This Is Not An Essay

I've made myself known.

Vulnerable.

I've opened that thing we call a heart, whatever that intanglible object, and it's changed the game completely.

When I did, I became open. Chest cavity awaiting the vultures enclosing. Do they strike? Will they? Or will my now open would be tended? This self-inflicted wound. I've taken a bonesaw and cut down the middle. Razor sharp and exact. The roaring blade of my emotions has made quick work of me.

You, surgeon. Do you repair me? Standing with scalpel and stitch. Choose. You must choose. I can feel the cold air in my chest. I cannot tell if the blood is making you sick.

You, expressionless surgeon. What is your next step? Do you not see that I have done this for you, surgeon? I should die here on this table. The metal makes my blood cold. It races through to my exposed heart. I'm leaking. I must've hit a vein. Or an artery. Whateverthefuck. I'm bleeding and I can feel it. I can see your eyes flickering from your tools to me. Me to your tools. Back again. My heart, my lungs, the whiteness of my ribcage.

Some blood squirts up and onto your hand that holds the scalpel. I realize I may have gone too far. Cut too deep. Fuck, I knew it.

I am staring at you, surgeon. Do you see me? My unrelenting gaze. Your eyes fail to meet mine.

I think that's tunnel vision setting in. It's dark and all I can see is you, surgeon. Where is your coat, surgeon? You are my surgeon, but are you a surgeon? Have I made a mistake, surgeon? Look at that bloody mess of a bonesaw. My tool of choice to create this mess. What is what I hope is a hint of realization creeps across your face. You put the scalpel down and I watch. Slow motion now. The clink of metal on metal as you release if from your fingers and hits teh table is deafening.

And I see them. A glorious shimmer of silver. Twin blades placed together with a single bolt. A neandrethalic concoction of a tool, but useful. It uses fewer fingers and less effort to use them than to use those stitches you hold in the other hand. Then, I realize. Maybe the lights are dimmer, or maybe it's the loss of blood, or maybe it's the blight light of a thousand spotlights in my face. I realize how easy undoing any potential stitches would be. A quick snip is all it would take and my bloody heart, lungs, stomach, intestines would all be exposed again. We all know that wounds take twice as long to heal once they've been reopened, or infected, or whatever. Fuck. I can't help thinking to myself. Why would those be there? Fuck. Fuck fuckfuckfuck. One word encompases my entire vocabulary as you straighten back up.

Blood on the scalpel that squirted out of me drips to the table and you wipe your hand on your pants. You don't seem to mind the stain it will surely create. Quick! Where's your bleach?! my thoughts demand of you. But no expression or movement. So stoic, surgeon. Are you frowning? Smiling? I can't tell. Maybe you're smiling. Maybe I've forgotten what that looks like. You haven't bent your arm to lower the hand holding all those stitches yet, surgeon.

God, those fucking lights are bright. How about some mood lighting, surgeon? How about that? Your face answers my question. Nobody dies of self-infliced wounds in a comfortable, romantic, the-food-is-shit-but-you're-paying-for-the-real-estate-and-the-fucking-visually-orgasmic-aesthetics restaurant setting.

I did this. I know. I wanted this. I know. Call me crazy. Look at me. I must be delerious. Must be the loss of blood. I'll never understand why they say, "I wear my heart on my sleeve." Isn't it much worse to bonesaw your own chest open and feel the excruciating cracking of your ribs as they're pulled apart? Just leave your heart in your fucking chest. You've done enough. Don't you think people will see? It's right there. My heart. IN MY CHEST. Beating for you. Burning, burning passion. The true object of desire. I've cut myfuckingself open so you can see, surgeon. DON'T YOU SEE?? Come, run your fingers against the white bone of my chest. Fragile, weak, human bone. Cut perfectly by cold, whirring metal. Be careful, the edges are sharp. You wouldn't want to cut yourself. You do not fear the sight of blood, save for your own. I know this, surgeon. I know your fear. But your blood is hot. It burns your veins and scalds your heart. The warmth you exude, I can feel it. The polar opposite of this shiny metal table you have so courteously laid me upon.

Oh, table of choices. Table of fears, wants, desires, passions. Table of love. How ironic you are, table. Oh, here I go, talking to a table. Typical dying man behavior. Fuck me. Delerious. Inanimate object animation. I digress, table. How ironic you are. You are so cold and you give me no comfort, and yet you hold me here in my goddamn Limbo. A perfect friend, huh? Boy, have I had my share of those. You, table, are the friend who never calls, but when I call you respond. But that's as far as it goes. Our friendship will not develop, table. But that is neither here nor there, table. The surgeon here. Oh, yes, me and the surgeon. There is a choice that can be made here, table.

Oh, stoic surgeon. Oh, thoughtless surgeon, how pensive you are. Drip. Squirt. Drip. Drip. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, YEARS. I can't tell the difference. It is an eternity that I have been here. Maybe only a few seconds.

It's really quite strange if you think about it. Here I am, surgeon. You staring at me. You've started at me before, of course. I hadn't done this marvelous bit of handiwork on myself then, however. Here are my insides now. Do you like it? I hope you do. Of course, you only see what you see. The pain means nothing to you. The pain of the crevass in my chest I've created. That is mine. My own. What you see couldn't do justice to explain how I feel. Strange how thoughts are more powerful inside. I'm doing my best to show you my insides. Metaphors and reality converge in my chest. Converge in this grotesque and beautiful situation we find ourselves in. Remember, sugeon. Metaphor. A metaphor is a metaphor, where a simile is a simile. We ARE a metaphor, dearest surgeon.

I laugh. Did I? Could you hear it? Oh, things make so much sense on this freezing table. Surely, you see. Surely, you se that. My lungs spasm in my laughter and blood hits your shirt from the vein I cut. Or artery. Whateverthefuck. It doesn't matter now. All that matters is you, surgeon. All that matters is your next step, surgeon. I can see you leaning towards your decision, surgeon. Will you choose? I'm lying here bleeding my blood for you, dying for you, surgeon. Only you. My surgeon. The choice is yours. The damage is done. The cool air in my open chest is mine. I won't even watch to see if you reach for those shiny scissors, either. I'll close my eyes here. Maybe take some of the pressure off of you.

There.

Better?

Okay.

A prick and I'm spinning. Plummeting into blackness. What have you done, surgeon?

H e ll o?......... h   el....o.?

s..r..   ge.. o... n..........

Dear blog followers! Sorry for such a delay in posting. I have been working on a film. Would have been smart to blog as I did it but, oh well. Too late now. I will later. The name will most likely be "a good Samaritan" and will be available on DVD on may 13th.

Analysis and Things You May Not Have Noticed In Shutter Island

The beginning of the movie is a little unclear to me and if anyone can help clear this up that would be great. He has made a breakthrough to reality once before but regressed. When that was is not clear in the film, and hence, it is not clear to me how the movie starts with him on the boat and having no recollection of previous experiences of the institution or how he got on the boat to begin with.... Moving on… 

He gets sea sick because his children were drowned and large bodies of water serve as an unconscious reminder, causing his sea sickness.Our introduction of Teddy is on the ship in the beginning. We also see a flashback. There is a woman, presumably his wife and we see a montage of her putting his tie on and a shot of an old record player, which has a recurring appearance in the film. Perhaps it was the music that was playing when he arrived home right before the trauma?

First clue something isn't right, but not a clue into the true story that is happening.

"You boys look a little on edge."

"Right now, Marshal, we all are."

I didn't catch this at first, but Teddy knows that the institution has an electrified perimeter. He appears to deduce that from his knowledge as a U.S. Marshal, but there is another reason. Teddy makes this observation because he has been at the Institution for two years. However, his alternate personality has not, but because separate personalities are not always COMPLETELY separate following trauma, this other personality is able to draw on those other experiences and past memories and does recall the electrified perimeter. "How can you tell?" says Chuck. "I've seen something like it before." replies Teddy.

This is our first learning of Rachel Solando, who murdered her three children, drowning them all in a lake behind her house, bringing them all back inside and arranging them around the table. The Doctor says she ate a meal there before a neighbor dropped by. This is part of what REALLY happened to Andrew.

The Doctor says the husband died on the beaches of Normandy. He says this in reference to Teddy, who did serve in the Army.

Teddy suffers flashbacks, one's that are constructed partially by both personalities. 

Rachel Solando has created a fictional world, denying the reality of the Institution where she now lives (just like Andrew)

The Marshal, Teddy, has not only a very intricately created personality, but a past as well, which includes full-blown memories, of possibly real, or constructed events to complete the Teddy Persona and fully hide the true trauma.

Here the German doctor makes a comment about Teddy's "defense mechanisms". At first glance it would appear (and as he continues, would possibly further confuse this) that the doctor is making of comment on the fact that Teddy is a war hero, having killed many men, and as Teddy says, he was raised "by wolves". At face value it would appear as though the German doctor is commenting on the mental defenses of the Marshal's seemingly, possibly traumatic childhood and war traumas (we could hypothesize that he says he is raised by wolves because his Teddy personality has no recollection of a childhood). But the German doctor isn't commenting on this... At least I don't think so. I believe he is commenting on the elaborate and quite intelligent Persona that Andrew has created in defense against the true trauma.

He says he is quitting the investigation and they're going to hand it over to... "Hoover's boys..." Oh yeah... "Hoovers boys." Why couldn't he think of that? Because that part of his story doesn't exist.

After "quitting" the investigation the two of them bunk in the Orderlies quarters. He falls asleep and slips into a dream. Now, the weird thing about his dream is that his dead wife knows about Rachel Solando. She tells him that she is "still here" and that he "can't leave". Now, here it seems that his wife Dolores is the innocent part of Andrew's splintered ego. Those of you who know Psychology will know that it was the trauma of finding his wife after the murdering their children and killing her for it was what split his ego apart in order to preserve his Self or Wholeness. It is also the psychological organ by which Man apprehends God. During a conversation with the Doctor he is asked if he believes in God. He scoffs. Awareness of the Self is probably minimal due to the splitting of the ego, so he does not properly metabolize real events or communicate with the Self, so he is not able to apprehend God.

Also, in the dream blood comes from her stomach... it is reminiscent of the gunshot wound inflicted by him. Once again we see the music box. It is connected to Dolores. It is seen in connection to her and Rachel, and seems to trigger flashbacks of trauma in Teddy.

But most importantly she mentions that Rachel Solando and Andrew Laeddis are both "here". The seemingly innocent part of his ego is trying to warn him of the supposed destructive, malevolent part of the ego, personified by Andrew Laeddis. Andrew is Teddy's true personality.

Next up: None of the patients Teddy interviews will talk about Andrew Laeddis when asked if they have heard of him.. Because it is such a disturbing question coming from the person who embodies that name.

When they go to the mausoleum a few things happen:

We find out that Andrew Laeddis set the apartment fire that killed his wife (who is still as of yet unnamed). Andrew Laeddis shot his wife.

The slaying of the German guards is almost reminiscent of the slaying of his children by his wife. They were systematically drowned (lined up). The guards were lined up... and shot.

 Now we hear of George Norris. A college kid who cracks, sees dragons, beats professor to death, ends up in Ashcliff - Ward C. He is released and stabs three men to death. This part is true. George Norris is a paranoid schizophrenic. Teddy will have a conversation with him later.

 

"Chuck" feeds Teddy the idea that he is set up... and more importantly, that Rachel Solando doesn't exist.

After the incident with "Rachel", who appears to have been found, Teddy suffers a migraine. Possibly triggered by the reality of "Rachel's" situation and the unconscious parallel of Andrews trauma. 

This child is the connection to Andrew's reality. She says to him, "You should have saved me. You should have saved all of us." Teddy's dreams are giving us an insight to what he is really thinking, or what his unconscious is experiencing. His trauma is locked away and is only accessed during dreams. It is possibly a re-traumatization tactic from his ego to prevent him from realizing his trauma.

Now in this sequence of three dreams, the final one involves the unnamed wife (Dolores) where she tells him that Laeddis is not gone and that Teddy needs to find him and kill him dead. It is appearing more as though this female character is the malevolent, trying to protect the innocent Teddy character from Andrew Laeddis. Killing Laeddis would enable Teddy to live on as the permanent personality and he would not have to face reality. Laeddis (Reality) is a threat to Teddy, and he is being protected by the female (Innocence).

The cascade of events that follow are all, in my belief, meant to drive Teddy to the Lighthouse, drive him to concern, doubt, and confusion, meant for him to question Teddy's reality.

On his way out of the building Teddy runs into the German doctor. They have a tense conversation in which the doctor brings up that the word trauma comes from the Greek word that means “to wound”, and that the German word for dream is Traum. He says: "Wounds can create monsters, and you, you are wounded Marshal.” The connection the doctor is making is that dreams are an insight to the unconscious, it protects us against things. In this case Andrew is being protected from further trauma. If analyzed, dreams can give away that which the unconscious, rather the Ego, is trying to protect. The doctor is trying to make Teddy see something. He is not saying Andrew is a monster, but that he has created something in defense to the true trauma, which is the Teddy Persona, and that he is trying to bring him back to reality. 

The Benevolent Dolores tries to tell Teddy that going to the lighthouse, where she knows he will be confronted by undeniable truth and reality, could destroy or kill him.

Ah, finally, “The Rule of Four”.

And now we see the truth. This benevolent part of Andrew’s ego has been trying to protect him, fearing that realization of the trauma would destroy Andrew.

Now, the most important part of the movie. The open ended question it leaves. Which Teddy or Andrew (we aren’t too sure who he is at this point) asks, “This place makes me wonder, is it better to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?” To me, this is his way of telling his psychiatrist that he has come back to reality and is no longer living in the dream world he constructed. I believe that realization of his true trauma and realization of what a dangerous person he is made him not want to live like that anymore, with the monster and with the knowledge of the trauma. His only way out of the life he knew was to pretend he had regressed, and so he did, and the doctors and nurses led him off to be lobotomized.

Post comments if you have any other thoughts!!

Hier ist ein Test. Ein Post von meine Mobiltelefon.

Softly Spoken Words Grip a Harsh Reality

My name is Alex Taylor. This is the first real post that I am posting on here. I've heard a lot about Blogs and I've actually read a few Blogs and I figured a while ago, why not start my own? People want to read about what I'm thinking and doing right? After all, we have major networks of people paying attention more than ever to what other people are doing: Twitter, Facebook, etc. So I'm going to throw myself into the public eye. Or so I will try.

I'm going to catch you up with who I am.

I'm a college student in Fresno, CA. I'm studying Electronic Media Production with a minor in German. I've always been interested in the film and music industry and art. I've drawn all of my life, you know, doodling in classes. Doodles that sometimes turned into more intricate drawings than I intended for them to be.

I started off in college not knowing what I wanted to do. At all. I walked in to college starting with Nutrition, because you have to start out with a major, right? Yeah, not really. Well I went along with Nutrition until I failed a one unit class because I barely went. Must not be for me I guess. It's funny in retrospect, because it happened a second time. Is that what it takes for me to realize that maybe something isn't for me? I have to fail? Is that how it works?

Anyways, it happened a second time. But this time it was Enology. Failed a Viticulture class. Man was that class a bitch. It was strenuous and boring. How does that work, you ask? Well try differentiating two "different" green grapes that look identical. I was bored by it, and it was a strain on my brain when I tried not to be bored by it. It was definitely not for me.

So then I met a guy who is now a great friend of mine. Everyone is shaped by the people we meet. He nudged me in the right direction. I showed him a small clip of a video I'd made with a buddy of mine. Single-camera. You obviously like this stuff Alex, why don't you study it in college.

Middle of my sophomore year and I was changing my major for the third, and last time. I went on with this major and stuck with it. Though now having gone through almost all of it, it definitely wasn't what I thought it was. But my interest in learning about movies, how they are made, and what it takes to put one together never waned. I even revitalized interests I had before along the way. But college has taught me one thing for sure. Whether they give you the technical skill or not, they can't teach you about what it's really like to be working in the real world. College is nothing like the real world. I work at a television station and it works nothing like the way my class did in college.

So here I am now. One semester away from graduation. Next semester I will be working on a short film for which I am brainstorming the plot.

That is me until this current point in time. Now you know, and perhaps have a better understanding of my writing as this Blog grows.

Thank you, and until next time.

Tschüss

This is the first post.

This is the first post and is a test to test the privateness of the blog. Can anyone see this?