Hacker Cinema
Beyond Rangoon
1995 · Film · 100 min
Directed by John Boorman
Dr. Laura Bowman is a young widow who's unwittingly drawn into political turmoil while vacationing in Burma in the late 1980s. Bowman initially left San Francisco with her sister in an attempt to escape painful memories of her husband and son's violent deaths. But her fight to escape to Thailand could prove just as harrowing.
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3 comments on Hacker News
First, I will note that avoiding your old friends may be a good thing. People tend to hang out with people similar to them. If the way you were then in some way caused your failures, it might be for the best to leave the friends from that era behind. (I'm some pathetic bleeding heart idealist with financial problems who at some point realized all my close friends could be described the same way. I decided I better start making new friends. Blaming the world for not appreciating the importance of my ideals was not going to pay the bills. Those people are no longer part of my inner circle. My finances have been gradually improving.)
A couple of movies I like: "Beyond Rangoon" and "Citizen Jane". I am thinking both are based on true stories. Beyond Rangoon is basically about a woman who had something really tragic happen to her, is mired in depression and then travels someplace where people have much bigger problems and makes her peace with her losses. Citizen Jane is about a woman whose second husband robs her blind and murders her beloved aunt for the woman's money and about her search for justice. There is a very good scene where, after her house is foreclosed on, a friend offers to let her live with them in their nice upscale house so she doesn't have to move to some really crappy apartment. She replies "I got myself into this mess and I will get myself out." I have some pretty big problems I am working on resolving. It's a scene I think about often. I could use assistance from somewhere in terms of figuring out how on earth to do certain things but I really am not looking to be rescued. Getting rescued won't give me the skills I need to have lifelong financial security. "Give a man fish..." and all that.
Best of luck.
Spending a year at death's door did wonders for my neurotic crap. Not something I really recommend. But I would recommend you watch the movie "Beyond Rangoon" and then go do some volunteer work at, say, a homeless shelter or working with the chronically ill or something -- something that really punches your buttons and gives you a bit of perspective. Or at least join some email lists for people with chronic, incurable illness.
Also, do some research and consider vitamin therapy. There may be a brain chemistry issue that may be very treatable with aggressive nutrition.
Best of luck.
You need something that runs deeper in your life than she did. That isn't necessarily a new woman, though it can be. Then it really won't much matter anymore what she said.
Let me recommend the movie "Beyond Rangoon" as a place to start building a mental model of what I mean. Bite off more than you can chew and all that.