Over the past few months I’ve been thinking, on and off, about the concept of closure. How people crave it, how often they feel entitled to it, how the popular culture seems to indicate it is both necessary and probable, and how the reality is far from it.

You send a grant to a funding agency, and it comes with brief, infuriatingly vague comments. There’s nothing actionable in the feedback. You wish you could somehow reach through the funding-agency portal and into the past to grab the reviewer by the shoulders and shake them until they tell you what exactly it is that they didn’t like in your meticulously written proposal. The truth is, you will never really  know. You will have to go with your experience if you are to revise. Maybe the reviewer’s own Dunning-Kruger prevented them from admitting they didn’t understand the project. Maybe they didn’t take the review seriously enough. Bottom line is, they didn’t like it, so it won’t get funded. You will never know exactly why.

A friend ghosts you. A romantic partner breaks it off with some it’s-not-you-it’s-me faux reason. They will probably never tell you why. Does it even matter why? You can try to figure it out on your own, but it won’t change the outcome. Ultimately, they’re gone.

Why do we expect closure? I understand craving it, but why do we feel entitled to it? Part of it is not wanting to admit that things are over, and hopelessly so. Part of it is probably because popular culture makes it seem that closure is necessary in order to move on, and also likely. In popular movies, there are no loose ends at the conclusion of the narrative arc. The character faces their nemesis or an estranged parent or a former lover. Everything gets wrapped up, with in a neat little bow on top, because that’s how compelling storytelling works. The movies where things are left open-ended are considered artsy at best, bad and infuriating at worst. But they are closer to reality than the popular fare.

People who are in our lives don’t owe it to us to remain in our lives. Maybe we outlived our usefulness; this is cold and calculated, but sadly quite common. Maybe we hurt them or neglected them; then it’s out fault that they left. The point is, once someone is out of your life and doesn’t seem responsive to nudges, let them be. There’s no point in chasing them under the guise of seeking closure, because you already know the most important thing you need to know—they don’t want to be around anymore. It’s often a small mercy that they don’t relent in your quest to give you closure; are you sure you really want to know all the ways in which you suck?

I have certainly cut off contact with people without pomp or circumstance. If they deeply reflected on our relationship, they could probably figure out what was bothering me and what the reason was behind the withdrawal, but in a true Catch-22 situation, had they been able to reflect to the needed degree, we would not have gotten to the point that I had to withdraw. “But how will they know to do better next time?” you ask. I don’t care; it’s not my problem anymore. I don’t owe anyone an explanation after we no longer have a relationship. They have all they need to figure things out if they want to, but they probably won’t. I don’t owe them more emotional work.

A couple of months ago, a beta reader for my novel commented how a character needed to get closure in their relationship with a parent who’d spent the character’s whole life being avoidant and neglectful. The reader said the character needed a big moment of facing said parent and sharing their hurt. I don’t think so. Someone whose job was to love and cherish you failed to do so for years; you think they give a shit about your hurt feelings? You think they will be shocked and dismayed at the damage they’ve done? Hell no. That is probably what they were going for to begin with, even if it wasn’t fully conscious. No character of mine is going to give a horrible parent the satisfaction of articulating their own hurt. It wouldn’t be closure; it would ultimate humiliation. The parent can go @#$%&#%^ themselves while the character purges them from their life.

What say you, blogosphere? How important is it to get closure? How probable? And how is it mid-August already? 

So Barbenheimer, huh?

I watched both movies with hubs a couple of weeks ago, and enjoyed them both. Some mild spoilers ahead.

Barbie is visually stunning, very funny and very clever, and yes, quite feminist. The main Ken (the one played by Ryan Gosling, whose job is beach) is excellent as a dim yet eerily realistic villain. He has no issues crushing everything Barbie holds dear out of aggrieved entitlement masquerading as heartache.  Never has the song “Push” by Matchbox Twenty been used more literally and to a more resonant effect than in the beach campfire scene. The sage Weird Barbie is as awesome and crazy as anything that Kate McKinnon ever plays. Margot Robbie is otherworldly pretty as Stereotypical Barbie, who gets hit with a realization of how shit the real world still is for women. America Ferrera delivers a poignant soliloquy that has been circulating on social media.

Ryan Gosling’s skin looks just like shiny plastic, a marvel of makeup art. Excellent side characters like Alan (played by Michael Cera) and various other Barbies and Kens enhanced the movie. And yes, that last sentence in the movie is hilarious.

Overall, well worth viewing.

**

I was dreading Oppenheimer because of its three-hour runtime. I am happy to report that the movie was exquisitely done, so I didn’t feel bored or restless for even a moment. The combination of flashbacks on Oppenheimer’s career with ‘current’ events covering the hearings that led to him being stripped of security clearance were done quite effectively, keeping the tension high and the narrative moving at a good clip.

I’ve always thought Cillian Murphy was creepy, and his creepiness, exacerbated by the era-appropriate accent and his emaciated frame, made him an excellent vessel for the portrayal of a self-absorbed, chain-smoking, skirt-chasing, brilliant, arrogant, tortured mid-twentieth-century father of the atomic bomb. Emily Blunt, whom I would watch if she were reading her shopping list aloud, did a lot with a relatively small role of Oppenheimer’s smart, unconventional, alcoholic wife Kitty, with whom he shared a strong if somewhat nonstereotypical bond. To me, the most exciting part of the movie were the portrayals of all the physicists (many of them theorists, *swoon*) whose names are found in textbooks and on letterheads of national labs. Oppenheimer brought quantum mechanics to the US, and the postwar physics boom in the country was largely due to the success and brainpower influx associated with Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. I loved seeing the big names ‘in the flesh’ and witnessing their very human interactions and often fraught relationships. Robert Downey Jr was excellent as the scheming Lewis Strauss, and Matt Damon did a solid job as a General Groves.

Overall, it was an excellent movie. I am very glad I saw it.

What say you, blogosphere? Did you see either movie? Both? What did you think? 

The sequel to Academaze is coming to your favorite online-shopping behemoth soon:

Adrian Medina of Fabled Beast Design killed it with the cover, which you will see in its full glory in a few weeks. For now, imagine weapons-grade whimsy, and think about whether you want to request an advance review copy, for I will be putting up a sign-up form soon.