Dale's Notes on Past Lives through the lens of Type Four: The Artist, The Romantic
Two artist parents. Two kids who compete with one another (see Type 3 and Type 5 Wings?), are close and sad that NaYoung is leaving. A single moment at a dividing staircase: Hae Sung says “bye”. It leaves us all sad, yearning, longing (Type 4 Themes). She is off to Canada: immigrants bring a uniqueness, a difference to the societies they join (Type 4 Themes-- belonging, not belonging, difference, longing for old and new, discontent).
Hae Sung says: I am ordinary, which sparks conversation about how often Nora cried as a child. He says “I missed you. “I wish I was there… I miss you,” from Nora. Longing words. Missing. (All Type 4 Themes) “It took me 12 years to find my friend….” Hae Sung says, when she proposes a hiatus.
Every relationship, job, path, all—- something will be missing, fleeting , lost.
InYun: something between people over lifetimes, meaningful connection. The film is filled with art, memory, longing, deep connection over time. It's very rich, lyrical. “I wanted to see you… you never responded… I was disappointed.” Nora. Hae Sung tells Nora there are complications w his engagement bc he is “ordinary”… that an only son had to overcome being ordinary. Ordinariness: A Type Four Theme.
“I just wanted to see you one more time… you disappeared so fast… and I found you again.” Hae Sung says.
Nora shares with her husband she feels not Korean when with Hae Sung, but also more Korean. “I think I just missed him a lot… I think I miss Seoul… I think he misses the 12yo crybaby…(Nora).” Maybe Jealousy/Longing is in the air between the couple in this scene. Nora: “This is my life and i’m living it with you”. “This is where I ended up; this is where I am supposed to be.”
Nora always was competitive and wanted to win prizes— some reference to Type Three Wing/Success, or Type Five Wing/Competence.
“It is good that you immigrated. Korea is too small to satisfy your ambition. “ Hae Sung says to Nora, who agrees. “When we stopped talking I really missed you. Do you miss me?”. She is clear with her yes, that his life and hers went on.
“Who you are is someone who leaves.”…but they are together and have been in In-Yun in many forms, including this one.
Paraphrasing author Jerry Wagner: The defense mechanism of Introjection keeps the 4's passions of melancholy and envy going by attempting to avoid the ordinary (if boring—you’re a nobody). Instead of just grieving something and letting go of it, and moving on with your life, melancholy becomes an introjection (something swallowed whole) that you carry around with you reminding you of your suffering and loss. By being a familiar companion, it makes you feel and feel special. Yearning and longing are constantly in the background of your experience.
On the adaptive side: Introjection allows us full memories and connection with the past, was well as the ability to create a rich inner reality that may contribute to an outer one.
Two artist parents. Two kids who compete with one another (see Type 3 and Type 5 Wings?), are close and sad that NaYoung is leaving. A single moment at a dividing staircase: Hae Sung says “bye”. It leaves us all sad, yearning, longing (Type 4 Themes). She is off to Canada: immigrants bring a uniqueness, a difference to the societies they join (Type 4 Themes-- belonging, not belonging, difference, longing for old and new, discontent).
Hae Sung says: I am ordinary, which sparks conversation about how often Nora cried as a child. He says “I missed you. “I wish I was there… I miss you,” from Nora. Longing words. Missing. (All Type 4 Themes) “It took me 12 years to find my friend….” Hae Sung says, when she proposes a hiatus.
Every relationship, job, path, all—- something will be missing, fleeting , lost.
InYun: something between people over lifetimes, meaningful connection. The film is filled with art, memory, longing, deep connection over time. It's very rich, lyrical. “I wanted to see you… you never responded… I was disappointed.” Nora. Hae Sung tells Nora there are complications w his engagement bc he is “ordinary”… that an only son had to overcome being ordinary. Ordinariness: A Type Four Theme.
“I just wanted to see you one more time… you disappeared so fast… and I found you again.” Hae Sung says.
Nora shares with her husband she feels not Korean when with Hae Sung, but also more Korean. “I think I just missed him a lot… I think I miss Seoul… I think he misses the 12yo crybaby…(Nora).” Maybe Jealousy/Longing is in the air between the couple in this scene. Nora: “This is my life and i’m living it with you”. “This is where I ended up; this is where I am supposed to be.”
Nora always was competitive and wanted to win prizes— some reference to Type Three Wing/Success, or Type Five Wing/Competence.
“It is good that you immigrated. Korea is too small to satisfy your ambition. “ Hae Sung says to Nora, who agrees. “When we stopped talking I really missed you. Do you miss me?”. She is clear with her yes, that his life and hers went on.
“Who you are is someone who leaves.”…but they are together and have been in In-Yun in many forms, including this one.
Paraphrasing author Jerry Wagner: The defense mechanism of Introjection keeps the 4's passions of melancholy and envy going by attempting to avoid the ordinary (if boring—you’re a nobody). Instead of just grieving something and letting go of it, and moving on with your life, melancholy becomes an introjection (something swallowed whole) that you carry around with you reminding you of your suffering and loss. By being a familiar companion, it makes you feel and feel special. Yearning and longing are constantly in the background of your experience.
On the adaptive side: Introjection allows us full memories and connection with the past, was well as the ability to create a rich inner reality that may contribute to an outer one.
Deb Sharifi's Notes on Past Lives through the lens of Type Four: The Artist, The Romantic
(Disclosure: Deb is a certified trainer of the Enneagram through Jerome Wagner's Certification. She holds additional cred b/c she is a Type Five and Dale's Favorite Literal Lifelong Friend.)
Themes:
Note: I didn’t see Nora as a 3. Though there was some ambition to achieve (Pulitzer, Tony), she didn’t have the drive or obvious efficiency of a typical 3 or the concern for or manipulation of image often associated with 3s. And she admitted, when asked by HaeSung what her latest ambition for an award was, to have not thought about it for years. I saw it as a Type 4 film.
(Disclosure: Deb is a certified trainer of the Enneagram through Jerome Wagner's Certification. She holds additional cred b/c she is a Type Five and Dale's Favorite Literal Lifelong Friend.)
- “Past lives”: preoccupation with living in past vs present/future
- At beginning, in bar, she’s being observed by other patrons, and she’s somewhat dismissive of “white guy” while eyes engage with Asian man. (Later find out white guy = husband; Asian man = childhood friend/sweetheart). Is she questioning her life choices/path? Maybe thinking what could have been??
- 24 years earlier, as kids, NaYoung’s mother says “If you leave something behind, you gain something too”. Speaks to multiple themes: cost/consequnces & gains associated with immigration; cost/benefits/consequences of life choices/paths
- NaYoung by herself on playground :-( Identity. Isolation being a cost of immigrating/assimilating.
- Attention to what’s missing in new life/gone from past life. Weighing cost, questioning cost/benefits. Playing “what if?” game
- They reconnect: she says when they were young she cried a lot and he always stayed with her. After she immigrated, she “cried less because nobody cared”
- They spoke of missing each other
- Bittersweet, melancholy, lamenting past,
- She says she wants to commit to life in NY and take a break from talking to him bc they can’t get together. He’s upset. They both see what they are missing but wonder if their current life’s pursuits/ambitions worth lost of past relationships. Both agreed to say goodbye and both are hurt.
- Melancholic
- HaeSung forces himself to drink with friends and forget her, and he goes to China(?). She’s in Mantouk NY at a writer’s retreat and meets Arthur, who she marries.
- “In-Yun” = “providence/fate”: about relationships between people and a connection in their past lives. “Strangers who brush past each other and briefly touch must have meant something to each other in past lives”. “If people get married it’s because there are over 8000 layers of In-Yun between them in past lives.”
- He comes to NY after she’s been married 7 hrs. It’s rainy (symbolic; predictive/forshadowing, melancholic;)
- Attention to past & what’s missing in present. Lamenting, remembering past. Also how past relationships impact/define you or shape your identity. Struggles with identity
- Weather improves when they’re together (symbolic)
- He’s not sure if he wants to marry girlfriend bc he thinks he’s “ordinary”. Again…themes: identity, uniqueness.
- NaYoung/Nora: Identity as Korean vs indentity as individual and as “American” immigrant. Identify related to authenticity? But also how her immigration & ambition impacted identity
- She tries telling her husband how she feels and he’s feeling vulnerable, insecure, unsure of himself.
- She seems to be maybe lamenting a life unlived life she could have had with HaeSung but also not convinced that that was a life she’d have wanted.
- Husband’s insecurity shows when he tells their story: he’s evil white man standing in the way of the destiny of two childhood sweethearts. Says they met, slept together because they were both single, moved in together to save on rent, got married for her to get green card —-which is first time viewers/audience become aware of this. Makes you then question whether Nora questions her own life choices/paths or has regrets.
- She says “This is where I ended up. This is where I am supposed to be” ??? But she seems unsure ambiguous/uncertain about her love for him (husband)
- She brings HaeSung to meet husband. Awkward!
- HaeSung say Korea was not enough to satisfy her ambition.
- He ponders what would have happened if they hadn’t left Korea or he had reconnected with her earlier, but says he loved her because “you’re you”, and you’re someone who leaves. He says Arthur is one who stays.
- Nora says NaYoung doesn’t exist here in NY, and in this life, she left her behind with HaeSung in that life.
- “There is something in our past lives because otherwise we wouldn’t be here together. But in this life, we don’t have the In-Yun to be that kind of person to each other”
- HaeSung says that Nora and Arthur have In-Yun
- As he gets in cab, he says: “what if this is a past life as well and we are already something else to each other in our next life? Who do you think we are then?” She replies she doesn’t know.
- She walks away, seeming to be unsure of the life she’s chosen, and cries in Arthur’s arms. Maybe she grieves her choices. But maybe she grieves her identity as NaYoung/Korean and questions her identity as Nora/American immigrant/wife. Struggle: Who is her authentic self?
- Identity: Nora’s conversation with husband about HaeSung: “He’s so Korean. Makes her feel so Korean and NOT Korean at the same time”
- Her identity was MOST at odds when she was in the bar with Korean childhood sweetheart and her American husband (who real speak/understand Korean) —— She was both NaYoung and Nora at the same time, yet authentically…which one?
- ****Interesting!! Beginning of movie, the review of her writing interestingly titled “The Long Journey of Rotting” which was an article/book about her immigration process! The long journey of rotting. Rotting!! Analogy to loss of her Korean identity as a cost of immigration, assimilation?? Interesting verbiage
Themes:
- Identify: child vs adult, Korean vs Korean/American immigrant,
- Authenticity? (not really ambition, even though her ambition is what impacted Nora cutting off contact with HaeSung for a time)
- Nora wanting to BE someone (uniqueness): wanting to win Pulitzer, Tony award
- HaeSung thinking he should not just be “ordinary” (“I have an ordinary job. I made an ordinary salary”) He thought as an only child, if he should marry, he should be “more”
- Melancholy, romantic, dramatic, emotional,
- Questioning, comparing past life/lives to present, trying to determine if present life is wanting/missing.
- “What if-ing”. Did I make right decisions? Take the right path? What would life have been if……?
- Costs/consequences vs benefits of life decisions, life paths; would the grass have been greener. Facing the consequences or costs of decisions/pathways. What’s gained and what’s lost with the choices we make and the identities we “choose” as we choose our paths
- Costs of ambitions
- What are the costs of immigration? What is gained vs what is lost? As NaYoung’s mother said “
- Identity: who am I really?
Note: I didn’t see Nora as a 3. Though there was some ambition to achieve (Pulitzer, Tony), she didn’t have the drive or obvious efficiency of a typical 3 or the concern for or manipulation of image often associated with 3s. And she admitted, when asked by HaeSung what her latest ambition for an award was, to have not thought about it for years. I saw it as a Type 4 film.
| wagner_type_four.pdf |