American Murder, Rise of the shadow

What is the shadow? It Is the dark figure cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the rays from a source of light! I am sure that’s not the shadows we are talking here. What is the shadow as a psychological property in a person as observed or defined by C.G. Jung? Well, is easy we google and it is; an unconscious aspect of personality. Trying to get something more and diving deeper it gets very confusing as it means different things to different people and experts.

I called it a property of the psyche to highlight that is something we own in us. I have to note that it is unconscious so by the very meaning of the word is something we have and don’t know it. So how to know something we don’t know? I would like to repeat again it is something we don’t know, yes is something in us we don’t know it in a conscious level. However, it is something that can get a hold of us and spark consciously unintended actions. If we do not know this personal shadow then how to see it? Well, it is possible with help from an external observer. In the traditional model this will be filled by a good friend or family and in the modern times a psychoanalyst. Hopefully the hired buddy is a good fit for you. Nevertheless, it requires that the personal story be told and then it is listened back by the story teller. This is difficult, very difficult, the one telling the story does not have a clue, actually trying to cover and put it away, the one listening to it (friend or analyst) might have a different perspective. So rather than getting any clarity it might get distorted twice. On all psychological work I believe one should only use oneself to understand oneself, that’s where we have the best insight, however there are exceptions.

Sometimes we can clearly see the contours of these psychological phenomena in others. These are cases of the extreme and occur at the edge of existence when someone ventured in the land of madness. We can see in these cases that the shadow has become apparent, so contrary to what I said earlier about looking only at our own personal story, we can look at someone else’s story. This is a very difficult task that needs the right perspective. If we choose to judge then we further distance ourselves and it will become impossible to learn anything, for ourselves.

I so a movie couple months back and had so many thoughts to share, time passed and I did not. I wanted to watch again to refresh my thoughts, I started but I couldn’t continue. I watched some parts. I decided to post what I think now and maybe add some more points later on. Movie is called American Murder and is on Netflix. It starts with a simultaneous narration of two stories from the same couple, one story is a shorter time frame and starts with the disappearance of Shanan Watts from the life of Chris Watts and the other story spans for couple years starts with the appearance of Chris Watts in the life of Shanan. The story of two worlds that join together and the story of their destruction.

I can tell a story I see in my mind, a story that maybe does not exist because we will never know for sure. This is the story of the unconscious, the Rise of the Shadow.

Shanan grew in a close family with love, the connection with the family was ever present a connection that she treasured. As she started her life in the bigger world the problems started, acceptance from the peers at school seems to be problematic. How could that be, is this a cruel world? Offering a connection with an open heart, true love is not without responsibility the sacred nature of something so precious demands high level of stewardship from the holder. You can’t just give it to anyone. She held the heart on her sleeve, but giving it away so soon leaves you in the others person mercy. She wanted to build that connection she had the one she had known. The school finished but not her problems she got married and then divorced she is completely drained, unable to accept this new reality she is getting sick.

Chris appears to come from a close family but is different, the personal boundaries are not crossed the connection is not fully open and importance is placed in filling the right checkmarks to get across to the other. So, he is moving through the motions to make the contemporary achievements for success, or with other words just fill the checkmarks with no meaning and his heart closed shut. Unable to convince the world with only the checkmarks, he finds himself frustrated in a world without respect.

They find themselves in a similar situation for different reasons, each have what the other is missing and each one is looking for what they missing to appear in the form of what they already have. They can not understand it any other way, the other way is the wrong one.  But they make their case to each other and it is a good match for them, and it should have been. World challenged them to change but they found a bug in the matrix, instead of changing themselves they borrowed each other to fit in the world and went about it in the same way they did before. Shanan should have become more like Chris to become important, and Chris should have become more like Shanan to become brave. They used the trick of borrowing each other and from the outside looks like it works, so they showed the checkmarks to everyone for approval. Every day they walk in their path away from each other, every day they borrow more. The checkmarks are given to a world they created but this world is kept in two separate books. One is the story of giving the heart away for free, Chris can not ever agree to this one this is a travesty.  The other is holding the heart closed shut an empty book, Shanan cannot agree to this one, this is not living.

Which reality will materialize? What will become with their world? Only one book will be accepted. Chris meets another woman. An empty book is like a dream come true for her, she spilled hers and cannot write anymore. The empty book is being considered. The world failed Shanan her book was not accepted. What was borrowed from Shanan must be returned if she is no more. And the empty book is no more, is spilled, unusable. It was not free after all, for this empty book to be accepted something need to be written on every page for every minute, for every fake smile, for every fake hug, for every video posted, for the love of the children that was received one word will be written on the empty book, coward, coward.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

 

Shadow is personal debt placed on the unconscious, a debt one incurs because of convenience, really fear or cowardice. And as all debts you cannot escape it by borrowing more.