Muchness

I went to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie this weekend. Not a great movie. Not a bad one either. It was good. Good is fine with me.

I mention it here not because I want to post a review but because a line in that film had a particularly strong impact on me. I don't recall the exact wording but in one scene the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) turns to Alice and says 'You've lost your muchness. You used to be much. . . muchier'.

That line stuck with me. It stayed in my mind all evening and all night. In the morning I woke up and there it was, sitting there like a little yappy dog wagging its tail and waiting for me to figure our what it wanted.

And then I did. The Hatter was telling Alice that, in the time since her first visit to wonderland, she had lost something. Something about herself. He called it her 'muchness'. Something that made her more herself than she had become. Her essence. Her sense of and understanding of her own self. She'd 'grown up'. We all do. But does that mean we must lose ourselves?

I think the reason it stuck with me was that I've often worried that I was losing my sense of self. My understanding of my own essence. Diluting myself to fit in with the world. I guess it happens for two reasons. Either you feel the need to conform to society to achieve your aims or something about yourself causes you pain and you want to block it out. I've had both. Years of what I hesitate to call manic depression made me fear that feeling of utter happiness and oneness that comes with a manic episode because, like Pavlov's dog learned to associate a bell with dinner time, I have learned to associate that feeling with the horrible depression that comes after. I yearned for flatness. A calm sea. By doing so I rejected myself. I allowed my fears and the pressures of the world to make me hide. I've decided to not do that any more. Life is too short.

I think maybe Frank Turner said it best. So I'll leave you with this, from Photosynthesis:

'If all you ever do with your life is photosynthesize, then you deserve every second of your sleepless nights that you waste wondering when you're gonna die'.

How very true.