Diane and BoJack’s friendship is one of my favorites in fiction. It’s so complicated and I love how they made it that way without them ever “getting together”. They’re both two sides of the same coin, just trying to make their way through life. I love them 🥹
I'm really glad you included Diane's line about not trusting happiness but trusting her husband. It means a lot to me because my mom, who has been severely, clinically, suicidally depressed for 40-50 years, sent me this text after watching the episode: "I absolutely fell off my seat when they had her answer to Bojack's question about whether she trusted her happiness by saying she trusted Guy. Oh it made me verklempt Speaking as someone with some of Diane's struggles (or similar), your lying, depressed brain cannot trust a good abstract thing. Just cannot. But you can learn to trust specific goods that stand in for the whole. Learning to trust your dad's love and care has meant everything."
I swear Diane’s words hit me in the gut so hard. “Why did you always make me feel like it was?” Because you know, Bojack wasn’t trying to make her feel that way. And it hits me and reminds me to appreciate my friends and not put too much on them. It’s good to depend on people sometimes but it’s important to make sure they know your problems are not their problems. And while it’s nice of them to help you with them you’re still their friend if they don’t have time to drop things and help you all the time. It reminds me not to take my friends for granted or make them feel like I won’t be ok if they aren’t around for a while. Even though I’m almost never 100% ok… that’s my issue to deal with.
It was also a moment of reflection for her, that she realizes that she allowed Bojack’s actions to further cripple her own journey of betterment and that she needed to sever that connection and stop allowing Bojack to unconsciously control her. The old Diane would’ve succumbed, broke up with Guy and come running to LA to be at Bojack’s side. Or at the very least, she would’ve been paralyzed with indecision and let everything fall apart around her. New Diane knows that this isn’t the way to live anymore.
It's really a toxic relationship between the two and I'm glad that Diane finally managed to distance herself from Bojack. He always put her on a pedestal and begged her to tell him that he was a good person. He put her under great pressure to continuously validate him, making her feel guilty and responsible when he was miserable. I've been in a similar situation for years and did the same until I finally managed to break out of this toxic cycle.
Does that mean it's inherently wrong to call someone you trust when you're having s**cidal ideation to pull you back because it's placing a huge burden on them? Cause I've been guilty of that
When Diane says "Life is a b----, and you keep on living" to Bojack, I actually cheered. Life can suck, but I've learned that it's so much sweeter, but you have to work through it. That's what I got from this show. It's my favorite non-anime show of all times. It's truly nice while it lasted.
It’s also a nice call back to how the episode begins. Bojack *didn’t* drown. Just like with his initial sobriety and redemption and moving away from LA, Bojack doesn’t get the easy dramatic Hollywood ending. He has to deal with the messy complexity of actual accountability and actually going on living and actually trying to be a better person. He and Diane go on living, it’s only this particular chapter of their lives, the bit in which they were close, that’s over.
Ayy, the show where Diane says one of those lines that cut through me like a light sabre through butter. so in one of the later season episodes, Diane makes a comment about what will happen to her if she is not famous or successful. Her response was "If I'm not famous or successful then all the abuse I endured was for nothing." That hit me so damn hard.
After the emotional gut punch that was “The View From Halway Down” I wasn’t ready for this when I first watched it. On subsequent rewatches and sad times playing Mr Blue to cope…it hurts but I really enjoy and appreciate that stuff wasn’t wrapped up nice and neat or utterly destroyed like a typical show. Life is good, life is bad, life is a bitch, but it keeps moving forward. Going through some stuff now and it’s a nice thing to be reminded of.
I listened to the ending of this show while washing dishes to keep my mind occupied and the conversation sounded like two people on a podcast and it made me so emotional. Just felt so real like the main character wasn't a damn horse and was just a normal person having a natural conversation. Much love to Alison Brie and Will Arnette for their performances.
For me, happiness is often associated with feelings of being carefree. It's defined far more by what it lacks (i.e., negative affect) than the qualities it possesses. Things like excitement or joy are great, but happiness has a different feel to it. I feel joy seeing someone I love again after a long time separated from them. Happiness though is what I feel lying on the sofa next to them, knowing that I have nothing to do tomorrow, no commitments, nowhere to be; content simply to be in the present moment. Perhaps that's the key element. In a world where we're constantly racing from A to B, trying to escape our present situation through distraction (e.g. audiobooks, podcasts, doom-scrolling), happiness is the feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else: of finally being exactly where you want to be.
The line "then you'll get sober again" was the thing that took the fear out of sobriety. It allowed me to preemptively forgive myself for any future hypothetical relapse. Happy to say that despite that safety net, I haven't relapsed in nearly two years of sobriety.
I have bipolar disorder. Before my diagnosis, I thought happiness meant chasing what feels good. It's been 10 years and I still don't trust leaning into what feels good. I just know that being around trees feels good and doesn't end up hurting anyone. I'm sorry for whatever sort of loss you are experiencing. I've had my fair share recently and it's so painful.
I feel like the discussion on happiness is so realistic and beautiful in this show. Happiness is hard to obtain, and even impossible, but even if you get it you don’t have it for long. The word joy is what I search for, the joy I have working a job I like, or the joy I get knowing I have a family who loves me.
As someone who quit smoking, the nicotine is not the most addictive part. After like 3-4 days, the nicotine cravings go away. The really hard part about quitting is the habits that smoking create. When you quit, there are suddenly periods of time that used to be filled with a relaxing action now filled with idleness. Breaking that habit and creating something new is the hard part, as that can easily take 2-3 months to do after you stopped smoking. I found standard gum a good replacement for the habit, but this only worked after the nicotine habit was kicked. The gum was to change the habit, not stop the cravings.
I agree, for me Bojack is THE best depiction of mental health in a show, so raw yet so witty. So well written and thoughtful and it's exactly because of that rawness and accuracy it was hard to watch on a bad day, it felt like having your brain scanned and printed for everyone to see. I think happiness would be looking in the mirror and not hating myself, that everyday I could see around me and think "this is nice." Sending you a lot of hugs
Ive been trying to take more time to be happy with where i currently am before things change or get bad. And lately im lucky enough to have a decent job i dont hate and friends i love to hang out with. So i can say im in a pretty good spot right now
I think happiness is having an underlying optimism even in the bad days. It's when you get to live one day at a time, making the most out of it and accepting when you don't, when you or someone/something fails. Just being in the moment. I hope you're getting back there.
I feel like the term “happiness” itself is reductive. For example it’s typically used in the context of you either have it or you don’t. Happiness, to me personally, is experiencing more pleasant feelings than troubling feelings at a given moment. Happiness isn’t some sort of nirvana state to endlessly search for. You don’t achieve happiness, it comes and goes. Sometimes more frequent for some than others. External forces might make it difficult to experience more positive feelings but I believe the goal is to aim for more positive moments than negative.
The finale broke me when it aired, still makes me so upset. It understands being human and human nature on a deep mental level that no other show I've seen has covered before, which is ironic since it's a show about anthropomorphic animals. Also, I totally get what they mean with the Nolan joke but I wouldn't say it's true for all his films, especially Interstellar.
I haven't seen this episode in a whlle. That ending really gets me. Diane's growth and maturity is so inspiring and portrayed so well. Despite being cur short they made an ending that really hits.
For me happiness is very defined by the ability to ensure my routines are working, that I get the stuff i expect of myself done and keep myself productive.
I'm really glad to see you acknowledge smoking as a form of self medicating for anxiety. This knowledge was what finally helped me quit 10 years ago. I had to make peace with the fact that I was going to be a bit more anxious and learn new strategies for dealing with this. Haven't had a cigarette since.
Bojack Horseman is one of my favorites and helped de-stigmatize mental health for me over the years. I also love how they portrayed the rise and fall of Bojack's and Diane's friendship. I wish to see more of those portrayed since, as an adult, I've experienced losing friendships, especially due to mine and others' toxic behaviors or just ignoring things just for the sake of keeping everything smooth. I hope your healing goes as smoothly as much as possible.
Answering the question about happiness: Happiness is subjective, but to me happiness is being able to draw, have spaghetti, and spend time with my partner(s) and family. Doing the things you love when things get hard is an important part to do, but it’s not easy.
I have no idea what happiness is. I feel like I just chase other people’s happiness; I give random gifts to my sister, make the coffee our mom likes, organize game nights and birthday parties for friends. That seems to bring the people in my life joy, but it doesn’t do anything for me on the receiving end
I'm so sorry to hear you lost someone, and you're right when you say how important it is to value someone while they're there. I had a good friend I'd known since childhood and one day I was thinking "I should really give him a call and see if he wants to hang out; we don't see each other often enough". I didn't, and a few days later my sister called me and what she had to say was stark and simple: He was dead. Road accident. Just like that, he was gone forever. But the regret will always stay.
Me & my partner were watching this show and he made us finish it while I was staying over his house making sure he didn't kill himself. Once Mr Blue started playing, he sobbed into my leg for a solid 5 minutes. I don't think I could ever watch Bojack a second time (or listen to Mr Blue)
Nice to see more BJ. Also, still highly recommend to see Soldier 1998 with Kurt Russell. About a man taken from birth to become a warrior, only to be thrown away and learning to live a civil life. Despite looking just like an action film, it's a wonderful study piece about PTSD.
Sometimes I want to rewatch the show, in the hopes if I do it will make the lessons stick. But then I wonder if maybe I actually just want to because it would illicit a familiar and comfortable emotion. Learning about mental health through Bojack its funny. I can see myself in all of them, I don't know if thats the intent. I definitely struggle with the fear of loss, the desire to keep things, the reflections, but I also know I can find myself either romanticizing the deep sadness or putting on the facade of positivty its a beautiful show, and it really does highlight the way trauma doesn't leave us, but even if its a housemate we can learn to live with it and we can learn to take time four ourselves and not to let that housemates needs and desire to be our companion make us then its companion as well.
Sorry to hear you hadn't had tat good a time. Thanks all the more for another video on BoJack. I hope things are on the way to get better for you. I genuinely don't quite know know what happyness means to me. Especially not on the long term. I haver severe mental health issues and a chronified eating disorder, my fist depressive episodes most likely happened in childhood (I remember considering dying as a solution for how bad I felt for the first time around age 6. I can tell because next thought was "but then I can't pay with my new "Baby Born"-doll any more, which I got for my 6th birthday). So I really feel that there has always been a cloud hovering over me. Having happy moments, doing things I enjoyed, yes. But these were only moments and has been a very very long time since I really had such a "joyful" day/moment. I loved my work as a professional entologist/arachnologist. I was very thankful for the absolute chance I got to follow my greatest passion (one of the very few thing I know for sure that I really do like, that come from "my self". I have a hard time knowing what I even like or want, constantly doubting everything.) for a living. But, and damn does it still hurt so so much to confront me with it again, it seems it was not enough. I always still had struggles besides my job, with my healt issues, with my difficult family and extremely demanding (BPD and alcoholic) mother. I also found it hard to take a pause, to say "no" when I was already overworked, not only because I wanted to or felt pressured to take on the more and more tasks (determine these spiders, mount these bees, etc) but also because I really was interested in them. Long story short, I could not last. Things got worse and worse and had to give up because my body could not take it any more. Now, (I#m all teared up) its even worse than worse, I'm in temporary (but already prolonged once) invalidity pension, in deep depression (that got so much wore november 2022 that I had to add 2 more meds, which come with more "handicapping" side effects, but no way not taking them. They help against more "hell"). My mother died last november. And I'm lost, so so lost. So no, I have no idea what happyness means to me. Maybe not suffering that much. But sometimes I wonder if that's even possibel. That is is my fault, that is me being like I am who makes that I just overthing too much. And so on. Sorry. I've been and still are in a dark place. I'm so tired of "being me". "Distrusting happyness"... sound super relatable. But flipping back to the title of the episode, concerning my work, it was very much so "Nice while it lasted". I had really good moments with my work, my collegues/friends. The passion might still be there, but I feel like the connection is disturbed and have no energy left. Sorry for the long comment. And the bad mood. Maybe I went to far psoting all of this. Feel free to ignore. Thanks agaun for the video. You nailed really really hard-but-true things.
I’d love for you to review the musical next to normal! It’s about a mother dealing with bipolar disorder and how her and her family cope with her illness, and it’d be really interesting to see your review of it!
Happiness to me is focusing on long term happiness. I ask myself, "Will this make me happy in the long term or just satisfy me right now?" BUT don´t take it too far. I did and it lead me to be underweight, numb, without much joy. Do a little bit of the things that make your day to day life fun and a lot of what makes your life good in the long term. have a bit of chocolate, but exorcise and eat your vegetables, have wine with your friends once in a while or buy something a bit more expensive, but don´t do it every day or even every week.
Hapiness. I know that feeling of being "happy" in the moment. That euphoria of winning something, passing a test, meeting a loved one. But is that happines? This feeling that is so ephemeral? Searching for this short duration feeling has hurt me so much, it has made me sad, addicted, lazy, complacient. Also I suffered so much just to try and make people "happy" around me, thinking that their approval must mean something. I don't know how to be happy, but my idea of happiness, and the thing I feel would make me stop hurting so much, is to be comfortable with myself and proud of the person I am at the moment. To respect my accomplishments and failures. I believe I could call that moment true happiness. I hope one day I can achieve such thing. Thank you for talking about this show, I have watched your every reaction to Bojack and your commentary has helped me in a way, to recognize certain patterns and behaviors I have that I didn't recognize the first time I watched the show. Also hearing you is making me reconsider looking for professional help
Speaking on "missing the mess", when I was first starting to really pull out of my depression, I missed it so dearly. The emptiness was awful, but it had become familiar. And by expecting the worst of every situation, and then forcing them to go that way, I was always in control. Embracing happiness wasn't like that. It was scary, and confusing, and I was always anxious. I thought I'd never get used to it. I'm several years on now, and whilst I still have the odd bad day here and there, I could never imagine myself missing the depression again. I've come to love life. Sometimes it's a bitch, but then you keep living.
Great video as always! Fun fact: I’m from Sweden and there were some stage productions involving high-risk prisoners done in, I wanna say, the 90’s? Some of them were rather successful… aaaand one of them ended with some of our most high-risk inmates escaping. Also: This suggestion might be a bit different from the movie/tv show commentary you usually do, but if you haven’t looked into Belgian artist Stromae’s music yet I would love your professional take on some of his songs/music videos (most of which come with english subtitles). He’s a very emotionally intelligent person who knows how to describe very difficult topics and emotions both lyrically and visually: “L’Enfer” deals with… a certain type of ideation that might come up when you’re depressed (and depression in general); and “Papaoutai” is essentially a visual/musical interpretation of attachment theory. Hell, even “Alors On Danse” seems to deal with mental health-related subjects like avoidance and unhealthy coping strategies.
This might be kinda Hallmark-y, but for me, happiness means going to bed each night looking forward to the next day. I got to this place recently and I'd call myself happier than I've ever been.
I was so used to living with next to nothing that when I finally had a little bit of something (happiness, stable place to live, stable income) I was way more stressed out, waiting for it to go away. If it was money, I had very little idea how to spend it responsibly, so I generally used it for short term needs and never saved any. I used to believe that if I had something worth having, I had something worth taking; and I wasn't willing to take that risk. So if I ever came into some money, I spent it before it could be "taken". Like you said, I've become used to living with next to nothing, so having something is unsettling. Now, I *may* have a chance at a new career and a chunk of money from a fairly severe concussion about 18 months ago. The strangest part of it - the part I wasn't expecting - was that after the first few months I realized that "my" depression I'd had since puberty (over 40 years) was *completely gone*. I think I had a chance to become depressed again, but when I started to get into those dark thoughts, I was able to stop myself and think what would happen if things worked out instead. And what if it wasn't just the concussion, but maybe decades of therapy played a part and that I could *decide* not to be depressed. I think it's both. I do believe my brain lost some connections to the depression I had, and didn't rebuild them. And when it leant in that direction, I decided not to. This is the very best part of hitting my head. I don't believe that I could have felt my way out of it otherwise. I've been able to reduce the antidepressant I've been taking for almost 30 years for the first time. With my psychiatrist's approval, of course. So for the first time in forever, I can feel sad. It sucks, but it's very different from clinical depression.
"Hope.....it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses" -The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded. I agree with the latter half of the quote 😂
as someone with adhd, i find todd really relatable and i think he's definately adhd coded too. i love though that he is actually really wise and emotionally intelligent because (not to gas myself up too much) but i think that they're qualities that i have that you NEVER see on adhd coded characters. i fear that i'm just an idiot to everyone because of how much i struggle to do the normal life shit, i worry that im not going to be taken seriously because the mantra i live by seems as dumb as the hokey pokey, its a meme about venasaur in the pokemon anime intro "making like venasaur and doing my best". it's extremely important to me that, intentional or not, todd is such a kind and understanding representation of adhd that i don't see anywhere else. i mean the show in general is great, like i have bpd as well, i find myself relating to bojack an UNCOMFY amount. but i just wanted to make a comment on todd because he's underrated, even as the fan favourite hes underrated
Todd and PeanutButter are my two fav characters. I really care about and feel the impact of the stories of each of the 5 main cast, but Todd and PeanutButter are the ones I personally identify with the most.
Todd is always there for the people in his life that are important to him, his emotional intelligence is great. I didn't like him much at first because he's such a failure & screw up. But he doesn't care about the normal life shit & that's really great. The successful people around him aren't happier. Normal life shit is overrated. I also have a bpd diagnosis, I understand sucking at normal life shit. Todd is nice cuz he doesn't aim for normal.
Re: What does happiness mean to you? Happiness for me is having a place to call home! My family has a lot of problems but the ones who have stuck around are people I care about. Happiness is having financial security to have time to breathe. It's nice and I'm scared it's fleeting, but thanks for these videos. What is happiness to you?
I’ve been doing a research project on BoJack and mental health and your analysis videos are amazing for some fun help. It’s a great break from all the seriousness😅 Thank you so much!
For me happiness isn't having a great circumstance necessarily but still being able to be grateful for something. To choose even in darkness to recognize even a sliver of light. Therapy for over a year now has been life changing. ❤❤
happiness to me means two things: 1) being able to do and try activities that I can enjoy without my anxiety being there 2) feeling satisfied and in control of my life
I think, and this is something I do struggle with a lot so I don't know for sure but, I think happiness is simply a fleeting state of being in the same way that every emotion is - sometimes you're sad, or scared, or angry, and sometimes you're happy. I don't think of it as this state you can just "attain" or get caught up in the idea of achieving it. Life is dynamic, the happiness will come when it comes, and even when things seem utterly hopeless logic dictates that there will be a time in the future where something will make you feel happy again. Even if it's a silly internet video that makes you laugh for a minute, or stepping outside and the weather is just perfect and feels good that's a moment of joy. I don't really believe in achieving a state of happiness, that feels like setting myself up for unreasonable expectations and disappointment.
For me, I prefer to not aspire to happiness. I'm more 'content' with sitting in the middle not feeling anything. Not suggesting this is a good choice, but helps me cope with day-to-day. I think there's always a tendency for people to think you are either happy or sad and don't necessarily think about the whole spectrum in between. Best wishes Elliott.
To me, the word content implies an element of inner peace and satisfaction, at least in the moment. I think that's something we would all like to achieve.
What is happiness? I heard it said once that happiness is a thing that you only knew you had once it leaves you. Something about that sits very badly with me. It makes me think of people who live in the past, perpetually grumbling about "the good old days" while scorning the whole world in front of them. For that reason, I always try to catch myself when I'm happy. Things that accidentally make me smile, or a moment in time where the innumerous shitty things in life seem far away and unimportant. The times when the world makes sense, or at least the corner of it I find myself in. Happiness is knowing that this feeling won't last, and cherishing it all the same. To know that everything is impermanent, and to meet this truth with hope and optimism. I don't want my happiness to last forever. I know it can't. I will feel the full weight of my sorrow and fear. And when they too pass, that will give my happiness meaning once more.
Sorry you're going through a rough time. Always happy to see one of your videos, they're a great tool for putting me in a healthy meditative mindset. Just a great example of healthy thinking and looking at things from multiple perspectives.
I can't watch Bojack and not bawl my eyes out. At first, I watched it at my worst. It made me feel bad and worse about myself, but as it went on, it helped me fix myself right alongside Bojack. I think it is one of the most insightful and important shows ever made in recent times. It has helped so many people, and it's a shame that many people haven't seen it.
Happiness to me is a state of mind. Happiness and contentment are the same thing to me. It's all internal. Happiness isn't a tangible thing that you can pursue and obtain
I'm happy with the little things in life that bring me joy. Like getting caught in sun shower while walking my dogs. I'm happy when big surprises happen. Like winning money. Happiness is sudden joy and also happiness is just being content.
I don't know if it would be happiness, but I want to be remembered for my art after I'm dead. I want validation of my existence, through a form of immortality.
I don’t know what happiness means to me yet, but I now know the happiness best to acquire and to maintain is the quiet kind, instead of my tendency to keep ramping the happiness up as if it were a ball of electric snow up some mountain. Still trying to grow up with the growing old part, here.
It’s great to see you Dr. C! Sorry to hear about the troubles in your personal life, but I hope you’re doing better. I love this ep, I frequently listen to BJ and Diane’s final convo, and feel a wide range of emotions. I think this is a satisfying ending to the series, but not necessarily a happy one.
I tend to differentiate between happiness the emotion and happiness the state. Happiness the emotion is when something makes you feel happy/good/joyful etc. Happiness the state is when you're not necessarily experiencing the emotion at that exact moment, but you're not afraid that you're never going to experience it again. You don't have to chase it, you're not distressed when the acute emotion ends, because it's something that will come back again. Kind of like happiness the emotion is the weather, and happiness the state is the climate.
Damn, why do I cry every time I watch that episode... I guess I resonate with the fear of losing happiness, but that's just another reason I need therapy.
Just a note on actual US supermax prisons - you don't see other prisoners and certainly don't put on plays. The prisons would be illegal in many countries because prisoners are generally in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentence and have minimal contact with staff and usually no contact with other prisoners. You're in your cell typically 23 hours a day with one hour of (also solitary) "recreation" time which is (no joke) an outdoor cage. So pretty terrible human rights violations and internationally considered torture...
I don't know how often American prisoners actually get to participate in theater, but it's definitely a thing that happens. A radio show called This American Life did an episode about a group of prisoners putting on a production of Hamlet. It was really interesting listening to what they got out of the experience, and how they related to their characters. It was a really emotionally engaging show. Might be worth a listen if you're curious.
Supermaxs are basically prisons with very good facilities. It means that criminal has the highest level of security applied to them. Often times lethal force is allowed to protect the public. Gang leaders, serial killers, or otherwise famous figures tend to go to Supermax prisons.
Would you react to the characters on Supernatural? They're so messed up by all the trauma! In the show, a figment of Dean's imagination who was supposed to be a psychiatrist called him her "paranoid schizophrenic with narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis," and people are always going on about how codependent he and his brother are, and how abnormal they are. Their mom was killed by a supernatural thing when Dean was 4 and Sam was an infant, and their dad raised them to hunt supernatural things to try and get revenge on the thing that killed her. They move constantly and can't have attachments and their dad leaves them alone in hotels a lot while he hunts stuff and they're just so traumatized. They'd literally die for each other. They kill for each other. Dean's a bit of a ladies man, and bit of a hedonist. He's kinda a devil-may-care character, but who's really a big softy for his little brother and his dad. He has mountains of self-worth issues, and he fears abandonment and he feels very responsible for saving the world on the inside, despite his carefree exterior. Sam's book-smart and nerdy and awkward, and just wanted to live a normal life but keeps getting dragged back in. He starts off wanting to be his own person, but slowly becomes a puppet to outside forces, deals with an addiction of sorts, and eventually redeems himself. I'd love to hear what someone who knows what they're talking about makes of the characters and their reactions to different things that happen along the way. It's a long show though, 15 seasons.
honestly as someone diagnosed with depression before i was 12, i dont know what happiness is.. i dont even understand it, ive had happy moments but theyre so fleeting that i often ask myself whats the point? my friends are all getting married having kids...and im just sitting in my beatup childhood bedroom chain smoking and asking myself "is this it?" sad to say thats my idea of happiness, i dont really have one..
I've associated happiness with ignorance for a long time. I understand happiness is THE goal for a lot of people but I just don't prioritize it. I conceptualize sadness & joy as healthy, depression & happiness as clinical. Having dated someone with bipolar I'm aware mania usually occupies that end of the the spectrum. Incidentally I've been diagnosed with bpd but avoidant is probably a better fit. Loved watching Bojack before learning he was the personality disorder poster child. Still love it, I just didn't pick up on that detail at first. So yeah, happiness is overrated, sorry to hear you've had some struggles lately, cool to see you back. Oh, & it was interesting to hear y'all try to rehabilitate prisoners, we should try that here in the US. We just punish, release, & then wonder why they reoffend.
I'm going to ramble for a second, but I kind of feel like asking what happiness is is the wrong question. It's too abstract, too out there. I can't speak for others, but I find myself focusing on all the reasons I'm not happy when I think of that question. In some cases that might be helpful, but not for me. I think being present and focusing on what's around you is always going to be better than asking yourself what happiness is. I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals, or some vision of a future for yourself. But I don't think it's good to get too caught up in that. To pull a quote: "You're confusing your goals for your duties, and it's bumming you all out." I think it may be better to just make good use of the time you have. Ask yourself what's important to you, and then go do that.
Thinking about your little rant on institutionalization.... Have you done any sort of reaction/analysis on The Shawshank Redemption? Think you could bring an interesting perspective/
I have absolutely no idea what happiness was like, or what it might be like. I just want to know where all of this sadness is coming from. I want an answer. Then, I might be able to feel happy. Anyway, therapy is going to start in less than 10 days! Wish me progress if you read this!
you turn yourself around, THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!! the therapy i do is called dbt and for a person with bpd it’s the only way i really can live (life’s a bitch and then you keep living, but it’s a nice night right?)
Thanks, great video, Dr Elliott! I would love a reaction to the TV Show "Succession", there are some great mental health related scenes in that. Could start with Season 1, Episode 7, "Austerlitz", which features the Roys trying to do "family therapy".
I still can barely watch this season because it came out around the same time as my stay at a chemical dependency inpatient unit. I came out still pretty messed up and it took a long time to get better. That season destroyed me, especially the last 2 episodes.
What happiness means to me “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Bonus points if you organically know what movie that's from.
Mr. Peanutbutter is optimistic nihilism made flesh… animated dog. Whatever lmao I love your warmth and breadth of knowledge, Doc. Been tuning in since the first Hannibal reaction and you’re a comfort watch for me. Thank you!
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Diane and BoJack’s friendship is one of my favorites in fiction. It’s so complicated and I love how they made it that way without them ever “getting together”. They’re both two sides of the same coin, just trying to make their way through life. I love them 🥹
Here's the story of BoJack and Dianne. Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.
@@katietaylor8314I was waiting for years to make a John Mellencamp reference
I'm really glad you included Diane's line about not trusting happiness but trusting her husband. It means a lot to me because my mom, who has been severely, clinically, suicidally depressed for 40-50 years, sent me this text after watching the episode: "I absolutely fell off my seat when they had her answer to Bojack's question about whether she trusted her happiness by saying she trusted Guy. Oh it made me verklempt Speaking as someone with some of Diane's struggles (or similar), your lying, depressed brain cannot trust a good abstract thing. Just cannot. But you can learn to trust specific goods that stand in for the whole. Learning to trust your dad's love and care has meant everything."
I swear Diane’s words hit me in the gut so hard. “Why did you always make me feel like it was?” Because you know, Bojack wasn’t trying to make her feel that way. And it hits me and reminds me to appreciate my friends and not put too much on them. It’s good to depend on people sometimes but it’s important to make sure they know your problems are not their problems. And while it’s nice of them to help you with them you’re still their friend if they don’t have time to drop things and help you all the time. It reminds me not to take my friends for granted or make them feel like I won’t be ok if they aren’t around for a while. Even though I’m almost never 100% ok… that’s my issue to deal with.
It was also a moment of reflection for her, that she realizes that she allowed Bojack’s actions to further cripple her own journey of betterment and that she needed to sever that connection and stop allowing Bojack to unconsciously control her. The old Diane would’ve succumbed, broke up with Guy and come running to LA to be at Bojack’s side. Or at the very least, she would’ve been paralyzed with indecision and let everything fall apart around her.
New Diane knows that this isn’t the way to live anymore.
It's really a toxic relationship between the two and I'm glad that Diane finally managed to distance herself from Bojack. He always put her on a pedestal and begged her to tell him that he was a good person. He put her under great pressure to continuously validate him, making her feel guilty and responsible when he was miserable. I've been in a similar situation for years and did the same until I finally managed to break out of this toxic cycle.
Does that mean it's inherently wrong to call someone you trust when you're having s**cidal ideation to pull you back because it's placing a huge burden on them? Cause I've been guilty of that
When Diane says "Life is a b----, and you keep on living" to Bojack, I actually cheered. Life can suck, but I've learned that it's so much sweeter, but you have to work through it. That's what I got from this show. It's my favorite non-anime show of all times. It's truly nice while it lasted.
What’s ur favorite anime?
@@Shockwave99999 Cowboy Bebop
@@aSUGAaddiction ayyyee same
It’s also a nice call back to how the episode begins. Bojack *didn’t* drown. Just like with his initial sobriety and redemption and moving away from LA, Bojack doesn’t get the easy dramatic Hollywood ending. He has to deal with the messy complexity of actual accountability and actually going on living and actually trying to be a better person. He and Diane go on living, it’s only this particular chapter of their lives, the bit in which they were close, that’s over.
It is a brilliant part, but it’s also the part that hurts the most. Life sucks, so why should I keep going?
Ayy, the show where Diane says one of those lines that cut through me like a light sabre through butter. so in one of the later season episodes, Diane makes a comment about what will happen to her if she is not famous or successful. Her response was "If I'm not famous or successful then all the abuse I endured was for nothing." That hit me so damn hard.
2:00 people have pointed out how it's also beautifully poetic that Bojack finally gets to do Ibsen like he wanted to for years
It sucks things haven't been going well: sending you hugs from afar!
After the emotional gut punch that was “The View From Halway Down” I wasn’t ready for this when I first watched it. On subsequent rewatches and sad times playing Mr Blue to cope…it hurts but I really enjoy and appreciate that stuff wasn’t wrapped up nice and neat or utterly destroyed like a typical show. Life is good, life is bad, life is a bitch, but it keeps moving forward. Going through some stuff now and it’s a nice thing to be reminded of.
I listened to the ending of this show while washing dishes to keep my mind occupied and the conversation sounded like two people on a podcast and it made me so emotional. Just felt so real like the main character wasn't a damn horse and was just a normal person having a natural conversation. Much love to Alison Brie and Will Arnette for their performances.
Its funny how a show about a horse is one of the most human stories we've seen for years
For me, happiness is often associated with feelings of being carefree. It's defined far more by what it lacks (i.e., negative affect) than the qualities it possesses. Things like excitement or joy are great, but happiness has a different feel to it. I feel joy seeing someone I love again after a long time separated from them. Happiness though is what I feel lying on the sofa next to them, knowing that I have nothing to do tomorrow, no commitments, nowhere to be; content simply to be in the present moment. Perhaps that's the key element. In a world where we're constantly racing from A to B, trying to escape our present situation through distraction (e.g. audiobooks, podcasts, doom-scrolling), happiness is the feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else: of finally being exactly where you want to be.
Non-attachment,that’s what it’s called in Buddhism ,liberation
The line "then you'll get sober again" was the thing that took the fear out of sobriety. It allowed me to preemptively forgive myself for any future hypothetical relapse. Happy to say that despite that safety net, I haven't relapsed in nearly two years of sobriety.
I have bipolar disorder. Before my diagnosis, I thought happiness meant chasing what feels good. It's been 10 years and I still don't trust leaning into what feels good. I just know that being around trees feels good and doesn't end up hurting anyone.
I'm sorry for whatever sort of loss you are experiencing. I've had my fair share recently and it's so painful.
Hope you're doing better, sorry to hear things have been tough, glad to see you back!
It's great to see you back! A big hug goes out to you!!! I hope things get better soon.
I feel like the discussion on happiness is so realistic and beautiful in this show. Happiness is hard to obtain, and even impossible, but even if you get it you don’t have it for long. The word joy is what I search for, the joy I have working a job I like, or the joy I get knowing I have a family who loves me.
at the moment happyness is the absence of anxiety and selfhate
When Bojack said "This is nice". It reminded of a limited series I think would work for your channel, "Carol and the End of The World"
I wad just thinking that would be a perfect series to cover on this channel!!!
As someone who quit smoking, the nicotine is not the most addictive part. After like 3-4 days, the nicotine cravings go away. The really hard part about quitting is the habits that smoking create. When you quit, there are suddenly periods of time that used to be filled with a relaxing action now filled with idleness. Breaking that habit and creating something new is the hard part, as that can easily take 2-3 months to do after you stopped smoking. I found standard gum a good replacement for the habit, but this only worked after the nicotine habit was kicked. The gum was to change the habit, not stop the cravings.
I agree, for me Bojack is THE best depiction of mental health in a show, so raw yet so witty. So well written and thoughtful and it's exactly because of that rawness and accuracy it was hard to watch on a bad day, it felt like having your brain scanned and printed for everyone to see. I think happiness would be looking in the mirror and not hating myself, that everyday I could see around me and think "this is nice."
Sending you a lot of hugs
I hope you're okay Doc, and that things get better for you
Ive been trying to take more time to be happy with where i currently am before things change or get bad. And lately im lucky enough to have a decent job i dont hate and friends i love to hang out with. So i can say im in a pretty good spot right now
I'm so sorry to hear about your mum, Elliot. My condolences.
I think happiness is having an underlying optimism even in the bad days. It's when you get to live one day at a time, making the most out of it and accepting when you don't, when you or someone/something fails. Just being in the moment. I hope you're getting back there.
I feel like the term “happiness” itself is reductive. For example it’s typically used in the context of you either have it or you don’t. Happiness, to me personally, is experiencing more pleasant feelings than troubling feelings at a given moment. Happiness isn’t some sort of nirvana state to endlessly search for. You don’t achieve happiness, it comes and goes. Sometimes more frequent for some than others. External forces might make it difficult to experience more positive feelings but I believe the goal is to aim for more positive moments than negative.
The finale broke me when it aired, still makes me so upset. It understands being human and human nature on a deep mental level that no other show I've seen has covered before, which is ironic since it's a show about anthropomorphic animals.
Also, I totally get what they mean with the Nolan joke but I wouldn't say it's true for all his films, especially Interstellar.
The last two episodes are just such a perfect and beautiful send off to such a perfect and beautiful show.
I haven't seen this episode in a whlle. That ending really gets me. Diane's growth and maturity is so inspiring and portrayed so well.
Despite being cur short they made an ending that really hits.
For me happiness is very defined by the ability to ensure my routines are working, that I get the stuff i expect of myself done and keep myself productive.
I'm really glad to see you acknowledge smoking as a form of self medicating for anxiety. This knowledge was what finally helped me quit 10 years ago. I had to make peace with the fact that I was going to be a bit more anxious and learn new strategies for dealing with this. Haven't had a cigarette since.
Bojack Horseman is one of my favorites and helped de-stigmatize mental health for me over the years. I also love how they portrayed the rise and fall of Bojack's and Diane's friendship. I wish to see more of those portrayed since, as an adult, I've experienced losing friendships, especially due to mine and others' toxic behaviors or just ignoring things just for the sake of keeping everything smooth.
I hope your healing goes as smoothly as much as possible.
Answering the question about happiness: Happiness is subjective, but to me happiness is being able to draw, have spaghetti, and spend time with my partner(s) and family.
Doing the things you love when things get hard is an important part to do, but it’s not easy.
Yes. I love spaghetti too
I have no idea what happiness is. I feel like I just chase other people’s happiness; I give random gifts to my sister, make the coffee our mom likes, organize game nights and birthday parties for friends. That seems to bring the people in my life joy, but it doesn’t do anything for me on the receiving end
I'm so sorry to hear you lost someone, and you're right when you say how important it is to value someone while they're there. I had a good friend I'd known since childhood and one day I was thinking "I should really give him a call and see if he wants to hang out; we don't see each other often enough". I didn't, and a few days later my sister called me and what she had to say was stark and simple: He was dead. Road accident. Just like that, he was gone forever. But the regret will always stay.
Me & my partner were watching this show and he made us finish it while I was staying over his house making sure he didn't kill himself. Once Mr Blue started playing, he sobbed into my leg for a solid 5 minutes. I don't think I could ever watch Bojack a second time (or listen to Mr Blue)
Nice to see more BJ.
Also, still highly recommend to see Soldier 1998 with Kurt Russell. About a man taken from birth to become a warrior, only to be thrown away and learning to live a civil life.
Despite looking just like an action film, it's a wonderful study piece about PTSD.
happiness to me is impossible to describe. You either feel it or you don't
Sometimes I want to rewatch the show, in the hopes if I do it will make the lessons stick. But then I wonder if maybe I actually just want to because it would illicit a familiar and comfortable emotion. Learning about mental health through Bojack its funny. I can see myself in all of them, I don't know if thats the intent. I definitely struggle with the fear of loss, the desire to keep things, the reflections, but I also know I can find myself either romanticizing the deep sadness or putting on the facade of positivty its a beautiful show, and it really does highlight the way trauma doesn't leave us, but even if its a housemate we can learn to live with it and we can learn to take time four ourselves and not to let that housemates needs and desire to be our companion make us then its companion as well.
Sorry to hear you hadn't had tat good a time. Thanks all the more for another video on BoJack.
I hope things are on the way to get better for you.
I genuinely don't quite know know what happyness means to me. Especially not on the long term. I haver severe mental health issues and a chronified eating disorder, my fist depressive episodes most likely happened in childhood (I remember considering dying as a solution for how bad I felt for the first time around age 6. I can tell because next thought was "but then I can't pay with my new "Baby Born"-doll any more, which I got for my 6th birthday). So I really feel that there has always been a cloud hovering over me.
Having happy moments, doing things I enjoyed, yes. But these were only moments and has been a very very long time since I really had such a "joyful" day/moment.
I loved my work as a professional entologist/arachnologist. I was very thankful for the absolute chance I got to follow my greatest passion (one of the very few thing I know for sure that I really do like, that come from "my self". I have a hard time knowing what I even like or want, constantly doubting everything.) for a living. But, and damn does it still hurt so so much to confront me with it again, it seems it was not enough. I always still had struggles besides my job, with my healt issues, with my difficult family and extremely demanding (BPD and alcoholic) mother. I also found it hard to take a pause, to say "no" when I was already overworked, not only because I wanted to or felt pressured to take on the more and more tasks (determine these spiders, mount these bees, etc) but also because I really was interested in them. Long story short, I could not last. Things got worse and worse and had to give up because my body could not take it any more. Now, (I#m all teared up) its even worse than worse, I'm in temporary (but already prolonged once) invalidity pension, in deep depression (that got so much wore november 2022 that I had to add 2 more meds, which come with more "handicapping" side effects, but no way not taking them. They help against more "hell"). My mother died last november.
And I'm lost, so so lost.
So no, I have no idea what happyness means to me. Maybe not suffering that much. But sometimes I wonder if that's even possibel. That is is my fault, that is me being like I am who makes that I just overthing too much. And so on. Sorry. I've been and still are in a dark place. I'm so tired of "being me". "Distrusting happyness"... sound super relatable.
But flipping back to the title of the episode, concerning my work, it was very much so "Nice while it lasted". I had really good moments with my work, my collegues/friends. The passion might still be there, but I feel like the connection is disturbed and have no energy left.
Sorry for the long comment. And the bad mood. Maybe I went to far psoting all of this. Feel free to ignore.
Thanks agaun for the video. You nailed really really hard-but-true things.
I love this ending - while the last episode was poetry, this episode felt more real which is more in line with the series.
This last episode gives me so much peace and closure...
I hope you get to feel better soon!
I’d love for you to review the musical next to normal! It’s about a mother dealing with bipolar disorder and how her and her family cope with her illness, and it’d be really interesting to see your review of it!
Happiness to me is focusing on long term happiness. I ask myself, "Will this make me happy in the long term or just satisfy me right now?" BUT don´t take it too far. I did and it lead me to be underweight, numb, without much joy. Do a little bit of the things that make your day to day life fun and a lot of what makes your life good in the long term. have a bit of chocolate, but exorcise and eat your vegetables, have wine with your friends once in a while or buy something a bit more expensive, but don´t do it every day or even every week.
so glad I was able to be here for all your bojack reactions until the end, thank you 💗
Hapiness. I know that feeling of being "happy" in the moment. That euphoria of winning something, passing a test, meeting a loved one. But is that happines? This feeling that is so ephemeral? Searching for this short duration feeling has hurt me so much, it has made me sad, addicted, lazy, complacient. Also I suffered so much just to try and make people "happy" around me, thinking that their approval must mean something.
I don't know how to be happy, but my idea of happiness, and the thing I feel would make me stop hurting so much, is to be comfortable with myself and proud of the person I am at the moment. To respect my accomplishments and failures. I believe I could call that moment true happiness.
I hope one day I can achieve such thing.
Thank you for talking about this show, I have watched your every reaction to Bojack and your commentary has helped me in a way, to recognize certain patterns and behaviors I have that I didn't recognize the first time I watched the show. Also hearing you is making me reconsider looking for professional help
Speaking on "missing the mess", when I was first starting to really pull out of my depression, I missed it so dearly. The emptiness was awful, but it had become familiar. And by expecting the worst of every situation, and then forcing them to go that way, I was always in control. Embracing happiness wasn't like that. It was scary, and confusing, and I was always anxious. I thought I'd never get used to it. I'm several years on now, and whilst I still have the odd bad day here and there, I could never imagine myself missing the depression again. I've come to love life. Sometimes it's a bitch, but then you keep living.
Great video as always!
Fun fact: I’m from Sweden and there were some stage productions involving high-risk prisoners done in, I wanna say, the 90’s? Some of them were rather successful… aaaand one of them ended with some of our most high-risk inmates escaping.
Also: This suggestion might be a bit different from the movie/tv show commentary you usually do, but if you haven’t looked into Belgian artist Stromae’s music yet I would love your professional take on some of his songs/music videos (most of which come with english subtitles). He’s a very emotionally intelligent person who knows how to describe very difficult topics and emotions both lyrically and visually: “L’Enfer” deals with… a certain type of ideation that might come up when you’re depressed (and depression in general); and “Papaoutai” is essentially a visual/musical interpretation of attachment theory. Hell, even “Alors On Danse” seems to deal with mental health-related subjects like avoidance and unhealthy coping strategies.
This might be kinda Hallmark-y, but for me, happiness means going to bed each night looking forward to the next day. I got to this place recently and I'd call myself happier than I've ever been.
I was so used to living with next to nothing that when I finally had a little bit of something (happiness, stable place to live, stable income) I was way more stressed out, waiting for it to go away. If it was money, I had very little idea how to spend it responsibly, so I generally used it for short term needs and never saved any. I used to believe that if I had something worth having, I had something worth taking; and I wasn't willing to take that risk. So if I ever came into some money, I spent it before it could be "taken". Like you said, I've become used to living with next to nothing, so having something is unsettling.
Now, I *may* have a chance at a new career and a chunk of money from a fairly severe concussion about 18 months ago. The strangest part of it - the part I wasn't expecting - was that after the first few months I realized that "my" depression I'd had since puberty (over 40 years) was *completely gone*. I think I had a chance to become depressed again, but when I started to get into those dark thoughts, I was able to stop myself and think what would happen if things worked out instead. And what if it wasn't just the concussion, but maybe decades of therapy played a part and that I could *decide* not to be depressed.
I think it's both. I do believe my brain lost some connections to the depression I had, and didn't rebuild them. And when it leant in that direction, I decided not to. This is the very best part of hitting my head. I don't believe that I could have felt my way out of it otherwise. I've been able to reduce the antidepressant I've been taking for almost 30 years for the first time. With my psychiatrist's approval, of course. So for the first time in forever, I can feel sad. It sucks, but it's very different from clinical depression.
"Hope.....it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses" -The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded. I agree with the latter half of the quote 😂
To say I sobbed the entire episode is an understatement.
Glad to see you back at it, and I'm sorry to hear you've been having a rough go.
Absolutely delighted to see another video from you! I hope you've been taking care of yourself :)
as someone with adhd, i find todd really relatable and i think he's definately adhd coded too. i love though that he is actually really wise and emotionally intelligent because (not to gas myself up too much) but i think that they're qualities that i have that you NEVER see on adhd coded characters. i fear that i'm just an idiot to everyone because of how much i struggle to do the normal life shit, i worry that im not going to be taken seriously because the mantra i live by seems as dumb as the hokey pokey, its a meme about venasaur in the pokemon anime intro "making like venasaur and doing my best".
it's extremely important to me that, intentional or not, todd is such a kind and understanding representation of adhd that i don't see anywhere else.
i mean the show in general is great, like i have bpd as well, i find myself relating to bojack an UNCOMFY amount. but i just wanted to make a comment on todd because he's underrated, even as the fan favourite hes underrated
Todd and PeanutButter are my two fav characters. I really care about and feel the impact of the stories of each of the 5 main cast, but Todd and PeanutButter are the ones I personally identify with the most.
Todd is always there for the people in his life that are important to him, his emotional intelligence is great. I didn't like him much at first because he's such a failure & screw up. But he doesn't care about the normal life shit & that's really great. The successful people around him aren't happier. Normal life shit is overrated. I also have a bpd diagnosis, I understand sucking at normal life shit. Todd is nice cuz he doesn't aim for normal.
Re: What does happiness mean to you?
Happiness for me is having a place to call home! My family has a lot of problems but the ones who have stuck around are people I care about.
Happiness is having financial security to have time to breathe. It's nice and I'm scared it's fleeting, but thanks for these videos.
What is happiness to you?
I’ve been doing a research project on BoJack and mental health and your analysis videos are amazing for some fun help. It’s a great break from all the seriousness😅 Thank you so much!
For me happiness isn't having a great circumstance necessarily but still being able to be grateful for something. To choose even in darkness to recognize even a sliver of light. Therapy for over a year now has been life changing. ❤❤
happiness to me means two things: 1) being able to do and try activities that I can enjoy without my anxiety being there 2) feeling satisfied and in control of my life
I think, and this is something I do struggle with a lot so I don't know for sure but, I think happiness is simply a fleeting state of being in the same way that every emotion is - sometimes you're sad, or scared, or angry, and sometimes you're happy. I don't think of it as this state you can just "attain" or get caught up in the idea of achieving it. Life is dynamic, the happiness will come when it comes, and even when things seem utterly hopeless logic dictates that there will be a time in the future where something will make you feel happy again. Even if it's a silly internet video that makes you laugh for a minute, or stepping outside and the weather is just perfect and feels good that's a moment of joy. I don't really believe in achieving a state of happiness, that feels like setting myself up for unreasonable expectations and disappointment.
For me, I prefer to not aspire to happiness. I'm more 'content' with sitting in the middle not feeling anything. Not suggesting this is a good choice, but helps me cope with day-to-day. I think there's always a tendency for people to think you are either happy or sad and don't necessarily think about the whole spectrum in between.
Best wishes Elliott.
To me, the word content implies an element of inner peace and satisfaction, at least in the moment. I think that's something we would all like to achieve.
What is happiness?
I heard it said once that happiness is a thing that you only knew you had once it leaves you. Something about that sits very badly with me. It makes me think of people who live in the past, perpetually grumbling about "the good old days" while scorning the whole world in front of them.
For that reason, I always try to catch myself when I'm happy. Things that accidentally make me smile, or a moment in time where the innumerous shitty things in life seem far away and unimportant. The times when the world makes sense, or at least the corner of it I find myself in.
Happiness is knowing that this feeling won't last, and cherishing it all the same. To know that everything is impermanent, and to meet this truth with hope and optimism.
I don't want my happiness to last forever. I know it can't. I will feel the full weight of my sorrow and fear. And when they too pass, that will give my happiness meaning once more.
Sorry you're going through a rough time. Always happy to see one of your videos, they're a great tool for putting me in a healthy meditative mindset. Just a great example of healthy thinking and looking at things from multiple perspectives.
Whatever it is you're going through right now, I'm sending love and strength. Take care ❤
I can't watch Bojack and not bawl my eyes out. At first, I watched it at my worst. It made me feel bad and worse about myself, but as it went on, it helped me fix myself right alongside Bojack. I think it is one of the most insightful and important shows ever made in recent times. It has helped so many people, and it's a shame that many people haven't seen it.
Happiness to me is a state of mind. Happiness and contentment are the same thing to me. It's all internal. Happiness isn't a tangible thing that you can pursue and obtain
I'm happy with the little things in life that bring me joy. Like getting caught in sun shower while walking my dogs. I'm happy when big surprises happen. Like winning money. Happiness is sudden joy and also happiness is just being content.
The amount of light bulb moments you’ve given me from this video alone is astounding
I don't know if it would be happiness, but I want to be remembered for my art after I'm dead. I want validation of my existence, through a form of immortality.
I'm sorry things have been hard for you. I hope they get better.
I don’t know what happiness means to me yet, but I now know the happiness best to acquire and to maintain is the quiet kind, instead of my tendency to keep ramping the happiness up as if it were a ball of electric snow up some mountain. Still trying to grow up with the growing old part, here.
It’s great to see you Dr. C! Sorry to hear about the troubles in your personal life, but I hope you’re doing better. I love this ep, I frequently listen to BJ and Diane’s final convo, and feel a wide range of emotions. I think this is a satisfying ending to the series, but not necessarily a happy one.
Id love to see your thoughts on Tuca and Bertie too
Love Bojack. Thanks for the video ❤
Love the Bojack Horseman reactions!
11:20 I guess the underlying question here is, what do we owe to each other?
Todd became the therapist when he got out of bojack's footsteps 7:38
I tend to differentiate between happiness the emotion and happiness the state. Happiness the emotion is when something makes you feel happy/good/joyful etc. Happiness the state is when you're not necessarily experiencing the emotion at that exact moment, but you're not afraid that you're never going to experience it again. You don't have to chase it, you're not distressed when the acute emotion ends, because it's something that will come back again. Kind of like happiness the emotion is the weather, and happiness the state is the climate.
Damn, why do I cry every time I watch that episode... I guess I resonate with the fear of losing happiness, but that's just another reason I need therapy.
Always insightful, always lovely. I hope things are okay with you Elliott.
Just a note on actual US supermax prisons - you don't see other prisoners and certainly don't put on plays. The prisons would be illegal in many countries because prisoners are generally in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentence and have minimal contact with staff and usually no contact with other prisoners. You're in your cell typically 23 hours a day with one hour of (also solitary) "recreation" time which is (no joke) an outdoor cage. So pretty terrible human rights violations and internationally considered torture...
I don't know how often American prisoners actually get to participate in theater, but it's definitely a thing that happens. A radio show called This American Life did an episode about a group of prisoners putting on a production of Hamlet. It was really interesting listening to what they got out of the experience, and how they related to their characters. It was a really emotionally engaging show. Might be worth a listen if you're curious.
Weird idea: Maybe hit up Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x9: AKA Mariner discovers therapy works.
Supermaxs are basically prisons with very good facilities. It means that criminal has the highest level of security applied to them. Often times lethal force is allowed to protect the public. Gang leaders, serial killers, or otherwise famous figures tend to go to Supermax prisons.
Would you react to the characters on Supernatural? They're so messed up by all the trauma! In the show, a figment of Dean's imagination who was supposed to be a psychiatrist called him her "paranoid schizophrenic with narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis," and people are always going on about how codependent he and his brother are, and how abnormal they are. Their mom was killed by a supernatural thing when Dean was 4 and Sam was an infant, and their dad raised them to hunt supernatural things to try and get revenge on the thing that killed her. They move constantly and can't have attachments and their dad leaves them alone in hotels a lot while he hunts stuff and they're just so traumatized. They'd literally die for each other. They kill for each other. Dean's a bit of a ladies man, and bit of a hedonist. He's kinda a devil-may-care character, but who's really a big softy for his little brother and his dad. He has mountains of self-worth issues, and he fears abandonment and he feels very responsible for saving the world on the inside, despite his carefree exterior. Sam's book-smart and nerdy and awkward, and just wanted to live a normal life but keeps getting dragged back in. He starts off wanting to be his own person, but slowly becomes a puppet to outside forces, deals with an addiction of sorts, and eventually redeems himself. I'd love to hear what someone who knows what they're talking about makes of the characters and their reactions to different things that happen along the way. It's a long show though, 15 seasons.
Amazing video as usual. Could I recommend you watch the documentary Wildcat it is a nature documentary that talks a lot about mental health.
Thank you, it's great seeing you again.
honestly as someone diagnosed with depression before i was 12, i dont know what happiness is.. i dont even understand it, ive had happy moments but theyre so fleeting that i often ask myself whats the point? my friends are all getting married having kids...and im just sitting in my beatup childhood bedroom chain smoking and asking myself "is this it?"
sad to say thats my idea of happiness, i dont really have one..
I've associated happiness with ignorance for a long time. I understand happiness is THE goal for a lot of people but I just don't prioritize it. I conceptualize sadness & joy as healthy, depression & happiness as clinical. Having dated someone with bipolar I'm aware mania usually occupies that end of the the spectrum. Incidentally I've been diagnosed with bpd but avoidant is probably a better fit. Loved watching Bojack before learning he was the personality disorder poster child. Still love it, I just didn't pick up on that detail at first.
So yeah, happiness is overrated, sorry to hear you've had some struggles lately, cool to see you back. Oh, & it was interesting to hear y'all try to rehabilitate prisoners, we should try that here in the US. We just punish, release, & then wonder why they reoffend.
omg yesss bojack content
I would really love to see your reaction to Chris Stapleton Fire Away. It's a very deep view into mental and emotional struggles.
I'm going to ramble for a second, but I kind of feel like asking what happiness is is the wrong question. It's too abstract, too out there. I can't speak for others, but I find myself focusing on all the reasons I'm not happy when I think of that question. In some cases that might be helpful, but not for me. I think being present and focusing on what's around you is always going to be better than asking yourself what happiness is.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals, or some vision of a future for yourself. But I don't think it's good to get too caught up in that. To pull a quote: "You're confusing your goals for your duties, and it's bumming you all out." I think it may be better to just make good use of the time you have. Ask yourself what's important to you, and then go do that.
Thinking about your little rant on institutionalization.... Have you done any sort of reaction/analysis on The Shawshank Redemption? Think you could bring an interesting perspective/
I have absolutely no idea what happiness was like, or what it might be like. I just want to know where all of this sadness is coming from. I want an answer. Then, I might be able to feel happy. Anyway, therapy is going to start in less than 10 days! Wish me progress if you read this!
Wishing you all the best for starting therapy
Justice for Plasma!
you turn yourself around, THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!! the therapy i do is called dbt and for a person with bpd it’s the only way i really can live (life’s a bitch and then you keep living, but it’s a nice night right?)
Thanks, great video, Dr Elliott!
I would love a reaction to the TV Show "Succession", there are some great mental health related scenes in that. Could start with Season 1, Episode 7, "Austerlitz", which features the Roys trying to do "family therapy".
I still can barely watch this season because it came out around the same time as my stay at a chemical dependency inpatient unit. I came out still pretty messed up and it took a long time to get better. That season destroyed me, especially the last 2 episodes.
What happiness means to me “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Bonus points if you organically know what movie that's from.
Happiness - I'd look to eudamonia. There is a whole field of philosophy dedicated to happiness.
You saying “don’t do not smoke, no good comes from smoking” (10:38) while smoking felt very meta
"Everybody is human" not on this show
They are though. That's the magic of this show. Even the animals are more human than any other set of characters I've seen on a show for years
Mr. Peanutbutter is optimistic nihilism made flesh… animated dog. Whatever lmao
I love your warmth and breadth of knowledge, Doc. Been tuning in since the first Hannibal reaction and you’re a comfort watch for me. Thank you!