How Do We Reconcile with Our Desires?
2025-02-03 19:01
The protagonist in a story experiences relationships in Tokyo. After leaving an initial relationship for more, she marries a seemingly suitable man but faces divorce due to his infidelity. She then realizes the emptiness of the “desire” defined by society and her mother. The drama ends with her trying to reconcile with her desires. It conveys the message that we all have desires, and we should understand and find a way to live with them to achieve peace of mind.
I recently watched a Japanese drama, which stirred me with some thoughts and reflections.
The name of the Japanese drama is Tokyo Girl, and it tells the story of how a woman in the Japanese countryside makes her way into the Japanese metropolis of Tokyo to live and work.
Perhaps the most moving part of this drama is that many of us who are working in the metropolis can find ourselves in the main character's story, especially in the last decade or so, there are too many people from small cities or the countryside who have gone into the metropolis in search of their own dreams and a place to live in peace.
Have you all ever reflected on what you want to find in the big city? What kind of life do you want to live?
It seems that these questions have never been clarified.
It seems that there is an invisible force that pushes us to move around in the torrent of life.
It seems that we have some impulses in our hearts, some hopes, and perhaps some helplessness.
Perhaps the word "desire" can aptly describe the invisible force here.
Throughout the drama, the unspeakable "desire" itself is shown.
At the beginning of the drama, the main character sees a magazine describing life in Tokyo in a convenience store in his hometown, and a definition of a fulfilling life arises in his mind.
"The restaurant where you can't get a reservation, the boyfriend who is an agent, the meaningful job. Roppongi Hills, nightly movies at the Toho Cinema, a two-day, one-night trip to Hakone, a wedding ring from Hare Winston, being happily married, the necessities of a fulfilled life."
The sad thing about being human is that our "desires" themselves are not our own, but the desires of others'. This is the view of the French philosopher and psychologist Lacan, that what we think is ours is nothing more than a counterfeit. Come to think of it, maybe what the main character or we really need is a so-called happy feeling, rather than the material itself, such as "the restaurant where you can't get a reservation, the boyfriend who is an agent, the meaningful job".
We are in an age of consumption, where the material things we consume can define our value or happiness, something that would have been hard to imagine in previous times, but the sad truth is that none of us can avoid being defined by material things. The relatively popular view of values today is that a person's worth and success depends on how much money you make, how many house you have, whether you have a good job or not, but the human part is being gradually eroded by material things.
As the plot unfolds, the protagonist meets a fellow villager who also works in Tokyo and begins a relationship in which he does feel a lot of small moments of happiness, but there seems to be a certain dissatisfaction that begins to emerge, and the "desires" that are defined by others begin to well up.
"Boyfriends, too, aren't meant to be one and the same; that kind of smooth happiness can be found all over the place back home, so why do you go through all the trouble of coming to Tokyo?"
So the protagonist sets out on another journey and resolutely leaves her boyfriend. After that, she goes through two relationships, one with a boyfriend who can't give her any promises but is a very wealthy man, and one with a rich kimono shop owner who treats her like a mistress. As youth rolls by in a world of materialism, when it begins to fade, at the age of 33, the heroine finds a husband who has a house and a car and earns a good income but has no feelings for her.
The moment the heroine signed the divorce papers after her husband cheated on her, a wave of sadness came over her, and she recalled a saying her mother said to her when she was young:
"Women just grow up wanting to have the same as everyone else, and just grow up side by side with everyone else."
Yes, that's how women are defined by invisible society, by their moms, and now that she's divorced, all these so-called standards of happiness are unattainable. She is a complete failure, and in the midst of this frustrated "desire", the protagonist catches a glimpse of the nature of the emptiness of this "desire".
The protagonist begins to realise:
"I let go of a small happiness that I thought was too small and sad at that time, but now I know how hard it is to get such a small happiness, and everything that has happened so far is probably a long way to go in order to realise this truth again."
The protagonist's "desire" was gradually disillusioned:
"No woman will be like the fairy tales they read as a child, where a girl's future is bright and your life has a perfect ending, with a standing ovation for you."
After experiencing disillusionment, the drama ends with the main character trying to find a solution to this "desire".
She says, "In a city that looks up at all times, greedy women like me are 100 per cent not satisfied with the happiness that is right in front of us, but they endlessly tell themselves to stop, step by step, and move forward. Unsatisfied, greedy women, only taking this jealousy as a life flavour to taste, are the real urban woman".
Perhaps only by acknowledging the existence of "desire" and reconciling with it can we find true peace of mind!
All of us have endless "desires".
It is often said that "desire is hard to fill";
And we often lose ourselves in our desires;
Sometimes we don't even know what our "desires" are;
Sometimes we are sure of our "desires", but we don't know where they come from or what they really want to express.
Often, we are driven by our "desires" to work and work, and we have no time to spare.
I think the real message of this drama is:
We all need to try to understand our own desires and find a unique way to live with them.