Something Writerly

For Nausicaä, Miyazaki very deliberately made the insects unmarketable, ugly, coarse, inhuman, and scary as opposed to something cute that sings and dances that you could get cute plushies and toys of (I'm sure that exists, but not to the extent of say, totoro). By the end of the movie, you realize the monsters are merely animals that serve the ecosystem, and they do more good for the world than the people who think they're doing good by eradicating them.

In the US there was a huge push to hunt wolves. Aside from their pelts which could be sold, they're also killing monsters. They'll eat you, and your children, and they're competition for those sweet innocent deer that you also want to hunt for leather and food. Hunt the monsters down.

Except getting rid of them had horrible consequences. The deer population exploded which resulted in starvation and mass migration of wildlife.

We started putting them back into the wild, and the deer population leveled. More deer started to die from wolves and far less animals died from starvation. Vegetation came back. The monsters, it turned out, were more akin to gardeners, tending to the field and keeping nature in balance.

The thing is wolves don't have morals. They don't lie, steal, cheat, or ponder the consequences of sin. They have feelings and empathy, but they don't bare ill will to their next meal. They don't twist the knife in their victim to make sure they feel it. They simply need to eat to live, and that involves killing, and so they kill, and because their lives depend on it, they kill as efficiently as possible, and the deaths, while violent, are quick as opposed to starvation. They don't have the convenience of going to mcdonalds to remain blissfully unaware about the murder they're consuming. They kill because they have to kill when they have to kill.

And that's more or less what Nausicaä is about. It's not about a princess saving the world and watering her plants and studying while lofi music plays. It's anger directed at man's indifference and unwillingness to understand nature, and I cannot stand the anger being wallpapered over for aesthetic.

funny illustrations by Shanghai Tango

It may sound woo woo but it’s an important skill capitalism and hyper individualism have robbed us of as human beings.

Learn to process your emotions. It will improve your mental health and quality of life. Emotions serve a biological purpose, they aren’t just things that happen for no reason.

1. Pause and notice you’re having a big feeling or reaching for a distraction to maybe avoid a feeling. Notice what triggered the feeling or need for a distraction without judgement. Just note that it’s there. Don’t label it as good or bad.

2. Find it in your body. Where do you feel it? Your chest? Your head? Your stomach? Does it feel like a weight everywhere? Does it feel like you’re vibrating? Does it feel like you’re numb all over?

3. Name the feeling. Look up an emotion chart if you need to. Find the feeling that resonates the most with what you’re feeling. Is it disappointment? Heartbreak? Anxiety? Anger? Humiliation?

4. Validate the feeling. Sometimes feelings misfire or are disproportionately big, but they’re still valid. You don’t have to justify what you’re feeling, it’s just valid. Tell yourself “yeah it makes sense that you feel that right now.” Or something as simple as “I hear you.” For example: If I get really big feelings of humiliation when I lose at a game of chess, the feeling may not be necessary, but it is valid and makes sense if I grew up with parents who berated me every time I did something wrong. So I could say “Yeah I understand why we are feeling that way given how we were treated growing up. That’s valid.”

5. Do something with your body that’s not a mental distraction from the feeling. Something where you can still think. Go on a walk. Do something with your hands like art or crochet or baking. Journal. Clean a room. Figure out what works best for you.