Text/Wei Xiang (Simple Psychological Certification, Psychological Counselor)
I recently watched a play, "The Rear Wing Outcast," based on Walter Tevis's 1983 novel, about orphaned chess player Beth Harmon who tapped into her talents to triumph in the male-dominated field of black and white chess.
background
The story is set in the United States in the 1960s, and the heroine Beth came from an orphanage, step by step expanding her boundaries on the chessboard, gradually seeking greater freedom. Among them, there is a feminist background, and there is a political confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the midst of all the turmoil, Beth also lived a not so good life, she relied on tranquilizers to make herself feel the state of peak focus, and in times of unhappiness, she relied on alcohol to anesthetize her nerves.
Even though, it seems, she is a chess genius, but she does not have the money to buy a chess set, and there is no decent clothes that make her respected at school. Even for a chess magazine, you can only go to the convenience store to "go along", because there is no money and not so much support. Her stepmother, who accompanied her, did not take long to leave her, and she returned to a life of being alone, her hangover, staying at home, a life that seemed hopeless, but because of her love of chess, she could always light up her life at the lowest moment.
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Transitional objects
If from a psychoanalytic point of view, her original family is broken, her parents have little support, the orphanage is both a place for her to rely on and a place for her to escape, and the only old man in the orphanage who plays chess with her is the only one who can walk to her lonely world. But she grasped one expectation that could be expected, and that was the chess world of black and white.
This may be understood by one of Winnicott's concepts, which is a precious "transitional object" for Beth, in a lonely world without a mother to rely on, there is such an attraction to the child, so that she can be attached, can be trusted, and even bring great satisfaction, is not the child away from the mother, but can still smell the "motherly breath" of the transitional object?
The transitional object, the first not-me possession, first appeared in children's play and was a precursor to artistic experience, and it was not given by the mother, because the transitional object was discovered or created by the child himself. It is even more important than the mother, being a "barely incisible part" of the child (Winnicott, 7).
And Beth in the play discovered this mystery, about the infinite attraction of the intimacy that "mother" can bring. At the same time, when she went to have the transitional object of chess, she also created a space, in a world where she could not deal with other people very much, she realized creativity through chess, which was a "potential space", a space that could be played, through which she learned how to deal with others, how to deal with relationships, and in this game, she was as free as a fish.
Winnicott argues that the diffusion and propagation of "transitional phenomena" to the middle zone between the "inner mental reality" and the "outer world that the two know the same" is describing the meaning of the potential space, which is between the inner mental reality and the outer world, which is a bridge, and at the same time it builds a path for a person to construct his own world from fantasy to reality.
Beth, because of the existence of a trustworthy and extremely solid "transitional object" in her heart, let her insist on the pursuit of the meaning of her life, that is, to overcome, every victory, she may gain greater freedom, it is possible to see more possibilities.
Your guest
Many people will ask me that the more I read the theory, the more I feel that I am traumatized, not to mention the Oedipus period, and even the attachment period of the oral period has a lot of problems, what to do?
I want to use this TV series to express one of my thoughts, that is, we can grow up to grow up inside, like discovering ourselves. But at the same time, what should never be overlooked is where are your own resources? What is your transitional object? Where is the potential space for you to be free? What makes you happy, free to express yourself?
Just like Beth, when many human warmth is not given to this girl, she finds chess and uses the greatest strength to have it, to connect with the world through "it", to have the good things she wants.
So, when we feel lacking, we can examine our own growth experience, how did you grow up, how did you survive when there was a lot of derogation, destruction? What can you find without a good enough mom to love you? Even if it's an animal, a plant, a game, it's all your object.
Everyone is saying that this is a big heroine's play, I think this is a drama worth watching every growing girl, in the recent hot debate about Principal Zhang Guimei's "full-time housewife", Principal Zhang opposed her students to directly be full-time housewives, because this is the biggest hope of girls who come out of the mountains.
There is also the topic of the previous paragraph about "fake Jin Dong" cheating the emotions of elderly women, I think there is a theme in it: women, how to live better? Whether it is teenagers, young people, or old people, they are all facing similar issues.
Beth in the play also faces doubts, she does not choose to socialize, does not have gorgeous costumes to attract the attention of others, does not mingle with classmates, she does not have a stable boyfriend, but the important core is that she is a woman, she loves chess, gets happiness and success from it, and strives for maximum rights and interests for herself. I think this is how many of us women encounter difficulties, how to seek their own answers, how to find their own foothold, to create their own value.
In Victor Frankl's famous book, Living the Meaning of Life, he gave an example of the extreme situation faced by prisoner-of-war camps or concentration camps. First, as those American servicemen told him, they would develop a pattern of behavior known as "abandonment syndrome." In concentration camps, this pattern is manifested in people who refuse to get up at 5 a.m. to work, but instead lie in their cells and stay on grass mats full of feces and urine. Whether you warn or threaten, it doesn't work. Then they usually take out a hidden cigarette and start smoking. At that moment, you will understand: he will die in 48 hours. His life does not feel meaning and hope, which is probably what we often call the sense of meaninglessness in life.
And Victor. Frankl also summed up three ways in his meaning therapy about how to find one's own sense of meaning for people to live:
Create or do some kind of work.
Experiencing something or facing someone, in other words, can find meaning not only in work but also in love.
The most important thing is the third way: even the helpless victim in a desperate situation, in the face of unchangeable doom, can still surpass themselves and change themselves in this way. It seems that Beth is a builder of the meaning of life.
Black and white is a simple world, but Beth has created countless ideas, because if she wants to win, she can create.
We have ten thousand reasons to stop in place and suffer, but as long as there is a beam of light in our hearts, it is enough, that is, to live out the splendor of our own lives.
bibliography:
Living the Meaning of Life, by Victor Frankl.
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