写给二十九岁的自己：振作，振作！

也许太累，太久…… 已经忘却了自己曾经是多么乐观、多么努力的一个人。曾经为了自己想要的东西可以不顾一切地去努力，即便今天的沉沦正是因为意识到当初那些“努力”都是惘然甚至盲目的，但那种为梦想、妄想而执着的精神仍然是可贵的吧？

我什么时候变成这样子了？一切都不晚啊？怎么这会儿就要放弃了？真正的成功和胜利，对谁来说不是建立在一种近乎幼稚的执着上？

态度不能决定一切，但谁又敢说它不在某种程度上影响事物的发展？你用失败的预设去展开你的人生，恐怕很难收获成功的。你用病态、痛苦的眼神看世界、看他人，得到的是加倍的病与痛苦。不是那种接近妄想狂的执着支持你走到今天的吗？——没说我有什么“成就”，但我至少走过来了，并且是在一种动力下走过来的…… 不能放弃那种动力！

没有必要追究过往，并在这种无意义的追究中失去了你最亲的人。别让你自己在将来的某天追悔莫及！人生中的诸多东西固然不能由你左右，是所谓天定，但你也不要忘记那些人力能够改变的东西！

为什么要消沉？你有什么理由消沉？消沉更加对不起自己。连自己都舍不得再给自己多一次机会，你真就有这么吝啬？

凡事用不着想的太绝对。诚然，二十来岁的黄金时代已然过去；那种幼稚的冲劲已然不再；但也不必还在自己不到三十岁的时候就给自己下判决书，断定自己无可救药，盖了棺了吧？

很多事已经定了，不能改了，还何苦去想“如果当初……”？人生如棋，落子无悔。没有什么“如果……”之说。若说有“如果……”，也许恰应该用在当下——“如果现在不振作……”

没有得到想要的不代表未来就全无希望。站在二十来岁的末端往回看，你看见一个令你种种讨厌的自己，但有一点不讨厌：那就是那个年轻人郁闷表面下的上进心——一种强烈的、不达目的不罢休的欲望。

如果说今天的你——即将跨过三十岁门槛的你——和十年前甚至仅仅五六年前的你在心态上有什么显著的不同，那也许便是最近的你已经不太相信努力还能把你带向前进。然而，持着这样的念头，你必然不能前进，于是自己主观内因造成的后果变成了印证你预设的客观外在事实。十年后，你若会有什么后悔的话，肯定便是你今天即将陷入的消沉。四十岁再来后悔，真的晚了。所谓“大器晚成”的人，必然在年轻时是何等的执着与专注！今天，希望还在；欲火还能再燃烧一次，也许……必须！！

人在二十多岁时的努力是一种相对理所当然的努力：体力正旺；成年人生的启始章尚待书写；事业的道路仍待走出；周围的同龄人也都孜孜奋斗着…… 因为还一无所有，所以没什么可以失去的；可以收获的却不少。从这个角度看来，二十多岁时的努力并不难付出，因为世界还是那么新奇，而机会成本却小，你只要大胆往前冲便是……

当成年人生和事业的启始章已然写毕，生命的书翻向所谓“而立之年”一章时，努力变得不再那么“理所当然”，而是更需要一种信念的支持。经历了种种失落、失败、梦想的破灭、从妄想中的醒来，二十多岁这十年让人知道人不能胜天；努力有它的上限；命运与运气构成局限、左右人行动的纵横沟壑。

但！即便是这样，在尚未跨入而立之年门槛时便选择消沉也未免太早！也许精力的确不如以前，那便用百分之八十的精力；也许的确启始章已然墨干，但仍有“而立”一章待你笔酣墨饱，用更稳健的态势，更成熟的技巧去书写！三十多岁的你必须做的不是少一些妄想与执着，恰恰是更多！唯有如此你才能克服由于年龄渐长和现实打击所带来的疲倦，你才能抵抗这种疲倦带来的放任自流的诱惑。

站在二十多岁的末端，你向那个年轻的你告辞；站在三十岁的门槛，你要向那个年轻的你致敬、学习！

Gone Girl: the ultimate Lacanian film about the “big Other”, desire, and class

    Although the film Gone Girl (David Fincher 2014) started and ended with a close shot at Amy’s beautiful blond head, which then turns around to display her inscrutable smiling face and eyes, accompanied by a male voice in the background asking what is apparently the key question of the film—and I paraphrase—“What really goes on in the mind of the other in a marriage?”, this theme of the irreducible otherness of the other, the impossibility of genuine trust and transparent communication in a relationship, in my opinion, is probably the least interesting of the manifold themes the film offers up for us to savour. Of course, at a basic level, the film indeed tells a story about how a relationship developed so “perfectly”, into an enviably happy marriage, but then turned not just sour but positively horrific; it tells how two people who seemed so deeply in love could in fact have not the faintest clue as to what the other truly is. But this reading is simplistic and therefore boring because it assumes that there is a “truer” identity behind the surface—the “truer Amy” is supposed to be what many viewers of the film might call a “control freak”, someone who wants everything to go according to her perfect plan, for which she would do anything to manipulate people’s opinions and behaviors. This interpretation then reduces the film to a story about a manipulating and vengeful woman and her deeds (which also invites the accusation of misogyny), and the much greater richness in the film is lost.

    With such relatively uninteresting interpretations cleared off the way, I propose that Gone Girl is the ultimate film—in my impoverished film viewing experience—about the Lacanian ideas of the “big Other” and desire. Indeed, one almost feels as if the story was written with Lacan’s theory as its underlying theme and structure. One is tempted to wager that the author of the original novel, Gillian Flynn, has had many a sticky finger in Lacan’s works before she wrote the story. Let me be upfront with my arguments: the view of the big Other (“big Other” stands for the symbolic order, the fictional universe, and also commonsense and public opinion) is all that matters to Amy, and Amy is simultaneously a character in the symbolic fiction and also herself the author of that fiction; desire is a desire to be desired; in other words, one desires the big Other’s love, desire, and approval.

    Earlier on in the film, we learn that Amy was a very privileged young women who also served as the real-life inspiration for the widely popular and loved character of her mother's fiction series “Amazing Amy”—Amy's symbolic double. What Amy could not achieve in her real life, Amazing Amy pulls off effortlessly. So although Amy “gave up cello at eleven”, Amazing Amy became a virtuoso; although Amy never did cheerleading or was never good at it, Amazing Amy “entered the Varsity”. As Amy said at one point: “She [Amazing Amy] is always a step ahead of me.” Obviously, here we have a perfect instantiation of Lacan’s classic “mirror stage” scenario: Amazing Amy represents Amy’s ego-ideal in the Imaginary order. Amy is the infant who looks into the mirror and sees her more complete, more accomplished image. Just as in the "mirror stage" scenario, it is the (m)other's gaze from aside that affirms and secures this rival-identificatory relationship between the ego and its ideal, even more so in this case: it is in fact the (m)other who authors the entire fictional space, spins the symbolic web which holds Amy's position in it. As the film progresses, reference to Amazing Amy disappeared, and all is now focused on Amy herself; this is because, by doing the crazy things she did, she has clearly transcended real life and entered the very realm of fiction itself; in other words, for most of the film, Amy has become Amazing Amy, as we viewers were indeed held in awe at what she did. The ego and its imaginary ideal have merged into one, and to this extent, we must say that the film has a perversely happy ending!

    The point that all that matters to Amy is the world’s view, and not some so-called “inner truth” or “real” state of things is one that I believe I need not labor on too much. “We are the happiest couple I know”, Amy wrote in her diary. Of course, this statement implies a comparison – “happiest” compared to how other couples she knew appeared. The point is: for Amy all that matters is how her relationship with Nick appeared to the world, to the “big Other”. It is as if she wants the top prize for being the happy couple. Appearance is essence, at least for Amy; and the view that there is something more true/authentic about Amy hidden behind a façade is one to be utterly resisted. This also explains what appears to me to be the crucial turning point of film, namely, the point at which Amy, taking refuge at Desi’s luxurious villa, saw Nick going on national TV to tell the world lies (“I love my wife” “I love you, Amy”…) to save his reputation and try to win the public’s sympathy. Most clearly, Amy was transfixed when she saw and heard Nick tell those lies—she gorged on ice cream and appeared totally mesmerized by what Nick said. I argue that this was the moment at which Amy made the decision—her most risky and daring one yet—to kill Desi in order to return to Nick. (One must remember, that Amy ended up at Desi’s place was not in her original plan, and therefore, a new plan had to be made.) It mattered not the slightest whether Nick was actually lying or not; since his words were said during a show that reaches “tens of millions” of American TV viewers, it is truth for Amy, and Amy liked it very much—it was exactly what she wanted. Thus, the lies that Nick told the world, mediated through the “big Other” of the TV networks and hence public opinion, became the truth that amazing Amy would kill an innocent person for.

    The reason that Amy was willing to take such a risky step—after all one must remember that Amy was never even completely sure that her revenge on Nick was going to succeed because she included “kill self” as one of her options—was because what Nick said fitted her fiction too well; it was exactly what she desired. And what did she desire? Precisely Nick’s love and desire; and what perhaps matters more is that this love and dedication from Nick has to be sanctified by the “big Other” of public opinion—it has to be witnessed on national TV and therefore become a matter of public record. Here we see the Lacanian rule that “desire is a desire to be desired” working on two levels: Amy desires Nick’s desire, and because Nick told the world about his love and admiration for Amy, she also stands to win the world’s love and approval. This is the ultimate temptation that Amy could not resist, and poor Desi became the sacrifice.

    Here, in my opinion, one confronts one most interesting puzzle in the film. Why Nick? Why can’t Amy get over Nick? Doesn’t Desi also offer desire and love, and therefore the possibility to satisfy Amy’s desire for an other’s desire? Obviously, Desi’s desire for Amy is undying and intense, after they broke up for so many years. Furthermore, being a wealthy and cultivated person, Desi seemed far superior to Nick and therefore an unquestionably better “match” to Amy. While they had breakfast at Desi’s fancy villa, Amy confirmed Desi’s greater cultivation—that he could discuss with her 18^th century classical music and 19^th century paintings. Objectively speaking, then, by opting for Desi, Amy will be in even more enviable and perfect a couple in the world’s eyes, so why does Amy still go for Nick in the end? Here, the theme of class enters the scene. One small detail is worth paying attention to: after breakfast, Desi leaves for work; Amy sends him to the door, kisses him while biting his lips, then also roughing up his hair and untucking his shirt, adding aggressively: “This is how the boys wear it!” The comparatively uninteresting way to read this is that Amy was again being the “control freak” that she is, namely, she wants her partner to look exactly the way she fancies. But an alternative reading is that “the boys” stand for people of the lower classes—whose rough, masculine demeanor and style represent to Amy, a higher class woman, an inexplicable attraction; and of course Nick was very much that rough boy from countryside Missouri of lower birth compared to Amy whose parents are handsome upper-class New Yorkers. Here, we glimpse the ideological kernel of the film: Amy’s desire for others’ desire is the upper-class’s desire for the lower classes’ desire. We have various common words for this desire in the vocabulary of capitalism/neoliberalism: aspiration, ambition, etc… It is this desiring gaze cast by the dominated class upon the dominant class that is the ultimate object of desire for the latter. We recall that when Nick went on the national show, he did confirm this: Amy was the best; she brings out the best from him; he couldn’t appreciate how fortunate it was for him, a lower-class, relatively uncultivated person, to have someone like Amy as his partner… This was the desire Amy would kill for.

    At the core of the film, there is arguably a fundamental paradox. Namely, on the one hand, Amy is undoubtedly the Nietzschean super(wo)man who remorselessly manipulated and exploited others and yet remained completely beyond touch, beyond law or punishment; on the other hand, her success involves her assumption of a role that is very much still structured by normative gender ideology. In one of the last scenes of the film, she acts the perfect housewife who cooks breakfast in the morning for the husband. All that she wants is to live the perfect happy married life as defined by dominant social expectations. In other words, for the “correct” appearance, she would do anything; all her agency is exercised to serve the structure. This paradox pertaining to Amy, in the final analysis, is perhaps also the dilemma confronting God. As Schelling said, God had to create the world in order to avoid His own madness; He creates the world only to be Himself relegated to a restricted position and capacity; He becomes the hidden God (Dieu caché); in short, God created a world not to be a master over, but in order to avoid the madness that would result from His infinite powers. Same with Amy: for someone of her abilities, if she did not take refuge in a purely symbolic - one could even say alienating - position authored by her (m)other, her only option would have been madness. This is why not only the film has a “happy ending”, Amy is most definitely not a mad woman either.