Friday night I finished watching the final episode at 2:30am. I found myself crying like I never cried with any fiction before. 'The view from halfway down' was the one that got me crying non-stop. It's like a compilation of all the moral and trascendental questions for meaning that Bojack and the rest of the characters keep asking themselves along the way. Is it the meaning of life to be happy, to have pleasure, to do good and be selfless... Of course these questions have no answer, in Bojack's world or in our's, but they sure got me thinking about this impossible to solve puzzle that is the meaning of life...
I was also crying because I really thought that Bojack could actually be dead. You watch him take all this selfish decisions, to do all kinds of wrong doings and always get away with it, but you still hope he ends up ok. His depth is so well depicted, that you don't feel he is the bad guy... And he really isn't, he's just a guy who went through a certain path in life which took him to do shitty things. That's the whole point: there is no 'deep down', you're just the things you do. In any case, you get to understand him so well, his family history, the cold Hollywoo industry, the wall he has put up to keep everyone away from himself, the emptiness inside him, the fear of happiness... You feel his feelings, and in the end, you wish he can be ok. You wish that his new job as a professor goes well, that he quitts drinking for good, that all the wrong doings he has done are forgotten and forgiven... But then he starts spiriling down, and you remember that there's no happy ending, there's always the day after that. And somehow, everything you've done in life comes around in the least expected moment, and you are held accountable for everything.
Or not! Bojack has to take responsibility for his actions, has to go through a lot of suffering, and even ends up in jail. But this is not mandatory, and not every wrong doing has a consecuence. Because life is meaningless, there is no wrong or right, there is no higher moral compass, and sometimes you suffer for things you didn't do, but sometimes you just get away with murder. But (unless you are a psycopath of some sort) you have to carry the weight of everything you've done on your conscience, you have to wake up every day feeling like shit and hoping that that feeling will some day fade away.
And i think that's where this show hits me the most. I have experienced a loving home, a middle class life which wasn't of luxury, but I always had everything I needed and my parents always put extra effort to help me pursue my dreams. But non of these things kept me from having a kind of darkness inside. I even reached the point where I asked myself 'how low can you go?', thinking that being cold and selfish was the only way to survive, the only way to succeed in life, for being vulnerable wasn't a choice. I was always an individual (even growing up, I am an only child), and the more I dived into myself, the more I read Nietzsche, the more I fixated on what I wanted to accomplish in life, the more I built a wall around myself, the more cold I got. I bonded, I had friends, I had a boyfriend, but I knew it was all circunstancial, and eventually I would have to sever these ties, or they would simply fall apart for some reason, and I had to be ready for that, I couldn't afford to care too much.
Until one day all I had wronged came to light and I was held accountable. That was the time to sever ties, to say 'too bad I hurt your feelings, I don't give a fuck', but somehow I just couldn't do it. I found myself devastated for the fact that I had hurt the person that I loved the most, that was good and patient to me, and I felt like shit not just for this particular event, but for all the times that I had taken advantage of him and his unconditional love and forgiveness. And I paid with my suffering for my actions, and he had to suffer too, even though he was innocent. And I learnt that if you can't live with your shit once it comes to light, you better don't do it, think twice of what you can take and what you can't, if you wanna be selfish and lonely or if you want it all: to be a shitty person but also have true love and peace of mind. Well, I wanted it all and ended up with nothing but remorse. I was lucky enough to learn from my mistakes; they haunt me every day, but that's just what I have to live with.
And that's what I loved the most about the show finale: 'Life's a bitch and then you just keep living'. Bojack doesn't get to die, he can't wash away his sins and get peace of mind. Perhaps some people do get that, but that's not a general rule that allows you do to do whatever you want, because in the end God forgives you and you get peace of mind. It's not like that, you have to cope with the shit you've done, accept it, and keep living, doing the best you can, knowing that you are likely to fuck it up again, and above all, being ready to accept the consecuences of your new wrong doings. Hopefully at some point you know what you are capable of, the things you can bare and the thing's you can't, and you will act accordingly.
So thank you Bojack for making me think of all this, to make me question myself and suffer a little more, as a reminder of what I've done in life and what I don't want to do ever again.
With love,
Amanda.
PS: Sorry if my English isn't the best, I'm a Spanish speaker..
