Pixar and mental illness

“Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life’s problems.” 
– Sadness

Watching the latest Pixar masterpiece – “Inside out”, I found myself almost dying of laughter. The core idea: in your brain lives five little characters that each embody one of the cardinal emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust. They are there to balance your emotional state but from a viewer’s perspective it looks more like a visual representation of the split personality disorder we all suffer from. Within the mental representation, ‘Joy’ with insanity-mania and ‘Sadness’ with chronic-depression battled it out like a proper bi-polar. Add the sweet tears of an imaginary friend, some Hollywoodian-coulrophobia, a drug trip “a-la-Picasso” disguised as a “mildly accurate” abstraction process and suddenly I felt strangely normal. A greatly recommended movie!
I also managed to stumble upon some ridiculously cheesy chick-flick: “The longest ride”. Pathetically, the only good part was Scott Eastwood (the son of Clint Eastwood – who really is giving daddy a run for his money – even at his most glorious peak) in the role of the smoking chocolate-nougat-cream-cookie cowboy-lead – Yeehaw! Disappointing was of course the lack of a proper southern accent – I mean, is that not half the point with cowboy fantasies? (Matthew McConaughey would have gotten it right – s’all I’m say’n…) Unless you are craving some cowboy nougat-cookie it is my recommendation to  leave this movie unseen. 
Watching movies and chilling really was the core of the whole weekend. Cloudy, cold and rainy, the weekend was set to the soundtrack of Tom Waits. I focused on books, movies, painting and packing. In my room now a few pre-move packed boxes lies scattered around and paint scribbles on a canvas stares back. Unwilling to surrender (ref The portrait we paint of others) the canvas contain another self-portrait that in this unfinished state looks a bit too “Girl-in-Havana”, yet still captures a lot of my intended self. If motivation comes along, the evening shall hopefully balance it rightly.
On Tuesday I am flying to Sweden for a long overdue hangout session with my parents. I am looking forward to hike around in the forest around Stockholm desperate for the scent of pine and moss. Longing to eat mom’s cooking and to hang with dad in a cinema playing “Terminator 4” – all in honor of the classic action movie genre that bonds us together. 

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