Last night Thespian and I watched the early-2011 thriller, Limitless. The story revolves around a struggling writer with a severe case of writer's block whose life is spiraling into nothingness--his girlfriend dumps him, his editor is giving up on him, he's about to get kicked out of his apartment and he seriously needs a haircut and a shave. But then he gets turned on to an underground super-drug called NZT, which enables him to remember every single detail of information that he's observed or experienced throughout his life and he pumps out--literally, overnight--a novel which prompts his editor to leave breathless messages of exalted praise on his voicemail. The drug also acts like an instant makeover so dude was soon looking sharp, glossed, glazed and decked out in finery--which the ex-girlfriend enjoyed to the point of reconciliation. Oh, and he had raucous sex with the landlord's wife.
Laughingly (like, through the tears), I could relate to the guy's immobility at first. I enviously scoffed at the proffering of some mighty drug to ease his writing woes and I might've even drooled a little about those post-brilliant-novel-submission editorial phone calls. But then what does the best-selling, uber-dapper, incomparably smart, sexgod writer want to do with his new superpowers?
Become a senator, of course.
This plot twist left me more depressed than ever. Because what, really, would be the end result to some magic pill that enabled me to be the superhuman writer/devastatingly beatific woman I've always wanted to be? Would I, too, be caught in the maelstrom of ambition, ultimately leading to aggrandized notions of power? And when I finally figure it out, what will allow me to think that I've really "made it"--that I am, at long last, "successful"? Not that this scenario is even close to happening anytime soon, as I can't even seem to find a proper coffeehouse to do this so-called writing I like to flagellate myself with. Apparently, it's the non-writing that I'm preferring to write about these days. Sigh.
Ah, to be a writer~ ain't it grand? And so, I dedicate this song to... me:
Depeche Mode - Strangelove (1987) by clp23
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