorical. They are not just talking about the metaphors that we use consciously and purposely. They are talking about the ones that we don't notice. For example, some of the most common phrases we use when we talk about love are: I fall in love with him; I'm in for the long haul, I'm crazy about her. When we say these sentences, we don't think about the metaphorical feature they contain. But implicit as they are, these are the exact concepts that construct the way we perceive the subject matter of our speeches.

Let's look at the first phrase: I fall in love with him. The image of falling insinuates an involuntary characteristic of love. It happens accidentally, when least expected, like a hole in the ground. The direction in the act of "falling" also gives love a somewhat negative tenor.

The second example: I'm in for the long haul. Depicts love as a journey. There are some planning involved prior to the departure for a journey, but mostly the journey is unpredictable, and participants have little control over what is to come. This metaphor suggests a sense of passivity, and challenge since the journey is "long".

The message of the last metaphor: I'm crazy about her, is more obvious than the previous two. It not only implies that the people who chooses to engage in love made the decision without sense, but also suggests that the act itself is irrational.

Of course there are many ways to interpret a particular metaphor, there is no right or wrong way. What matters, according to Lakoff and Johnson, is how we act upon the basis of whatever inferences the metaphor suggests to us. Each person acts a different way because they interpret the reality through metaphors in a different way, therefore the reality is relative.

Bear in mind that this is just one of the social science theories about human understandings of the world, it is impossible to prove and hence not proven that our conceptual vehicles actually functions along the lines of metaphors. See the metaphor I just made there?



Source: http://pages.vassar.edu/theories-of-the-novel/files/2013/04/Metaphors-We-Live-By.pdf

Soul Mates v.s. Everlasting Love

An interesting article from nytimes that discusses the discrepancy between the idea of a "perfect match" and that of a lasting relationship.

The cliche of loving someone for who they are holds a great deal of truth in that love is organic, it demands more of us than simply to possess it, it requires cultivation and investment, acceptance and sacrifice. It's a working progress instead of a static condition, therefore if we don't put in the effort to maintain its wellbeing, it decays. The beauty of thinking of love as a journey is that we don't wait around to be struck by an unlikely serendipity, we take the power in our own hands, we prepare for and adjust to every rise and fall, and we feel deserving of it--now that reminds me of Alicia Key's song "un-thinkable". Below are the lyrics. Enjoy!

Moment of honesty
Someone's gotta take the lead tonight
Who's it gonna be?
I'm gonna sit right here
And tell you all that comes to me
If you have something to say
You should say it right now
(Drake: You should say it right now)

You ready?

Bridge:

You give me a feeling that I never felt before
And I deserve it, I think I deserve it
(Drake: I deserve it, I think it deserve it..Let it go)
It's becoming something that's impossible to ignore
And I can't take it
(Drake: I can't take it)

Chorus-Alicia & Drake:

I was wondering maybe
Could I make you my baby
If we do the unthinkable would it make us look crazy
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)

Verse 2:
I know you once said to me
"This is exactly how it should feel when it's meant to be"
Time is only wasting so why wait for eventually?
If we gon' do something 'bout it
We should do it right now
(Drake: We should do it right now)

Bay, uh

Bridge:

You give me a feeling that I never felt before
And I deserve it, I know I deserve it
(Drake: I deserve it, I know I deserve it. Let it go)
Its becoming something that's impossible to ignore
It's what we make it
(Drake: It's what we make it)

Chorus-Alicia & Drake:

I was wondering maybe
Could I make you my baby
If we do the unthinkable would it make us look crazy
Or would it be so beautiful either way I'm sayin'
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready I'm ready)
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready)

Yeah, sing...

Hook:

Why give up before we try
Feel the lows before the highs
Clip our wings before we fly away
I can't say I came prepared
I'm suspended in the air
Won't you come be in the sky with me

Chorus-Alicia & Drake:

I was wondering maybe
Could I make you my baby
If we do the unthinkable would it make us look crazy
Or would it be so beautiful either way I'm sayin'
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)
If you ask me I'm ready
(Echo: I'm ready, I'm ready)

From: Metrolyrics.com 

What is A Thing that Can Put a Man to Death and Also Bring Him Back to Life Again?

My World Politics professor ended the class in tears. We had talked about the advent of the fourth stage of humanity: the technological/digital age (it us up to us to define the term, he said), and that we are the first human beings to live in a world where time and space are compressed to the point that they do not constitute a minor barrier in the process of globalization. He demonstrated this by showing us a video clip of street musicians from all over the world collaborating on the song "stand by me" simultaneously through airwave. This is a side of the globalization story that is so refreshing and on point, it filled us with tears of hopefulness, especially having just learned about the deprivation of the poor states by the dominant states, as well as the astronomical wealth inequality. My professor said that what moved him about the video was that it portrays something beautiful created by the cooperation of ordinary people with talents, instead of those in power, and by doing so demonstrated what can potentially spark from the marriage of technology and however much human agency we as ordinary people hold.

This reminds me of a play by Sarah Raul that has been one of my constant source of inspirations. It's called "In the Next Room, or the vibrator play". The story is set in a time soon after Edison's discovery of the application of electricity, and it stages a battle between technology and human emotions. It revolves around the question presented in the play in the form of a riddle: what is a thing that can put a man to death and also bring him back to life? Some say it's electricity, while others say love. The main character, Dr. Givings, is fascinated with science and technology and uses one of the earliest electronic appliances, later identified as the vibrator, to treat patients with hysteria. While reading the play, I found myself impressed with the great technological leap at the time, in contrast to the bizarre belief that women's emotional instabilities are caused by bad fluids in their wombs. The doctor's expertise in the latest technology and his belief in traditional, conservative family values reflects an imbalance between technology and cultural progress. In the play, the imbalance is mediated by the doctor's stay-home wife, who is unknowledgeable about science but constantly raises profound questions about human relationships, socially-constructed norms and gender roles. The play ends on a hopeful note with the couple's passionate embrace in the snow, symbolizing the harmony between science and humanity.

Both the music video and the play give us a sense of hope and empowerment in the age of technological advance. Technology doesn't have to be be cold and intimidating as long as our cultural intellect and moralities are on par with it. To borrow my professor's words, globalization isn't an intimidating process, it started since the beginning of humanity, when one person desires to connect and understand another.