Movies and Books

Just finished watching Once. It's this indie movie about musicmaking, great, great music, and watches more like a documentary than a movie at times. I typically don't watch the commentary, but was compelled to watch this one afterwards. I guess despite all the jadedness about the movie industry, there is something magical about believing in your movie idea strongly enough to be willing to shoot it on a micro budget w/ some friends, which was kind of how this movie hapened. Very cool. I also got around to watching The Beat that My Heart Skipped, great movie as well. Darker than the other ones, but Dupri really gives a fantastic performance and I liked the whole nature vs. environment angle.

Also just read a book called A General Theory of Love. It's one of the more scientific book on love and relationships I've read in a while (though I do think some of the discourse on neural networks could be more rigorous). It's similar to some other books I've read before like Can Love Last and Necessary Losses, but I think more rigorous and scientific, which the engineer in me really appreciates. It basically tries to analyze why and how we love using multiple disciplines, such as neurology, evolutionary biology, as well as traditional psychoanalytic techniques. Their thesis is basically that human beings relate not only on an emotional level but also on a biological level (they refer to it as 'limbic'), and essentially what therapy does is the therapist tries to go into the patient's world without losing oneself, and synchronizes their rhythms not unlike how two people could synchronize breathing, but instead focusing on emotional patterns. By resonating on similar emotional frequencies and patterns as the patient, the therapist can help to gently guide the patient to break out of unhealthy patterns. If one accepts the book's premise of limbic connection, i.e., that by being together human beings do not only affect each other emotionally but also physiologically, then this is certainly one of the more scientifically sound explanations of psychotherapy I've come across. Interesting thoughts indeed.