Asteroid City AKA The Cosmic Wilderness
! caution, very minor spoilers ahead !
“You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.”
Augie Steenbeck: “I still don’t understand the play.”
Schubert Green: “Doesn’t matter. Just keep telling the story.”
Two things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately… what is life all about? and what is my journey?
I watched Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City a couple of weeks ago. I’ve always loved Wes’ films but this one hit differently. Most likely because of other recent influences or because of where I am in life / who I currently am in life. Here are some thoughts on it. Mostly for myself, but if you care to listen in, be my guest.
The story is of Augie and Midge, both suffering. Augie lost his wife and has even had trouble telling his kids about it. Midge’s trauma is unknown but she is suffering. I would guess from emotional abuse since she applies fake bruises. They need each other's love to move through their own stories.
Life is about transformation. Carl Jung describes two halves of life: the first half building a sense of identity and importance (the false self). The second, after inevitable loss or failure, you discover your real purpose or identity on a deeper level. There are two necessary forces that guide us through this transformation: suffering and love. We have to experience suffering, loss, and sorrow - we have to die to it. Then we will feel the love, companionship, romance, friendship - this is us coming back to life. We don’t do this alone, we do this with other humans. “A person is a person through other persons.” (Desmond Tutu)
The actors chant "You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep." It is important for us ‘actors’ to remember as we try to navigate the inevitable sorrow and love we’ll all face in life. Going to sleep and waking up is this necessary dying and resurrection for Augie and Midge and you and me to grow and transform. We cannot, and should not, avoid it. It is a necessary part of growth and life. As Carl Jung says, “There is a necessary suffering to being a human being, and if you try to deny or avoid that necessary suffering – the irony is you bring upon yourself ten times more suffering in the long run.”
Transformation is also a key to storytelling. Storytelling, or myth, shows us how to understand life. “Meaning makes a great many things endurable—perhaps everything. No science will ever replace myth [the communicator of meaning], and a myth cannot be made out of any science.” (Carl Jung) This is why Asteroid City is a movie of a tv show of a play. This reminds us that a good story echoes and mirrors life. Sometimes we get lost in the story, the small details of life. We get hung up about aliens stealing our stuff and question the existence of a god. We want to run away or drown in a bathtub. Yet, if we keep going, keep telling the story, and keep living, we will wake up. And then we will end up where we need to be: home. The hero’s journey always leads back home, but the home and the hero will never be the same.
