I love hell I am hell

Eowyn strikes me as the type of person who grew up feeling desperate and suicidal whose life could only really have meaning if she died in battle in a meaningful way. She wants to fight, and she does. She’s awesome and badass. But she lives. The war ends. And she’s facing a future she never thought she would have. And Eowyn is brave, so she chooses the bravest thing that she could possibly do: attempt to heal. Make new and meaningful relationships. Learn how to mend broken things and help others to do the same. She lives. And there’s something powerful in that.

It’s also interesting how her own suicidal ideation finds a cultural expression. Her mental health issues may be individual but the way she shows it is very Rohan, like “I am traumatized and grieving therefore I must fall gloriously in battle.” And while Tolkien gives a sympathetic and dignified portrayal to the Rohirrim, including Éowyn, seeking death in battle, he also makes it clear that living and healing is the harder and more courageous thing to do. Éowyn and Faramir’s conversation on the ramparts is probably my favorite scene for that reason.

your trauma was never your fault, but healing will always be your responsibility

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

Thank you this is the first post about self love that hasn’t made me want to throw things

How to: break my heart. A tutorial by Mad Max: Fury Road

Let’s talk about this scene a little, because I noticed a particular detail in my last viewing that’s had me buzzing and buzzing crying a lot.

Let’s start with the obvious: the whole film Nux has wanted to establish his life has some meaning by dying “historic on the Fury Road.” Of course, all his previous efforts were attempts to continue things the way they were–in Immortal Joe’s terms. Thus, those deaths would not have really been historic. They would have been forgotten, just another blip in the status quo. In crashing the rig and allowing the wives to return to the Citadel, Nux does in fact fulfill his wish to die historic–without his actions, the wives likely would not have been able to return to the city and enact the changes they inevitably do. His death matters in a way none of the other deaths in the film do–it matters to changing the future, and thus becomes an important part of the future Citadel’s history.

Nux only knows how to do that in his own terms, though–the terms of the War Boys. Thus, his death only gains significance if it is witnessed. For Nux, the action itself is not as important as it being seen and acknowledged. This makes a lot of sense in terms of Immortal Joe’s world and its patriarchal structure. Individuals are not important, actions don’t matter unless they are showy and seen–all life boils down not to meaningful actions but to showing off.

But here’s why this film is a feminist masterpiece, and why this scene in particular cements that: Capable’s reaction.

Capable does witness him. She locks eyes and acknowledges the significance of his action, of his inevitable death. But she doesn’t respond like one of the War Boys–when the War Boys die asking to be witnessed, the others respond yelling “Witnessed!” This answer does say, “I have seen your action, it matters,” but hollered with usual the War Boy bravado, it also acts as an attempt for the witnessing War Boys to build up their own importance by making themselves part of the action.

Capable does not yell “Witnessed.” She responds with a gesture–holding her hand out and pulling it toward her heart. This is the Vuvalini’s gesture of mourning–a beautiful gesture that essentially mimics pulling the lost soul into one’s own heart. Capable has only just learned this gesture, but she seems to innately understand its significance. Thus, while she witnesses Nux’s death, she refuses to “witness” him in the sense of the War Boys and instead mourns him in the manner of the Vuvalini. Nux likely sees this–the editing implies he doesn’t turn the rig until after he’s seen the gesture. Thus, he knows he is witnessed, but more importantly, he knows that he will be mourned and remembered. With that knowledge, he finally has the strength and the worthy reason to sacrifice his life for a cause that matters.

This moment is also the moment Immortal Joe’s power is officially broken. Yes, Joe is dead, but Rictus and a whole gang of War Boys and their ilk are photon their wheels, ready to re-establish the status quo. In many ways it is a transfer of power–the last call to witness leads to the first time the Wives truly embrace the culture and ideology of the Vuvalini as their guiding principle. Joe’s power is broken not so much by the explosion–though that is certainly the blunt force that finishes the deal. Joe’s power is broken by self sacrifice–a self-sacrifice born not of bravado or the hope of becoming a legend, but one born of community, of love, of hope. Capable’s response guarantees that Nux’s sacrifice will be honored and remembered, but in a new way in their new world.

Another way we can see the growth in Nux is the different way he asks for witness. Gone is the showy bravado that we saw with him and other War Boys. Where he was all wild, madcap eagerness to die in the earlier scene with Max in the sandstorm (”Witness me, Blood Bag!”), here he hesitates because warm and tender life has become more precious than bright and glorious death.

He meets the eyes of the person he has talked to, cuddled with, even dreamed of a future with. He went from seeing Capable as a “so shiny, so chrome” prize object to a person in her own right, someone whose companionship he valued. In so doing his own life became richer and fuller, and he had come to imagine living instead of dying. You see the aching vulnerability in his eyes, the young boy who for the first time learned how to want to live, really live and love and be loved, not just endure a short and brutal existence before his true purpose of sacrificing himself and going to Valhalla.

That dream slipped out of his hands as soon as he touched it, but he has learned there is another way to live, even live forever, by giving of himself out of love and living in the hearts of those he loves.

So when Nux meets Capable’s eyes raises his finger to whisper witness me, it is not a boisterous command for attention and adulation as he knew it but a new and tremulous question: Will you remember me? He has learned, too, that you cannot force a heart but that he must ask, and endure the uncertainty of the answer while his soul vibrates like a string.

And she answers in the spirit the question was asked, not with blinding certainty but with the softest vulnerability, in the most naked truth that leaves no room for doubt. It is enough.

This is how Nux dies, not as a boy to his dreamed-of self-annihilation because that was all he was told he was good for, but a man who has started to see through the lies and has everything to lose--and he gives it all for the sake of his community and the future they might have. He knows he will be there, too.

Daniell Koepke (via internal-acceptance-movement)