The Good Place

I binged The Good Place over the past few days. All four seasons. It was all I did. I enjoyed it. I also think there's been some depression over the past week or so. Though, it might have just been ennui. It's tough for me to tell. I still don't have baselines for what's what.

It's been nine years since I had my manic episode and started taking meds for bipolar disorder. The first two or three of those years were going though the depression along with my brain healing from the episodes. The thing I'm wondering now is how much of the way I was feeling was depression and how much was healing.

Like, maybe I don't know what depression actually feels like because a bunch of what I was feeling beat up by was the physical impact on my brain and the recovery from that. It would be nice if most of it was the healing. That would mean the depression wasn't as bad. I doubt that's the case based on the clinical descriptions of depression.

It would be nice though.

Whatever, that was what it was and will be what it will be.

Anyway, The Good Place was a nice way to spend the past few days. Kristen Bell is a delight. It was a lot of fun to see Ted Danson. Those are the two I was familiar with. William Jackson Harper and D'Arcy Carden were great. Manny Jacinto was good in his own way, though I wasn't a fan of his character. He was the most Networky one. Too far on the caricature side of a character.

-- h2

Kant and Crew

I give credit to the writers for the amount of philosophy they threw in. I'd heard of half the philosophers before thanks to J. The recurring joke about everyone hating moral philosophers landed for me more than most because J has told me before that she didn't trust them. I can't imagine most folks have either known a moral philosopher either first or second hand. The riff felt like an inside joke that I knew just enough about to appreciate.

-- h2

The Exit

When I saw there were four seasons and the last one ended six years ago I wondered how they were going to wrap it up. This was in the middle of the second season where it was clear how much effort the writers put into the philosophy. I was really hoping the series would have an explicit end instead of just ending because the show didn't get renewed. I'm glad they got to complete it. They landed it wonderfully. The humans walking through walk into the universe and ceasing to be was... powerful.

I don't have the words to describe it. It was very affecting. I'm crying right now thinking about it. Not because it was bad, or sad. And, not because it was beautiful. It was that, and it wasn't.

I don't know. I really don't know how to describe it. Something like catharsis.

The word sublime comes to mind too. Not in the way most folks use it. Not an ecstasy. An impact. An intensity.

The thing that got me the most was the way they described knowing it was time to move on. The characters each recognized when they'd done what they needed to do.

I get that.

I'm at a time when I feel like I've done enough. What I've needed to do. If there were a door, I could see myself walking through it. I expect that feeling will pass. Possibly it's some depressions. It doesn't feel like it though. It really does feel more like I've done what I've needed to do. That I've had enough experiences that I've covered the enough of them that I'm content. There will always be more to see, but I've seen enough that I'd be happy if it's all I got.

-a

-- endnote/

I'm not suicidal right now. I've been there. This isn't that. It's weird to think I might be again. Doubly so now that I've got the analogy from the end of the show in my head. The idea of the wave and the water. The wave is a thing, but when it crashes on the shore it ceases to be. It's just water again. Part of the ocean.

-- youtube/ -- l1IchzbtNj0

-- /endnote

-- endnote

With The Good Place and Everything Everywhere All at Once I'm super impressed with the stories in film and television. They are new high marks for putting big thought narratives in play for wider audiences. Love the evolution.

-- endnote

As always happens after a period of being kinda offline, writing this has helped start me up. I'll have to link up "The Clicky Sound".