Thread by @QiaochuYuan

did you know brit marling from the OA is a real person and you can just look up interviews of her talking about shit like why she left goldman sachs whenever you want it's nuts. she talks pretty much the way you'd expect her to having only watched the OA

2:57: "i was also just sad. y'know? like i would go home from work and sometimes just cry. and it wasn't just, like, a few tears, it was the kind of existential crying that like -

it was heartbreak."

"i was heartbroken that - you brought this up earlier, the idea of like,

when does a kid lose their imagination?
when do they let go of that wild unbridled thing
and become the broken-in horse?
that was the moment for me."

"i remember seeing a doctor, telling the doctor that i was having these waves of sadness, and he was just like, you're depressed. here's a prescription for paxil."

"i remember filling the prescription, and it was sitting on my nightstand, and i would come home and be so sad, and i would look at that bottle, and i would think,

something is wrong here..."

"... if i'm being told i'm doing something that's making me not feel good, and i'm being told that the answer is to just like, pop one of these pills to make the thing palatable. to just go do the job."

"to - to numb yourself, basically. and the doctor's answer, the system's answer, was, there are ways to medicate this so that you don't feel your body's gut reaction, you just go with what your mind is saying, which is like:"

"if i do this job i know exactly how much money i'll be making in 2 years, how much money i'll make in 5 years, probably how much i'll make in 10, who i'll date, who i'll marry, what are the zip codes, what are the things that i'll have..."

"and i don't even mean any of that in a disparaging way. like, i really understand there's such great comfort that comes in being able to feel like there's some safety and security in your future, and i don't judge it at all,"

"but for me, in my body, i was, like, reaching a place of dysfunction, and i -

i couldn't bring myself to take the medication.

and that was the moment that i was like... i was just like,

i can't,
i have to find a different thing."

5:47: "but then here are my friends, and they wanna do this fun thing. and so i took the leap and we did it.

and we got a topic,
and we didn't sleep for 48 hours,
we just made this film over the weekend,
it was a total piece of shit,
but i had so much fun,"

"and i was like, okay, i can work my butt off doing something that i love, and it's dangerous, and i may never make any money, and i may be broke all the time,

but i'll be happy,
i'll be delighted."

"or i can do this thing that doesn't feel right in my body, where i know there are predictable safe outcomes. and to me, suddenly then it actually wasn't a choice anymore. it just seemed so obvious, like, i have to go this other way."

"so it's like, suddenly you get rid of the safety net. and you're just like,

i accept that my life is gonna be on a highwire.
and i'm gonna put one foot in front of the other every day,
and it's gonna be dangerous,
and there's the fear of falling,"

"and i'm gonna just keep going on this thing with no net,
believing that it will make a more interesting life.
like, lived life.
and that that will be better than the version where you're just on the ground,
in the net."

(like fucking hell did you see what she did there at the end? "on the ground, in the net"! the safety net! the SAFETY NET!)