(May 29, 2023 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Society doesn’t address the soul. Being a natural human, full of feelings, in many cases you’re not a good fit for society. It can be a conflict of interest. You need to shut that down, and adopt docileness to fit in and be an active member of society. Some people who are full of feelings and acknowledge their emotions, can sometimes be looked at as crazy, or sometimes they’re shamed. And Aloners speaks to this empty, desolation, meaningless, apathetic culture that is growing and many are being bred into. So many people in this society are alone, and those numbers are growing rapidly.
This isn’t pertaining to Aloners, more of a general aspect, all of these apathetic aspects are influenced by so many different people and values. So many family cultures value their kids constantly doing hard work, not allowing their kids to have social lives, prioritizing high career status, and making the family proud. Schools rewarding docile behavior. Work culture where you have to shut down as a human and be the instrument work and society wants you to be. Apathetic desolation was inescapable for many. Of course this is going to metastasize to the point of this massive loner or apathetic culture. It’s inevitable where you’re going to have people like Yu Jina who live meaningless lives, and experience no real human connections.
There’s a growing disconnect not just growing in society, but within individual humans. For Yu Jina, she experiences no human connection. Human connection is an outer-body experience, human connection is voyeurism that you don’t experience. You just watch everyone else have them. And never truly get the experience it is to have true connections. She just doesn’t have the skill set to build any human connections. She probably doesn’t have the inner ability to form connections, because of all the destructive values that took a toll on her soul.
Especially within families, where a lot of family values are being destroyed. There’s a growing amount of family estrangement where people who are the same blood, people who grew up together for many years, where they just indifferently part ways, and just don’t communicate until the unforeseeable future of maybe weddings and funerals. And you saw that aspect very present in Yu Jina’s life.
Like for work, especially for the work culture at Yu Jina’s job. You’re told to shut down your feelings, and just fit accordingly into your position. Doesn’t matter how disrespectful and how inhumane the customer is being. You get those satisfaction numbers up, the toll of constant dehumanization has on you is not valued, doesn’t matter to the company. You’re pressured into disregarding that and do what’s best to get satisfactory calls, and performance. And that can take a toll on you over time. There’s a lot of pressure to be on that call, to put on that work character. It’s difficult for someone with a lot of feelings to adapt to such harsh inhumane culture. So to put on that character for 40+ hours a week of inhumane living, putting on a character that can take a massive toll on people’s lives. Especially when people are having 50-56 hours of sleep a week. Also the transportation, and get ready & unready time. It doesn’t leave much free time. Meaning a majority of many peoples lives is living as an undesirable character. Like a line Earn said in ‘Atlanta’, “I’ll become a person you hate at a job like that”.
But someone like Yu Jina is a perfect pupil of docile society. She doesn’t feel, she doesn’t connect, she fulfills orders and instruction, no matter how humanly grueling they can be. She fits in and excels. Which makes it easy for her to play the correct character for work. Look at the person that fits and excels in society. And you can see why it’s not a desirable situation. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to be empty, your docile puppet. I don’t want to have to shut down my feelings, my human experience. Especially for hours on hours, on days, on years of my life. Just wasted away being an instrument, a pawn for this docile culture so many want us to be under the guise of “success” and “honorable human being”. If empty desolation gets you honor and success, then that means nothing to me. Like a phrase from Network(1976), all “boredom amused”. And that’s what most of her experience is during her free time. Yu Jina fills it with nothingness that she watches, just something to fill her time, to amuse her boredom.
I’m not a lazy bum because I don’t want to participate in society, also because I want to see what I truly want out of the one life I have, that I truly value. I don’t want to end up in the empty meaningless desolation I see all of you guys are in. I want to love, I want to live. Don’t make me feel crazy for being an actual human.
Yu Jina claims a lot, that she wants to be alone. I say this a lot about the importance of gaining independence, and developing that. To become comfortable in your own solitude. But to also remember that social communication is important, a human need. Humans need each other, we die without that. Independence and community are both aspects that actually complement each other. You understand who you independently are, to bring yourself to the community that represents you. You don’t become independent of human life and connection, that is a destructive way to live.
You see Yu Jina finally come to the realization of the ways of her life. How it isn’t a possible way to live. With constant nothingness that was the life she lived. The meaningless work, the lack of or no human connection, and repetitively doing that everyday. With no real plans or events to look forward to. You felt that aspect of meaningless desolation insanity that she lived. To where it feels the best feelings and days of her life are just memories in the past, and only a path of nothingness for the foreseeable future. You felt the aspect of what’s the point of living, and that there may be an oncoming early ending of her journey.
With that you see Yu Jina have a panic attack, and I’ve had this recent feeling that panic attacks are sometimes good for you. Docileness destroys purposefulness. To the point you don’t even know you’re missing out on your purpose, blind to that fact. Mainly because you’re distracted by your compliance to what society makes you feel you should be worried about. That’s what panic attacks can be good for, they give you that life shock that you need, an understanding that this apathetic desolation of a lifestyle isn’t a viable one. Like looking at pain, it’s a trigger signal trying to tell you don’t do that or get out of that situation. Like when someone puts their hand over fire, you’ll feel the burn that signals you not to do that, it can be detrimental. So with anxiety for some people, it’s probably a signal that maybe you have to change something, the life you’re currently living is detrimental to self. You need to re-evaluate how you live your life, but sometimes anxiety doesn’t send the full message, people don’t receive it properly. Reason why sometimes, I feel anxiety medication isn’t the best option. It’s just a silencer that doesn’t address the core issue, which may be the unaddressed soul. So max anxiety panic attacks are not for you to revert back to the way you were living, and feel like “ok that’s good, things are back to normal”. Those panic attacks maybe are for you to start questioning the reality and truth of your life, and maybe start making choices to change your current lifestyle, in a way that addresses your soul or core issues. And that’s what you see Yu Jina do towards the end. Addressing the issues and things that truly matter in life. Yeah, she doesn’t know where she should go, doesn’t have direction, but she has the understanding she has to go in a direction that’s different than her previous lifestyle. She’s not worried about the fear or shame that may have confined her into her previous living. She’s interested in addressing the soul, and seeing where feelings take her, that’s her GPS now.
I really enjoyed this film. I felt the writing was very well-crafted. And very clearly depicted the premise they were speaking towards. With some amazing insight on how they conveyed it. I also really appreciated Yu Jina’s apathetic desolation performance. She was so great at conveying that constant emptiness. You just saw a clear disconnect with her and life, like she was confused by everyone’s connection to feelings.
In an inhumane society that doesn’t address the soul. It’s inevitable that some will lose their humanity, lose stimulation to the soul.
It’s important to address your soul.