from Dans la maison (2012; dir. François Ozon)
For some fortunate individuals, "imagination brings bliss at no cost" like the lyrics to Nujabes' beloved song "Luv (sic) Pt. 2" says but for those who are less fortunate, including myself, it just doesn't act that way. Even if it does, that so-called bliss rarely happens and lasts only temporarily. It quickly vanishes like a courtesy smile and eventually makes one feel emptier than ever.
Instead, or at least for me, imagination at most of the time rather serves as a vaccine that painfully tries to build some sort of immune system to any future misfortune. I want it to be a solid and concrete one like a fortress, and hence I pop in a handful of colorful imagination in lieu of GNC-labeled vitamin pills whenever I have a chance to. Its success rate in terms of intended protection and immunity: that I cannot assure. It is not FDA-approved. Yet.
Pieces of my imagination, oscillating between very detailed images and more of nebulous conceptual things, tend to be altogether straight-up ugly. There is no room for beauty whatsoever and with their depressing ugliness they wear me out super fast. If I have to list them in order to convince the audience:
Imagination #1: My boss calls me up for an impromptu meeting before lunch.
Imagination #2: I don't exist.
Imagination #3: These tiny red pinpoint dots on my forearm are indicative of some undiagnosable disease.
Imagination #4: You don't exist.
Imagination #5: This co-worker I know and that co-worker I know are having an inappropriate affair.
Imagination #6: We don't exist.
Imagination #7: I get t-boned by a drunk guy on my way back home from work late at night.
Imagination #8: We never existed.
Imagination #9: Data from this Nature paper I am meticulously reading are all fabricated.
Imagination #10: We will never exist.
...
Imagination #172: To you, I am a mere variation of someone whom I may or may not know.
I can go on like this forever but I have to stop -- I must -- because at this point, these thoughts are not imaginative anymore. Lengthy descriptions such as "unhealthy and unproductive worries in excess that attempt to disguise as logical yet nonchalant assumptions only to fail as expected" might suit them better. They are obviously toxic. Almost OCD-like. I cannot stop imagining things, though, because it is now almost innate. It involuntarily happens. That is why whenever something like #172 hits me I want to die instantly so that I can stop the system entirely because, you know, #2 (I don't exist).
In fact I already died a few times.
