embrace the weird in you, I think...

I warn you. This post is weird. (But then again, in their own special way, all of my posts are. As a matter of fact, did I ever write something that I did not describe as weird?)

Sometimes, we (yes, I am sure we all) fall in a well of thoughts; a well so deep we can hardly find our way back up. At least that’s what happens with me.

I will not elaborate on the nature of my thoughts, but will only say that after a while of thinking too much, of worrying too much and of dreaming too much, there comes a time when we must all stop. When air becomes a more delightful alternative. Air outside the well, of course.

For me, here is where Amelie (Poulain) came in.

You know that movie, with the perfect dose of perfect in it? Where all the imperfections are smoothed out by their own beauty? Yes, that one.

You might (or might not, mind you, if you’re not really focused) wonder what this has to do with my allegory of deep wells and thoughts that trap you and whatnot. Well I’m getting ahead of myself.

Amelie is brilliant. The narration in the movie is brilliant. You look at people, and hear out their stories, without hearing a word come out of their mouth.

Amelie knows that. Amelie knows things about people, just by looking at their books, their stuff, etc. And in order to (in my opinion) scatter away her own personal despair, and her loneliness, she decides to focus her attention on others, eventually helping them out (or not, remember Joseph and Georgette?).

So I decided to adopt what I have come to call the Amelie-esque attitude (Not Amelie’s attitude, but the movie’s attitude as a whole). I invented a game, loosely based on the presentation of people in the movie. Inspired by the way we, the audience, perceived those strangers and how they stopped being strangers after some time.

And every time I felt myself fall into my well, I played a new round. I looked outside my car window (because these happenings mostly took place while I was driving to and fro work,) and slowly began to stick identities, hobbies, and worries inside other people’s heads.

Here were some of the results:

This girl was waiting for her cab. Sure, she looked well pulled together, but deep down, she was worried. She recently put on some weight, which made her feel so uncomfortable, and put her in a sad mood no one seemed to understand.

That man was angry. Nobody ever lets him cross the street. And now that it’s started to rain, he had to hurry, buying the groceries and bringing them home to his wife, who pestered him in the morning, interrupting his most favorite ritual: smoking his cigarette while watching (and commenting on) the latest (but quite stale) political debates.

That guy next to me in his car loved his car horn so dearly I think he might have left his wife for it. Because it’s honk honk honk every second of the way. And I’m right by him, listening to him proclaiming his love to the honk, and unleashing his wrath and his swearing at the motorbikes and the pedestrians.

The truth is, his wife was a bore, and his kid a ten-year-old source of disaster.

And at that point, the new girl at work was so sexy he could not stop himself from thinking about her.

That jogger.

That concierge.

That mother and her child.

That teenager.

What were they all thinking about?

Now, Amelie actually helped the people around her. I, of course, being a timid piece of uselessness, could not do what she did. I merely used these people for their occurrence around me at the right time and place, to fabricate fabrics. False fabrics. Fabrics that, for once, took me so far away from my own dwelling (did you notice the word “well” in “dwelling”? that was done on purpose.) of deep thinking.

So now that I've presented you with the rules, do you feel like trying my game for yourselves?
Or have you stopped reading the minute my logic melted? (ie. from the moment I wrote “this post is weird”)?

And does this game work? Sure it does, as long as you remember that you've invented it. 

The next time you're worried (of course worried about easy things, like life-and-afterlife, not about, say: shit-I-stabbed-a-knife-in-someone's-heart-and-I'm-going-to-jail-or-they-are-going-to-chop-my-head-off-game-of-thrones-style), just take a look outside. Watch the people around you. Watch their body language and their expressions. Let your own imagination give them life. 

And have fun. 

Sarette.

Oh, and enjoy Sur le fil while you're at it!