 let's do this. Let me see your face. Hey, welcome back to Life Lessons and Film. Today we're gonna be making sense of life through quills. Try to summarize this movie. It takes place in 1795, I believe, in France, just after the French Revolution, or one of them, during the time of the Marquis de Sade, who is one of the main characters. He happens to be at this point in an asylum. So the Marquis de Sade is there because he writes pornographic books. And so he's an influential guy. His wife is influential, she got him to be placed in an asylum versus going to prison because of his position, his social standing. He has a bigger room. He has all of these amenities because the wife is basically just kind of giving the asylum more money to house him in that way. Yeah, we see the goings on in the asylum. One of the helpers who does the laundry, she helps the Marquis de Sade get his, the city's writings out. The Marquis de Sade is secretly still writing, even though he's not allowed to, unbeknownst to the person who's in charge, which is the Abe, through the Chambermaid played by Kate Winslet, I don't remember the name. Yeah. What's her name? Madeleine. Madeleine, yeah, through Madeleine, is able to get his books published secretly. And then Napoleon finds out and enlists the help of this other guy who also kind of is in charge of other asylums. And he's just, you know, go there and sort this out. He has some special skills, a.k.a. torturing people to restore discipline. The movie continues as eventually they keep trying to make it harder and harder for the Marquis to write his books by taking away all his quills at first and then by taking away all his possessions and taking away his clothing because at one point he started writing on his clothing, you know. He uses wine first. Wine, yeah. Because he doesn't have anything else to write on. Blood. Then he uses his own blood. Then feces. Like he's fighting for his life. Anything you can think of to write. So that's basically it. The movie follows this guy who refuses to be repressed. He's finding every single way to. To work out his, what he calls like his vices or his perversions or like the inner demon to kind of, that's how he gets it out instead of acting it out that he puts it on words and that's his therapy. That's his way of coping. Gosh, I'm tired, maybe we should have. I think, you know, a lot of the main things with the movie are dealing with, for instance, humans in a whatever kind of society they find themselves in, they're the things that are acceptable. Is that acceptable behavior? Acceptable virtues, acceptable norms and everything. And then there's the stuff that is buried or suppressed or illegal, right? Or criminalized. And a lot of these things are just also still as natural to the human condition as the things that are accepted. I was upset about Madeline's passing. I really like Madeline. She's a foot soldier. The kind of foot soldier you want. The one who's true to the cause and whose commitment to the cause is so powerful that fear isn't even a factor. I think that's just something that is so rare for all of us, whatever caused your rallying behind. There's always this fear hovering and it'll either stop you in your tracks or every single step you're taking make you question things. And that chips away at the strength of whatever it is, whatever vision you have and whatever hope you have for a future, you know? But with her, she, no matter what happened, that did not dissuade her even when they brought Michael Cainan and there were all of these kinds of guards who are looking over the asylum to make sure to find dissenting dissenters. That still did not dissuade her from what she believed in. That's something that I know personally that I do really admire. It's very rare to find people who have faith in something and are able to actually stand by it because standing by something, have faith in is very, very hard. I think she also respected the marquee for having such dedication to something he believed it was important. So that's the thing that made me really sad when she passed away because I was kind of, I was like, wow, what an incredible woman to have passed away, you know? She deserves so much more. There's a lot of extremes and it's hard to find that balance where the marquee has an extreme of freedom of speech and creative expression, right? To the point of his own health and others where he just smears feces everywhere. That at that point, you're just hurting everyone involved or exactly even before then when he's just if he continued to write at that point would shut down their silent and that would mess up everyone's situation. He'd say, well, you should do stop because someone is trying to stop you from doing something necessarily, but he's not also really considering how his actions affect other people either, right? So it's kind of a selfish thing. Then yeah, you have Michael Cain who's law and order at all costs and doesn't understand the importance of creativity and community and connection because he's a very- Or just plain kindness. Kindness, he's just cool to everyone. With Abe, right? You know, like they're people in the real world, outside of movies who will look at things like, well, you know, he's coming from a tough background. You know what I mean? Or, well, you know, he's insane, he's sick. He's sick, he doesn't understand. Let's show him love. He murdered my mom, yes, but he murdered your mom, but remember. Forgive like God would forgive. Forgive like God would forgive this man who was tortured as a child. That's where his extreme is too far. Yeah, that's where his extreme is too far because you are, I think it is true to be understanding of people's histories, whatever kind of, you know, bad things that happened. Be sympathetic to that, but don't be sympathetic to the extent of putting yourself in danger or putting your needs aside, you know, or sacrificing just like the most basic things like safety, you know what I mean? Your safety, boundaries, health, just because someone went through a traumatic experience. Yes, just because someone went through a traumatic experience or something that was hard that led him to be insane or led him to be upset or be a mean, it does not absolve him. What he does today, his past does not absolve him of the bad things that he's doing today. They still have consequences and they still need to be righted those wrongs. I think they all, because they're all in this kind of oppressive situation, they all, it drives people to extremes. Michael Cain, you can even understand to a degree why he's so obsessed with law work because it's a bit of a mad house going. It's a bit of a crazy environment, a hard environment to live in. So for some people, they'd be like, we just need more rules, regulations, strict things and to keep things workable. You can understand that to a degree, right? But then you can go to the extreme. And Marquis, you understand why he needs to let out all these things inside him because otherwise you'll just like, what's the point of living? Have you no true sense of my condition, of its gravity? My writing is involuntary like the beating of my heart, my constant erection. And then with Abbey, I thank the man of God, the man of the cloth, but being in such an environment where there's so much pain and vice and sin, you know what I mean? And like, it's just, it's a lot to deal with every day. He tries to be compassionate to everyone. That's also very draining. And I think that's, so his extreme is to be just so pious and so righteous. But I think hard environments drive people to extremes. For no one, you will not even write your own agonominious name. Are your convictions so fragile? They cannot stand in opposition to mine. We show God so flimsy, so weak. For shame. Are your convictions so weak? Are they so weak that they wouldn't stand against, stand up against mine? Yeah, because I'm doing things differently. Yeah, and so he doesn't want to actually have that conversation. And that's something that everyone struggles with. A lot of people, if they don't have firm convictions in terms of values or how they're living, then that's what affects them when other people are just doing even the smallest things differently. Because then they feel like, why aren't I doing that? And it gives them questions that they didn't want to have to deal with. Think about why they're doing things. There's so many things that happen that really change him. Every time something happens, he just kind of keeps adjusting to the point where he ends up going crazy, right? Like he gets harsher and harsher to the marquee, which is something that we never thought would happen. Because love, everybody, even the patients, deserve love, treat them kindly. And then all of a sudden he's like, well, why are you sedating him? Then he's not gonna feel when you're cutting off his tongue. I've opiumed to numb the pain. Our intention has penetrated. If we numb the pain, what's the point? So these are the extremes, right? He starts off that way, the soft, kind, gentle person to that. And so that's an example of, okay, so his convictions maybe did not, but at the same time, I'm like- He was also tested. Yeah, exactly. He was tested a lot, and that does happen. In life, it's kind of unfair to say to someone, okay, you're a rich conviction, so when life is happening and yes, convictions are tested and yes, you become a different person because things are happening and- It's easy to stay firm in your beliefs and your convictions and values when you just live in an isolated bubble. Exactly. Nothing changes or everything is cocooned. Nothing bad ever happens. Yeah, when nothing bad ever happens, there aren't any huge shifts. When you have that luxury of stability, you know what I mean? Some people have that luxury of stability enough that they continue to be the same kind of person you knew and they never change. That is a luxury that a lot of people can't afford because they have a lot of hardships to face. I actually really don't mind convictions changing. In fact, I feel like that is the whole point of life for you to have an openness to your worldview adjusting every single time, every time you meet someone, not to say that we want you to end up killing people, but if you're removing yourself from the asylum, but as you're existing in the world, that's the whole point, isn't it? The more key, the thing I think that was that made his books so well received was that, just the fact of other people seeing someone else write about things that they couldn't do themselves and the curiosity, you know? The curiosity of just having your mind open and learning about stuff that you didn't know, having it, looking at life differently, like Michael Keynes' wife, right? She's 16 and she says, like I was in a convent. And so with nuns, all I had were books to teach me about life. So that's what changed her worldview. It molded her, being strong and knowing what she wants. And so I don't necessarily think that having your convictions change is necessarily a bad thing. No words, Joe! Who's showing you the fuck's sake of it? Suppose one of your precious inmates attempted to walk on water and drown. Would you condemn the Bible? I think not. Well, would you blame the Bible for someone drowning because they tried to walk on water? It's like, would you blame literature completely 100% for something that happens because someone wanted to mimic it or someone was inspired by it or wanted to recreate? Can you blame the artist? Can you blame the artist for the ramifications or the natural consequences of them doing something? And that's also, at first I was like, you know, maybe think, yeah, because that was a negative thing that happened because of Marquis writing. So maybe there is some restraint needed or some kind of forethought about like, what's gonna happen if I put this out there? But then again, you got the wife who positively benefited from wanting to try out these things that she was reading or try and learn more about it. So then she meets this guy who's much healthier for her than Michael Cain character. So the stuff she was getting from this was positive. Now the stuff that the one guy was getting was negative, but that's the whole thing also with like, the Marquis playing the telephone game with all the patients is you're gonna get the filter. Everything that is created or that is done is gonna be filtered through everyone differently. Everything that you say is filtered through different ideas, different worldviews, different ideologies at the end of the day. So you could present your argument or your point, you can present your art in whatever form it is. And you're going to have different people digesting it differently. Some people are gonna agree with you. Some people are gonna disagree with you. Some people are gonna be harmed by it. However, is it really the artist's fault or the presenter of the views? Is it their fault? If I say something and you digested a certain way and then you act out whatever it is that I said, you know what I mean? Is it my fault or is it your fault? You could even plan things out perfectly in any piece of writing so that you're like, it's completely 100% clear. There's no way of misinterpreting this. There's no way of taking this and creating a harmful ideology out of it. People will find a way to do that out of anything. If they're in a hard environment, it pushes them to an extreme, they will find whatever they need. Any action you take, no matter who it was influenced by, any action you take is your responsibility, 100%. If I literally was encouraging you to engage in carnal knowledge at a Walmart. Yes, good place for that. For example, and you decide to go and do that, you're responsible for that. You should be held accountable because when you're an adult, you get to that point of taking everything with a grain of salt. Even people that you believe in, you still take it with a grain of salt. You have to apply your own intelligence, your own... Situations. The context. Your own abilities. Your own abilities. You know what I mean? Accountability, a dash of skepticism. Yeah, that's the whole point. Learning or being taught, someone sharing information. I don't believe in digesting things dogmatically. The debate probably around platforms. People having platforms are being deplatformed or not shouldn't have these people don't have a voice. This person has too big a voice. The thing is, everyone's influencing everyone all the time. Which I think is good, well, whether it's good or bad, it happens. So it's kind of immoral in that sense. It just kind of happens. So you could say some people have a platform and I wish they didn't have such a big platform, but you're like, but then who's to say that you should have a bigger platform than that first? Who's to say that? And also, even if that person didn't have a platform, this person that you don't want to have a platform, the people who agree with the person and then maybe back to the person and do what the person asked them to do. Even if that person didn't exist because of how they are, because of their own personal convictions, they would have done it anyway. Someone else would have steered them in that direction that you are thinking currently that that person who has a platform and shouldn't have that platform is steering them. That's my point. Platforms and people. It's all about who is the audience. If the audience is receptive to what you're saying, even if the information you're presenting is new, if the audience has a specific worldview or specific leanings, it will make them more receptive or more amenable to whatever it is, the information you're sharing. Put government in a different audience and it's never gonna work. So it's always predominantly about the person receiving the information and not the artist, not the presenter. Which is probably why you should never even necessarily worry about someone having a big platform, I feel like, because there's only a certain percentage of people that will ever receive it anyway. They'll be receptive to it. If there's someone that is writing books, is going to speaking events, is whatever, made films, that kind of thing, documentaries, even if you feel like this person is talking total nonsense, the fact that they're doing that stuff means they are being received or they're receptive for some people. And so it's also worth looking at reasons why. But going back to you. You can disagree with Jordan Pearson, but it's hard to deny that a lot of people are receiving things he's talking about. So why is that? There's probably reasons. Same thing with Noam Chomsky. Why are so many people receiving and so strongly connected to what he's talking about? There are probably reasons. And creating movements around what he's saying. There are struggles that people are going through that these people are targeting, we're directing, or confronting. Why are people reading this guy's book? Because you are living in a world that is repressing nature. People like carnal knowledge. The church is practicing in a very toxic way. These are the times where even when you're married, you can only do the missionary position and you cannot do anything else pinky. That's not straight because that's not God. That's not God. Even though you're married now, you know what I mean? Why are people doing that? Because people are repressed and they just feel like, oh my gosh, I need something, I need an outlet. I need to like break free. I want to break free. Why the marquee has so much support is because he was holding up a mirror to so many people. A lot of people could relate to what he was writing about. They could vicariously live through the characters because they were too ashamed and the world that they were living in made them feel too ashamed to actually act out their desires. What else was there? My notes, huh? Quite a bit. Let's see. In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the full measure of man. How can you really be a virtuous person or a complete person in general? If you haven't ever allowed yourself to be bad, I think that's what he's saying. Like to be a really complete and good person, you would have had to make a lot of mistakes. Hard people, hurt yourself. That's just part of becoming a good person. You don't just become a good person. How do you even know what's good? If you've never been tested, if your goodness has never been tested or if you've never been bad, do you? Well, and also being bad, I don't necessarily see it as like, you have to murder someone to know. I don't like that and I'm gonna not do that ever again. Being bad could just be, you raise with a certain set of virtues and morals to follow but that could just be putting you in unhealthy patterns. So maybe being bad in this case is like, actually I'm going to say no for once. I've always felt the need to say yes and that's how I help the world, improve the world and I'm good to people. I always say yes and lend a helping hand but I'm actually gonna say no and this for me is actually kind of doing something selfish or it feels like I'm my bad person. I'm challenging this. Because you grew up in an environment that made you say that's forced you, that's had you say yes all the time. And then you find out, oh, that wasn't actually necessarily harmful to me or to other people. So then that also allows you to push out of your own matrix of morals and ethics that you have. Yeah, I absolutely love that because a lot of the times people ascribe negativity to things that aren't even that negative. It's all because of your own conditioning. We all of us have individual conditioning and our condition has been conditioned. Because of that, then every single thing we're doing, all our actions, how we interact with people, how we interact with ourselves and life, there are all of these little sensitivities, eggshells that we walk on. And then only to realize that you think that this would be, you're catastrophizing or something that is not even a big deal but it also could be the best thing ever for you. With Abe, he catastrophizes everything, love. He catastrophizes his love for Madeleine. This thing that means so much to him, the love. And this person that means so much to him. He catastrophizes that, oh my gosh, if we do this, this is against God. We're gonna go to hell. Do you know what I mean? Of course, she's upset by that because she realizes she's like, hey, God's watching. If you've grabbed me a final favor, I'd like the chance to explain myself. Don't come any closer, Abe. God's watching. She's like, really you're sticking to these kind of rigid ideas of how you should be or who you are when clearly it's against how you feel. Does that make any sense? And what you want? Does that make any sense? Why are you doing this to yourself? And it's harming everyone. The ending hurt me. Yeah, it daggers through the heart. The injustice. I know. You have all the people that are wanting to put good into the world. They all either end up dead or crazy. Or committed. And I've lived to the tell. He's just kind of like, I've been through life. You know, I'm basically now living. And so that's insanity. The fact that I want to live honestly now, which was what the Marquis wanted. It was during the whole time. So when you decide, I'm going to live honestly and get out of this repression. Wanting to live normally in an abnormal world or will make you seem abnormal or wanting to be sane in an insane world will make you seem like the one that needs to be cured. Or just breaking the mold. People don't like that. Don't be different. Marquis wasn't a crazy guy. And I felt like even with Abe when he ends up in prison, I don't necessarily, I don't think that he was crazy. I think he just gone through some rough stuff. Full of grief and shame and regret. Yeah. Everything was just kind of finally coming to a head. Yeah. You know, all these years of avoiding himself, what he wanted and the people that he loved, all these years of not living, when you've gone through some hard things like he does, you get to a point where it just doesn't matter anymore. Beloved reader, I leave you now with a tale penned by the Abbey de Crumier, a man who found freedom in the unlikeliest of places at the bottom of an inkwell on the tip of a quill. If I color outside of the lines, you know what I mean? It just doesn't matter anymore. That is what I want to do. I just realize how little abiding by the dogma gives. It doesn't give me anything. It doesn't make me happy. And so forget it. Yeah. I don't believe it. The Marquis decide you're, you're actually publishing his novels. Ever since his unfortunate death, there's been a surge of interest in his works. Of course, I will use the prophets to restore Sharon Tom to its former glory. The worst guy in the movie, he profits. He profits from the very guy he was trying to... He loathes. That he loathes. After he died, the popularity was just so intense. And so of course I had to make money off of it. And all of a sudden, it doesn't matter anymore. The immorality of how this guy lived, of his art, it doesn't matter anymore. It makes money now. So, you know, we can work with that. And from the immorality, we can harness it into good. It's fun to the asylum. So it benefits us all. Yeah, himself. That's usually how it goes. There are lots of ways of exploiting or profiting off or appropriating someone else or something else. Yeah, for gains. So, but you're appropriating someone else, their way of living. Even though you're like, I would never let them into my house because they're dirty. But I'll take their money. I'll take everything about them. Yeah, I'll take everything about them except that I don't want to have to see them. Yeah. Yeah, so that really hurt me because it just felt like the bad guy wins. Which happens. My heart still hurts. I don't even want to speak in my queen's voice to read where I'm speaking in the queen's English. And we're speaking in the queen's English. That's my movie, Goofy Flies. No, the queen's English is... Is Accent or...? The Accent. Verbiage. The Accent. The twang. I thought it was like speaking the queen's English was like using a certain dialect. Yeah, the queen's English is this. Is that... Is that not the queen's English? Rick. She's Rick, I was gonna say, yes. We're speaking in the king's English. No. Thanks to John Cox for putting quills on our radar. Yeah, we love it when you guys recommend or bring up other movies that mean something to you. And we'll always check them out because we love movies. You know, we're not always necessarily gonna cover them but it feels great to have you guys engage with us in that way, so. We watched quills and it was just... Yes, just kind of spewed out. It was just juice. Yeah, put stuff on our radar. We like our radars having tons of blips showing up. That was some stuff we had to say about quills. But yeah, what do you guys think? Please let us know in the comments if you guys have seen it and what you guys think of the movie. Is anything we talked about here resonating with you? Making a sense of resonating? Or maybe there's some stuff we missed, but either way, let us know. Share your thoughts on our thoughts. Yes, please do. Or just any thoughts. Anything. Until next time. Yes, we are. Bye. We must show you shout-out. Keep the chain going. We've got to stop it before it gets to the end. We need more people out there.