Eternal Cloudiness of the Confused Mind

We saw a couple of good films this weekend: Saved!, which was light and over the top but nonoffensiveness in every way (any less edgier and it could have been shown on ABC Family or something) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I wish I was Charlie Kauffman. Well, I wish I had his ideas. Granted, the movie was not perfect, but he did a commendable job of examining a ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend who have each other erased from their memories.

I won't ruin the ending--I felt it should have ended twenty minutes before it did. And you cannot just extract one thing from your life like that--there are too many tangental things that occur while a relationship is happening--from where you live to who your friends are to your job to your outlook to the color of the leaves outside the window--that are influenced, sometimes imperceptually, by that relationship. Everything is interconnected, and the lessons to be learned from each seemingly isolated, bad experience rely on all of the parts.

But that movie didn't go quite that way--it went somewhere along the lines that, even if we wipe out a few forgettable boyfriends and girlfriends with technology, we are destined to repeat our mistakes because of who we are. But maybe that's saying the same thing, too--we can't, and shouldn't try to, avoid the mistakes in our life because there are valuable lessons in them for us.

I probably could have said that better, and maybe I can later. I've been thinking today of Charlie Kauffman-esque story lines to write, but I can't. The only thing I've thought of remotely resembling Charlie Kauffman is that the indicator of whether or not we're really attractive and likeable would be whether you'd want to fuck yourself. If you met yourself in a bar, would you be attracted to yourself? Want to have a relationship with yourself? That's really gross and weird to think of, but it raises interesting issues of self-esteem. In one way, I guess you would want to date yourself because your Doppelganger would share your interests and outlook, at least superficially. However, if you buy into the theory that people complete each other, you'd be totally turned off by the needy or the standoffish person you are, I guess.

Thank god it's Halloween this weekened and we'll only be renting horror films.