Tuesday, January 6, 2009

nightmare

Test 300 or so, 300 or so essays on a book set in post Holocaust Jerusalem, about a people shadowed by atrocity and suddenly, the idea of Sophie's choice leaps into my head (thanks, Xbox) in technicolour empathy and the breath whooshes out of me in the full horror of it. There's an iron weight on my chest. That that must surely have been someone's true story, what would you do, what would you do? Go too, with both? Better to die all together than forsake one, knowing what you were sending them to? Or worse to condemn them both, and yourself. But how could you live?

Perhaps I should be taking a pill for this, this condition of over feeling.

14 comments:

Martin said...

I've had a lot pinned on me in my time, a share of it deservedly so, but being associated somehow with the holocaust is a new departure even for me.

Jo said...

Check the chat archives, X box, you mentioned it the other day, it was enough, it seems!

Martin said...

I know, I did check, but it certainly wasn't in this context!

;0P

Jo said...

Well, I only meant thanks for putting it into my head. Sophie's Choice is Sophie's Choice though, whatever the context you compare to it.

Anonymous said...

had to look up what sophie's choice was.

She should have flipped a coin.

Har Har.

I read somewhere that that's a torture technique, to make the victim decide what body part will be tortured next, plays havoc with the mind apparently.

Anyway, i'll go back to reading about Attila the Hun.

Compulsive Cook said...

The over-feeling thing is often a sign that you have feelings about your own life that you aren't facing or allowing yourself to feel.
This means it is possible to cure it, but it's not easy.

Anonymous said...

Daddy or Chips

Jo said...

HA! Yeah, that one's easy.

Sarah Gostrangely said...

Interesting theory Morgor.

I continually over-feel. I cried for 2 days at the end of House of Pooh Corner, cos Christopher Robin had to go back to school, and you knew, just knew, he wouldn't be back next year.

Oh god, I'm going to cry.

But yeah, crazy the stuff humans do to other humans. Insane.

Sarah Gostrangely said...

I meant Compulsive Cook.

And I'd defo go for chips. Easy.

Compulsive Cook said...

The theory made me very cross when I first came across it, but the more I think about it, especially with relation to myself, the more I believe it.
Not that it's the universal answer, I hasten to add. Could easily be that some people are just big softies!

Jo said...

No, it's a good theory. Not so relevant to me though, I've always been fairly well aware of what I'm miserable about, as god knows I am now :)

Compulsive Cook said...

Really? And you express it efficiently, so you never find yourself shouting at your family, angry in disproportion to the provocation?

Jo said...

Thanks for that. Just because I'm stressed doesn't mean I don't know what I'm stressed about.