 A long time ago, someone told me that life is all about balance, and this is something very important to remember as we break down the hidden meaning of this episode of Black Mirror Season 5, Rachel, Jack and Ashley 2. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, what I like to do is take a look at movies, TV shows, the YouTube community, all sorts of stuff and see what kind of lessons we can pull from them. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell, and don't forget to follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul. So yeah, we're going to be talking about Rachel, Jack and Ashley 2. I already did a video about the ending and just talking about some of the themes of it, but in this video, I wanted to talk about positivity culture, alright? I saw a few people mention this over on Twitter and in some comments and I think that's something that is important to discuss. So if you don't know what I mean, Miley Cyrus' character, Ashley Oh, and her songs and everything like that, it's all about positivity and getting this message out there like, you can do it, you're amazing, you're great, and all of that. And yeah, it's something that actually happens a lot in real life, but in the context of the episode, like a few different things. One of them is that we find out that Ashley Oh isn't this like upbeat, super positive, you know, young woman, like that is a character that she plays, like, for her audience, for her fans, right? This is popular. This is mainstream, but outside of that, she is pretty sad, lonely, depressed. And I saw another video on this where they were talking about the parallels between Ashley Oh in real life and the character of Rachel. So one of the things is because of this positivity, when Rachel gets her little Ashley 2 robot and Ashley 2 talks her into like, yo, do your thing. Follow your dreams, travel for the school talent show and do your dancing. And like it shows a little montage of, you know, Rachel dancing and everything. And it doesn't go too well. All right. So when it comes to this in real life, like I am somebody who is constantly trying to find balance. Like those of you who don't know me, I am somebody who is in recovery from drug addiction and alcohol addiction, I've been diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, you know, I had a wacky childhood, all of that, right? So like I get what it's like to have those like awful feelings and feel like this world is such a dark place. And when, when I was at my lowest of feeling depressed, like when I saw people who were just like, just be happy, just do it. Just follow your dreams and everything. I just want to punch them right in the eye. So I get that. All right. But on the other hand, like walking around being depressed and moping and, you know, having this kind of like nihilistic outlook, that doesn't really solve anything either. Like something I say at the beginning of each of my videos is we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. So when I look at this, like in music, I see both sides of it, right? So you have a character like Ashley, oh, and she's all about positivity and everything like that. But then you have other people who are independent artists or bands and they're just talking about how awful and miserable life is. So I don't think in either one of those situations that is necessarily great or helpful or anything like that. And it's about finding the balance between the two. All right. So like this world can be a messed up, dark place. And one of the issues is, is like the 24 hour news cycle, like 20 or 30 years ago, if something was happening in a foreign country, like something terrible, which is always happening or even here in the United States, like we didn't hear about it. All right. Like aside from like 9-11 when I was a kid growing up, like I didn't know about awful things going on in the United States. This is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why people are often more anxious and depressed than ever before. It's because we're having so much information about the terrible things going on. So like when I see somebody like Ashley, oh, and you know, well the character at least, spreading this positivity, I'm like, good, good. At least there's somebody out there. You know, even if it's a character that they're putting out there to kind of cheer people up and motivate people, maybe that's what they need. Like I think about how many people are in a household where you know, they have parents telling them they're not good enough or people at their school or just other people in their life telling them that they can't do anything and they're not good enough. Like if you pull your inspiration from a song, like do your thing, boo. Like this is going to sound corny as hell. But I don't care. I'll say it, like back in the day when Kanye West first came out, right, when he was doing like college dropout and everything like that, like I pulled a lot of inspiration from his music. His newer stuff, not a huge fan. But I used to be inspired by his music. You know what I mean? Like I could relate to dropping out of school and I wanted to make something of myself even though I didn't have that college degree and that motivated me and I like was inspired by his hustle. You know, like some people are against, you know, just motivational speakers and everything. But like whatever fills your motivational fuel tank up, that's what I call it. Like do it, listen to it. Like sometimes the people in your life are so pessimistic and just against everything and holding you back that you need some kind of outside source to inspire you. But again, it's all about balance. So in the part of Rachel Jack and Ashley too, where Ashley too is encouraging Rachel to dance and enter this talent show like, oh no, no, no. No baby girl. Uh-uh. So this is where like that culture of positivity can absolutely backfire and be worse for you than it is like helping you achieve your goals. And this is something I learned from a very good book that I'll link down in the description below. It's very short. It's called Lying by Sam Harris. The audio book is only about an hour and a half. So it's a pretty short book. But anyways, he makes the argument about how the form of lying to spare somebody's feelings. All you're doing is delaying the pain and suffering that they're gonna go through. So that's what I was thinking about when this little robot was encouraging Rachel to dance and she could do it, just keep practicing and everything like that and everybody's gonna love you and all this. Now granted, Rachel did get better but one of the reasons Jack was so upset and ended up hiding to Ashley too was because like Rachel wasn't all that good. Like even when Rachel practiced and all that, she still wasn't all that good. And this is something that we all need to take a look at when it comes to people in our lives and what they're doing and what they're trying to pursue. Like here's my personal opinion on it and how I do it like with people in my life and encouraging them to do something because I get it. Like we don't wanna hurt our friends feelings. Like something that I love more than anything is people in my life doing something that they love and pursuing it. Like even my own son, like I don't ever wanna be a downer and say, yo kid, you suck at that, right? So it's like, how do we do that? And I think it's just being realistic with that person and having an honest conversation with that person and saying like, here, here's what I think you can improve on. Here's what I think you could work on, right? But just blowing smoke up their butts saying, oh yeah, you're amazing. You're awesome. Like if my son wanted to be a famous musician and he came in here like banging on like, I don't know, pots and pans and he sucked. I'd be like, no dude, right? And if he grew up and if he was a high school student and he saved up all his money and he was trying to get a drum set and he ended up getting one, it wasn't that good. Like what I would do is I wouldn't just say, hey, Dylan, you suck. But I would say, hey, like, have you thought about getting lessons, learning from somebody and inspiring him in that way. But there always comes a point with any of us where we have to know when to let go of something and just acknowledge for ourselves like this isn't going to go anywhere. And if you're a true friend in somebody's life, it's important to have those conversations with them because one of the worst things that can happen for that person is that they go out and they pursue something and they're not that good at it, right? And now the whole world is laughing at them rather than them actually knowing the truth. I think a great example is like, remember American Idol, I don't know if they still do it, but they would like take the worst singers and then put them out there. And it kind of became like a thing where people knew they were bad and they would just go on there. But like when that first started, like I would not be surprised if a lot of those awful singers just had like, yes, men and women in their lives are like, oh my God, you're the most amazing singer I've ever heard in my life. And then they go and they make, you know, a fool of themselves on national television. So that's why it's important to be honest with people about their skills, about their talents, all right? But again, like when it comes to this episode, like I just want you all to like kind of look at this and see if you can find a balance. Like don't get me wrong, I still have my moods where I gotta listen to, you know, certain people who understand like my true thoughts, my true feelings and everything like that. But if I listened to too much of that downer stuff, whether it's music, whether it's depressing shows, whether it's like books or whatever it is, there comes a certain point where I'm just in a pity party for way, way, way too long. And I just need to hear some positivity, no matter what it comes from, whether it's the opposite, right? Finding positive music, movies, TV shows, books, whatever that thing is. And I think if you don't have people in your life who can encourage you and inspire you to at least try, not saying that you're gonna become like a millionaire off of what you did, but if they can encourage you to at least try, you need those type of people in your lives because the other people, they're bad for you. All right, but anyways, let me know what you thought about this episode of Black Mirror. I have some other topics that I wanna talk about involving maybe striking vipers as well as smithereens and stuff. There's any topics from this season that you want me to talk about? Let me know down in the comments below. I was thinking about talking about the grief support group from smithereens and some other stuff. So throw me out your ideas, all right? But that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. 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