I loved the movie American psycho. I have very dark and often violent fantasies sometimes. Not the kind where I get off on violent stuff, but things that will pop up into my head that are very graphic and personal that I can't seem to stop thinking about. Some of the scenes in American Psycho really resonated with me for this very reason. I felt the flick was brilliant on a number of levels but the key one was pointed out by my sister on the subject of identity.
In the movie, the main character has no identity. Some might be tempted to say soul, but the book goes into better detail on this subject. There are many references to people not being able to recognize each other, people not actually listening to what others are saying and simply responding to each other as if they are "waiting for their turn to speak", and more important monologues, monologues, monologues!
These range from expressions by the main character about how he is a shell and how he never is capable to feel anything, and the hilarious spewing of 'how to save the world' via something he obviously read in time magazine and memorized word for word and the in depth look into the artistic merit of Huey Louis and the News that was probably lifted from a shady review in the New York Times. Laughed my ass off.
I figure it was a comment on the way that consumer culture has literally gone about consuming our culture as is talked about in Naomi Kline's 'No Logo' and how we are losing our identity. I have been fighting this for a large period of time.
If one were to listen and document my interesting little quips and comments over the year that encourages people to think I'm a witty well timed character full of over the top one-liners, then preceded to do a google search on the internet, one would immediately notice that the best material I have is word-for-word lifted from a variety of sources throughout my life. Songs, movies, books, commercials�I've stolen it all. Even my writing style. I write what comes out and have to go back and try to eliminate all clich�d statements as fast as possible and I'll be honest: it's a fucking long editing process. What you wouldn't find on a search engine, you would have to search for in people that have spent long times in my environment: Alison, Reid, Eric, parents.
The point is, I feel to a large part fake. I feel like I offer little new to my environment sometimes. But not all the time. There are a number of other instances where I feel like I am simply doing what everyone else is doing and that is learning from my environment.
I don't just regurgitate material randomly when I think I can get away with it, I try to find a specific quote in the back of 'me' brain and match it to a specific situation or feeling. But I do not feel that others do this all the time. I feel there are genuinely real and authentic people that come up with the funniest shit imaginable. And they do it out of the top of their head. And I steal from them. I latch on to their creative capital and suck hard till I can get it all out and incorporate it into my repertoire of things to say. This is of course not something that you may expect to learn from a person that has been called 'creative', 'authentic', or 'artistic', but it is the case. Assimilation is inevitable, resistance is futile.
I do not know how or why I learned to do this and do not feel like it is entirely justified. But still it explains why I can rarely think of cute pet names for my partner, I just steal them from her till we end up calling each other pookie and muffinskies. It also can explain why I can imitate others so well, even in conversation. Some people pick it up by accident and I revel in it. You know that game where people try to have a conversation using only song lines? I think that I could probably do it with imitating people if you got me rolling.
I've been wondering recently if this has anything to do with my fantasies. The last one had me naked in a forest in Vancouver. I had a headband on and was going mad, screaming to myself and running till I ended up right on the edge of a cliff. A specific friend was having a picnic nearby by chance and ended up running towards the commotion and finding me and we were both surprised. Theirs was more a surprise of depression; mine of insanity. I was screaming to myself, remnant of the bad ol' days and looked pretty physically sick.
They asked me to what I was doing here and after a rambling response they were crying and they asked me to stop. Normally in reality I would have, I probably wouldn't have even gotten that far on my own, but this time I just suddenly had a knife and put it through my wrist and said "No more games". When they came towards me I took it out and threatened to kill them so they stayed back. Then I dropped it concentrated really hard and looked at them and said "won't you share with me this song of freedom, cause it's all I ever had��.redemption song." Then I said "I love you" to myself and jumped.