So, true to form in being behind the curve, i just watched Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides.”

Odd that circumstance arranged for me to see this film now. Two nights ago i watched Lar Von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” and, until the last few seconds, was close to being mesmerized. Also odd that a coworker, a woman who came on at my job less than one year ago, is having a series of bad days.

Both movies deal with people who, regardless of how you might feel about this, are simply too good to exist in our world. If you’re somebody who feels suicide (either by direct deed, or by design) is a mortal sin, case closed, you will probably disagree with my argument that there are souls who are simply not intended to exist on this earth.

Look at is this way: you work for a big institution, you have met various challenges – overcoming some, being steamrolled by others. A new person joins the institution. This person is nigh bothersome in their exuberance. They attempt to remold the environment and effect change. They are repeatedly thwarted but they are righteous in their efforts. After repeated systemically-induced failures they eventually depart for other opportunities leaving behind the largely pathetic detritus passing for normality.

This is exactly what these two movies address: that the world we have created by humans is toxic to those who, for whatever reason, strive, or at least seek on some level, a higher good.

So, in a microscopic sense, what does is signify when a person enters a system with a drive to make change, but is either destroyed by that system or bails for a better opportunity? I don’t know the big answer to that question. But, i do know this: it is to cry in shame that a system, built by humans, can impede the progress offered by a member of that system. It’s like this: the schools in our neighborhood are crumbling, we’re moving to the suburbs where they’re good. Fine, but what does that leave for the others less able to follow? Put another way, somebody is hired to do a job, but that person encounters blockage after blockage and soon elects to spend their energies elsewhere. What does a system that causes the smart people to leave engender? What does it produce? I would argue that such a system under the very best circumstances produces mediocrity and does little more than consume resources.

I need to drink more cheap-ass wine and think critically about how i’m spending my time… and exactly what team i’m standing with.