Carer or Donor,maybe both

In writing today's post,I am writing as one of the many me's that make up myself.One of those me's is the me that is a child and adolescent psychiatrist.I often wonder how one's profession shapes their world view or how the person in the garb of their profession mirrors who they intrinsically are.This weekend I saw the movie ,"Never Let Me Go",based on the powerful 2005 novel,with the same title,by Kazuo Ishiguro.Ishiguro is also known for his complex,but subtle novel that became a movie as well, "Remains of the Day".
The simple plot of ,"Never Let Me Go"is a story of some children who live at a boarding school that is rather stern and traditional in the English country side.What enfolds is a secret that these children come to know about themselves that they were cloned from other human beings with the specific purpose of becoming organ donors to the non cloned masses of human beings so as to prolong the lives of others.The movie is a reflection on the thoughts,feelings,relationships that ensue in the context of knowing vs denying what these children learn about themselves and their impending shortened future.The movie at first glance felt bleak ,oppressive and depressing to me.The language seemed spare and sparse to me, the cinematography was slow and melancholic.There were times that it felt claustrophobic and hopeless to me ,that I even considered leaving the theater as I felt this fog of heavy discomfort hovering over me.After seeing the film initially,I felt it to be almost nonredeemable bleak.Now a couple of days have passed and I find myself revisiting scenes I saw in the movie in my mind.I am beginning to feel that the movie and the novel which I now will read ,is a brave attempt to ask difficult questions about us as human beings.The movie is not perfectly eloquent in achieving this purpose,but makes a poetic and heroic effort that has helped me reflect on the unanswerable about who we are or who I am.
In the story there are paths the cloned future organ donors as young adults can choose.One can become a donor immediately in adulthood,or one can become a"carer" to those who donated.Once one embarks on the donor path an obvious form of suffering and shortening or completing one's life begins.It is unclear how long one can remain a carer and then volunteer or become a donor.I began thinking of my life and those close to me,which of us are carers,which are donors, do we choose these paths, does it say something about expectations placed upon us, about our innate temperaments,do we have a choice,do donors or carers interchange sometimes.Then,of course is the question ,would we be or do differently if we knew exactly how long we had to live and what we may die ultimately of.
Another theme that evolved was the cloistered existence of these children in this boarding school. in order to get by in the real world they learned at times to copy others behaviors as they did not know through their cloistered lives what to say ordo.How much of each of our lives is just copying as we really don't know what to say or do or maybe we were never taught?What are the ramifications to us as creative flexible creatures if we are left only to copy.I began thinking about what are the circumstances that would lead one to neglect their creative impulses and lead robotic lives.The children were asked to engage in art, music, dance to encourage creativity. Can one ever be truly creative if their wings are clipped.The children wondered if the purpose of collecting their creative work was for their teachers or in their case imprisoners were attempting to see into their souls.the question of if and how and should it be that art is a window to one's souls was entertained.One answer that came up when the children became adults was perhaps the collection of their art work in the gallery was to ask if they as cloned children"had souls".I wondered to myself how is it possible to make such a determination and perhaps the school masters themselves had no soul.
Then there was the obvious question of why these children never tried to escape , do cloned children lose their will to survive at all costs,does one need to embrace creativity , have a human soul to want to escape and survive.does one need loving parents at a tender young age to procure the desire to live.I think that part troubled me the most.But as ,I thought more about it , I realized that in revealing nothing of an attempt to escape ,something elegant about our capacity to survive evolved.In the movie , the children as young adults were told , if they were to fall in love and really experience enduring,sustaining love and if they could prove it they could buy some time in life.There was a young couple, the protagonists ,that felt and demonstrated a pure sustaining enduring love who were portrayed as surviving some degree of turbulence in their relatedness.The question was asked about the love that we have for each other that by nature is s rare,s precious,not easily found, can that sort of love change our destiny, our fate, can it lengthen our lives, can it prevent the inevitable.The movie in it's design ,implies not, that love exists for love's sake and for nothing else and to ask love to give us more than the things it gives already in living every day is unreasonable. Is this the voice of pessimism,optimism or reality. If we lower our expectations about the reality of what being loved or loving another can truly offer us, will we have richer, more meaningful lives.This movie adds another dimension for me to continue asking about what really makes us human ,what is really of enduring value to ourselves, to each other, and how important each moment of all living is, as carers or donors or both...




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