Can you relate to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ?
966829
My husband and I cried together and held each other really tight after watching this film.  \n\nhe 'man-cried' though.
302654
Please let me apologise at least for my assumptions about this topic. Seriously. Those who think that feel that you have not lived it, therefore you can not understand it. But that is not always true. I apologise because I have been guilty of that mind set before. In their defense, ever heard of a young wise man? That's because the wise man has seen and experienced many, many things and has learned from that. See what I mean?
181848
Sure.  It is when you start to question who you are, what your purpose is, and what have you been doing all your life and what should you do with the rest of your life.\n\nIt can involve a crisis of meaning, where you feel a void of meaning in existence in general, or in your existence in particular.  This is the existential crisis.  Viktor Frankl has a marvelous book called Man's Search for Meaning in which he deals with this.\n\nAnyone can have an "identity crisis" when they are just not sure what their next step should be.  This can be small or huge.  It can be a major ordeal if one finds that he or she cannot relate to the teachings or beliefs that his or her culture/family hold.  If one sees problems in the beliefs held by all those around him or her, then one can feel lost as to who one is.  They have to rethink all they ever believed.\n\nSo much of our self-image is given to us by those around us, and as soon as we start to question what they have told us, we find ourselves at a loss as to who we are.\n\nThat, I think, is an identity crisis!
939811
Good film,but not an easy one to watch. Do not rent this if you are depressed in any way!!\nThe acting was absolulutly top notch from both big Sam and Laura Linney.
1056315
Yes it is easy to get lost in feeling alone. I have several friends but they are all married and none of them understand that being single and on the dating scene is one of the most " alone " feelings in the world. I do believe that they would skip my funeral if it somehow hindered their plans to go to the lake.  \n\nThat is where my faith in GOD comes into play. I do know that God will be with me no matter what and I will not be alone. \nThat is hard to remember some days but it does help me.
913468
I never saw one but I felt one.\n\nSeveral years ago I had an unusual experience concerning an uncle, a distant relative who lived over a thousand miles away. \n\nWhile driving my car I suddenly felt the unmistakable presence of this relative that I hardly even knew. He was more like someone I had heard about than someone I knew. It was very strange; it felt as though I was momentarily lifted right out of my physical body. I seemed to be suspended somehow beyond space and time, bathed in a love so intense It felt like I could have just disappear into it at any moment if It would have let me. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it seemed to last forever at the same time. I realize how crazy this must sound. The experience was so strong that at first I was afraid I was loosing my grip on reality. I finally managed to chalk it up to an over active imagination.\n\nThree days later I got a call from my aunt telling me that this uncle we are talking about had gone into a coma and died the day I had the experience. It felt like ice water had been poured down my back when she told me this. I had lost any real ideas of God or faith and had become somewhat of an atheist. Needless to say this experience caused me to rethink some of the conclusions I had come to. \n\nI feel blessed to now understand that even in our darkest confusion something loves us so much that it went out of its way to assist me and bring me back to a state of absolute certainty about Gods love for us.\nDuring the experience it seemed like there was a vast amount of information that I was somehow allowed access to. One thing that I came away from this experience understanding beyond any shadow of a doubt was that any Idea that God is unhappy with us or would judge or allow us to be punished for any reason is simply impossible. \n\nI can’t explain the love I felt with words. They simply don’t make words big enough or complete enough to do this. The only way I can begin to convey this love to you is to say that there was simply nothing else there. Nothing but love. No hint of judgment, no displeasure of any sort. It is as though God sees us as being as perfect as we were the day we were created. It is only in our confused idea of ourselves that we seem to have changed.\n\n I hope this is of some help to you. Good luck. Love and blessings. \n\nYour brother don
367143
hey,\n\nout of personal experience, yes... and i LOVED it lol
423536
Oh, sweetheart, I am so sorry. I can relate to you in two ways. My situation is the opposite. I grew up with my father and did not see my mother from age 6 to age 20. The second thing we have on common is that my father also died recently. He committed suicide because he was sick and depressed. It's gonna take a lot of time. I don't have kids, and it bothers me that when I do he'll never meet them. \n\nHere's what I do to cope...\n\nI play the Moonlight Sonata on the piano because he loved to listen to me play that. I burned a CD of songs that remind me of him. When I listen to them, I can hear him singing them and see him smiling. I burned another CD of songs that express how I feel about his death, which helps to get it all out. I write letters to him, and that gets it all out, too. I allow myself to be angry - it's hard to be angry with someone you love. I try not to beat myself up with what I could have done differently and all the things I never said. I know he knew how much I loved him without my having to say it. My faith in God helps, because I think of what the word eternity means, and when I do, I see that 70 years on this earth is just nothing, really. I don't blame God - I try not to blame at all, which is not easy to do. \n\nAnother good thing to know about is the grieving process. There is shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Since they are always written in that order, I thought that you go through one, then you're done with it and you go through the next. That's simply not true. You can be crying, then in a rage, then wake up the next day not believing what has happened. Knowing, but not believing. I find it hard to talk to people because I feel like it makes them uncomfortable. I also feel like it's old news to my friends, and that makes it hard to just bring it up again. But I do try to monitor myself and take good care of myself. If I'm in denial, I remind myself that denial only puts off dealing with it and makes it a longer process. If I am feeling guilty, I remind myself that it's not my fault and that my father would not want me to think it was. If I see that I am isolating myself, I call a friend and go out. \n\nI know that my situation is different, because you hardly knew your father, but I am sure that you loved him, and that he loved you. The one thing that gives me the most comfort is knowing that love is not killed, buried, or cremated. Love never leaves. Know that your father is very much alive in you, and so is his love. Give yourself time and be patient with yourself. If you want to talk more, email me.
371178
We are talking Ibsen here, right? OK, how about this.\n\nIn A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen raises the question of happiness still relevant in our time. The author presents a situation where one of the female protagonists is forced by society to sacrifice her personal fulfilment on the altar of social conventions.\n\nThat was so far the formulation of the question. Now we proceed with the analysis. \n\nFrom the first pages of the book, the reader witnesses the efforts of the female character to follow her duty. Yet no matter how hard she tries, she fails. At the end, she finally comes to the realization that her misery stems from misapplication of her talents. Expected to be a mother and a wife, the woman forgets about her own happiness. This is not the way, the author seems to tell us. The young woman's depression creates an unpleasant atmosphere in the house which affects even the well being of the little children.\nThis is essentially the reason for the mother leaving her children at the end. Only by declaring her independence from the patriarchal society, can she find her own happiness. And only then, will she be able to give her offspring what they deserve, a peaceful atmosphere in the house, genarated by the contedness of each individual.\nAs Ibsen  unequivocally shows us, one has to follow his won dreams and raise the new generation according to similar ideals of self fulfillment and independence. This, according to the author, is the key to happy society in general, and family life in particular.\n\nOk, this is the gist of it. You can change what doesn't fit your thoughts, and add, to present your own opinion.\nHope this helps.
309113
LONG POST.  Skip if want to.   I have been there once.  I am agnostic.  I am not sure how much weight that will carry in helping you but hope my few words might get the thought process in you motorizing.   Just let me talk about my personal experience.\n\nI don't worry abou the afterlife aspect.  I have pretty much made peace (tho, not 100%...more like 85% to 90%) that my soul will rot along with my body.  My soul is made purely of synapses that happen in my brain matter.\n\nYES, I do still wonder at times what death will be like, and how I might die.  Just natural curiosity and a small fear of simply "not existing" anymore.  That fear or wonderment is perfectly natural.   It is not eternal bliss or eternal damnation or reincarnation that I look forward to to establish my selfish "immortality".  (Imo, it is selfish to me)\n\nI am of the belief that it's the HERE and NOW that matters so much.  I am thinking that my self-assigned purpose is to affect as many people as I can during my --and ours-- lifetime as possible.   I have made others laugh, learn to respect humanity's differences, to be more compassionate.  I attritube some of that success to my being deaf.  In turn, perhaps SOME of them might teach others --their children?-- what they learned.   THAT is my "immortality", Heron.  THAT is my "eternal bliss".  I know in my heart and head that SOME people actually passed it on to their loved ones about being compassionate.  \n\nHeron, Love, I have already had a hard childhood and a hard life.  Part of me is actually looking forward to death as the final escape and a welcome relief from my pains and sorrows of this life.  When I am OLD, when I am OLD!!!!!  :-p  I don't want to committ suicide!  :-p  Relax, peeps!  ;-)\n\nI am also no longer as afraid of simply blinking out of existence.  It's inevitable.  The future that Star Trek espouses, I so badly want to be there, but know I may not live to see it.  I accept that reality.  I just turn my fear of the non-existence into a focus on the HERE and NOW.  I just gape in wonderment of TODAY's science and my imagination SOARS on where it may lead......\n\nA smile at a sad child at Tim Horton's can brighten her whole day.  Years later, when Child is a old woman, she may remember this friendly stranger with the loving smile long after I turned to dust.  In turn, she may return the favor to another sad child she sees at a restaurant.  It's the MEMORY of me that I know will establish my "immortality".  I am hoping in the future, my second cousins or future unborn nieces/nephews will take my poetry (1,000+ already!) and try to publish some of them.  That is also my hope for immortality---just like my beloved poet, Emily Dickinson.\n\nCivilizations come and go.  A thousand years hence, our civilization may not be here anymore.  Religions may no longer exist.   We will no longer be remembered excepting for our own pottery and "ancient items".   Heron, my love, everything comes to an end, just as everything has a beginning.   Both the good and the bad.\n\nWhat is important is to accept your fear as natural....and to gain courage from that fear to take a leap where this may lead you.  All people of faith go through this.  Who knows, Heron, I may "return" to Wicca in the future.  Or be drawn to another religion.  Unpredictability is the magic of life.  :-)   The sooner I accepted that reality, the less I was afraid.  \n\nI was wiccan.  I believed in some of the gods/goddesses.  One day, I was doing the Full Moon ritual.  A thought just popped up out of nowhere that kind of shocked me----"If you are not getting anything out of this praying, hon, STOP doing it.  You are disrespecting the "god" if you pray and don't feel anything out of it!"    After that, I stopped if I felt it would be a "hollow ritual", void of feeling.  Eventually I had to question my wiccan
909010
I dont think it's depressing. I actually think it could be somewhat therapuetic to sing along with this. And people could relate this to themselves in any way they wanted to. I like it! Good writing skills
316393
The book is awesome, there's no doubt about that.  But then the film is probably the greatest cinematographic realisation of a classic book that I know of.  "So what's it going to be then, eh?" ...  Well, I gotta say the book wins at a pinch, just because the images are so evocative, the message so well realised and bleak and brutal, the prose so, well, prosaic - Nadsat withstanding.  The film shines, but it shines best in its correspondence to what the book has already evoked.  Stunning question though, dude.
817412
Probably niether. Trivial in most respects, but a world in your own worth. We're either all everything or all nothing. Possibly both depending on the perspective. Just enjoy it wherever you are.
646378
Yes. This something I do almost every day and how I've made some of my closest friends. I believe that every person has something good and beautiful inside of them. We all deserve love and attention. When someone is so low that they feel they don't want to live, that is when I feel closest to a stranger. I know how they feel because I've been there and I never have problems crying with them or helping them out. I'm always making friends because I wear my heart on my sleeve and offer anything I can to everyone. I love people and because I am so loving, they love me back. :^)
495448
I haven't found anything yet with which I somehow can't find common ground.  Insanity, low self-esteem, harriedness, coping with broken bodies, (not on a regular basis, but yes, it has been part of my life), witnessing miracles, (there have been a few), learning to appreciate the tiniest good in someone, facing violence, laying on a remote beach, skinny-dipping at night, pulling leaches off my feet, stressful job, artistic liscence, court appearances, an audience yelling and clapping, (so what if most of them were half cut?) cops at the door, uncertainties in picking life's goals, man, you name it, I think I can understand it.  I think my life has been like those beatitudes.  I even understand hunger and thirst.  I understand emotional hunger and thirst.  I understand how our society got the way it got, I even understand how people USED to think.  I even can understand Shakespeare.  I thought I found a loop-hole in the molecular theory once.  Did I mention insanity?
921021
im guessing this was inspired by me\n\n:) just kidding of course\n\nthough the guy who sells me used batteries on the train seems well versed in the existentialist philiosophies of albert camus "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. "
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I guess it depends upon how sociable the person is and how strong minded and for how long. For an account you could read an Evil cradling by Brian Keenan.\n\nI have a little personal experience of this and was not pschologically stabel and lost a lot of sense of self