The Black Swan

When I watch a movie with substance, it takes at least a full day to process not just how I feel about it, but what I think about it.  I can take almost any situation, any story, parable, movie, book, you name it, and find meaning from it.  I can find a way to apply it to my own life, to make it significant, to make it *meaningful*.  It's how I transform another person's piece of art into my own.  There was no difference with the Black Swan.  I was locked, engaged, and completely immersed in Nina's character.  I was in her head.  I felt her every emotion.  For 108 minutes, I was her.  I sometimes think of empathy as one's ability to leave their own minds and be completely immersed in another's, feeling every emotional heartbeat, feeling every push, every pull, and every drop of emotion.  I empathized for Nina.

Walking out of the movie, all I had then were my feelings.  There was no thought yet applied.  It's like I said.  I need at least a day for my brain to process and interpret my feelings.  What did I feel?  I liked it.  I identified with it.  There were moments where I saw more than mere glimpses of myself up on the big screen.  Though I didn't know yet to what degree, and I didn't know how to explain it.  Not yet.

The first question in my head was this.  What is the black swan?

There were logical and scientific answers coming to mind throughout the movie.  Things like schizophrenia, paranoia, and psychosis were all real explanations of what Nina was experiencing.  However, it's a movie.  It isn't real.  It isn't based on true events or an actual person.  This was a story where metaphors and symbolism take precedent.  It's obvious she's delusional and psychotic.  What's not so obvious is what lies beneath it.  What does it all mean?

There is the phrase, where there's a heaven there is a hell.  Where there is darkness, there is light.  Where there is man, there is woman.  Black or white.  This world of dyads we live in is built off of this idea of polarity.  Though just like there is a north and south pole on the earth, there also exists everything in between.  This movie touched upon the very extreme polarity between the two opposing sides within every human being.  I'm referring to our minds versus our souls.

There is a black swan within me, within all of us. It's what takes us to the very edge of insanity.  In fact, it is our insanity.  It's pure feeling absent of any bit of thought or rationale.  It's the intense fire of emotion, blasting through every vein in our body when we're pushed to our limits and our blood boils beneath the skin with anger.  It can change our every perception of the outside world.  Our vision, our touch, our hearing, our sense of smell and taste can all transform at the blink of an emotion.  The girl we once trusted and saw as the most beautiful woman in the world can suddenly become a demon with a cruel face you no longer recognize wanting to take something from you.  The fresh air we breathe can suddenly thicken and feel like an invisible suffocating cloud.  The sounds of a song we once used to comfort us can suddenly pound against the insides of our heads like broken bells.  A once delicious sample of food can taste like cardboard, bland, stale, and undesirable.

When the black swan fully reveals itself, we no longer have control, no more thought, no more logic. We become all emotion, driven by one and only one thing.  Our soul.  Our soul becomes unbounded, freed, and relinquished from all thought and reason.  It's pure emotion, feeling, and instinct.  It's our most inner, most true, and deepest core of who we uncontrollably are as unique individuals.  It's the root and birthplace of our entire sense of existence.  The human soul.

Come to think, this isn't a new theme.  I've seen various versions of the black swan before.  Chances are, so have you.  Smeagol and his alter ego from Lord of the Rings.  Jean Grey and Phoenix from X-Men.  Deprive, resist, and attempt to control your own soul long enough, it'll find its way out, and don't expect it to come out peacefully.  Kicking and screaming would be an understatement.

There is a black swan hidden deep within all of us, and many may never discover it nor will many actually allow it to be exposed.  To become fully possessed and overcome by our black swan would result in death.  I get it now.  Living a life driven only by the intensity of our emotions and nothing else cannot sustain.  It will destroy us and everything around us.  It is not meant to ever be fully unleashed onto the world.

Our souls are the black swans constantly fighting, poking, clawing, scratching, biting its way out of our bodies.  Our minds are the white swans acting as prison guards working constantly to keep our emotions in check with logic, reason, and rationale.  While our soul is constantly fighting to claw its way out, our mind does what it needs to stop it and prevent it from taking over.  It covers up the scars and gaping holes left by the black swan made in its attempt to relinquish itself from our bodies. Our white swan pushes back, fights back, and uses every tactic it knows to prevent the black swan from getting out. It wants to protect us. It tries to protect us.

Protection from what?  What happens when there is too much protection?

There exists an illusion of safety, an illusion of perfection, and the illusion of stability. Our minds are always fearing the loss of control and too often tries to prevent this by applying too much control.  Our mind knows the raw destructive power the black swan possesses.  Our mind fears what will happen if it gets out, if we start to act based on pure emotion rather than logic.  Our mind tries to protect us, and it also tries to be perfect.  Though in doing so, our mind begins trapping our very own soul behind prison walls.  If the mind never lets go and imprisons our soul even deeper, the soul begins to fight back, harder and harder. Its strength grows. Its lust for survival increases. Its desire to be freed from the prison walls steadily rises. It scratches harder, bites deeper, and screams louder. Depriving our soul empowers the soul, and it fights back.  No matter how strong or resilient our minds are, it will lose the fight. Our souls are infinite. It can expand, fly, dive, and grow to a million times the size of our bodies. Our souls are limitless.  Our minds on the other hand are not and are limited.

What are the prison walls we trap our souls behind? These prison walls are created by our own mind. The walls are put up in attempt to shape our black swans to be what they are never going to be. Always perfect. Always nice. Always loving. Always loyal. Always ____.  Fill in the blanks. The majority of us start our lives being really hard on ourselves, thinking we can shape and mold ourselves into whatever we want ourselves to be. We start out thinking that through sheer will alone, we can somehow change the shape and color of our black swan, of our tender soul. Truth is the more we try, the more walls we put up to prevent the black swan from moving in a direction we don't want it to. We put up walls, more walls, and more walls until all walls have closed in together so closely, it begins to confine our soul into a prison. Trapped and pushed into confinement, our soul begins to flutter its wings. It wants out, and there is nothing, not our minds, not our bodies, not anyone that's going to stop it. If you try, you'll be left defeated, barren, burnt, depleted, and maybe even dead.

The black swan is a part of us all. If we fight it, we are fighting ourselves. If we neglect its existence, trap it, and try imprisoning it behind a fictitious layer of control, it will destroy us. It will destroy all of us. Nurture your souls. Feed it. Give it the attention it deserves. If angry, be angry. If sad, be sad. If excited, be excited. The constant strive to always be perfect, to always be strong, to always be loving, to always be loyal, to always be ... will destroy us all.

Instead of trying to be perfect, I want to master the art of being imperfect. It's the only way my mind and soul, my white and black swans, can unite and exist harmoniously in life.  Otherwise, I may periodically continue to feel the black swan itching to get out of me, reminding me to nurture it, drawing my attention to be released.  Eventually, it'll explode out of my body hurting myself and others around me.

Let's hope it never gets back down to that.  Though it happened again recently, I'm hoping this time will be different.