always relating

so we were created to relate. we know that. and yet it still amuses me how far that goes. whether we are making friends or giving advice or watching movies, we always want to relate.

sometimes we mistake sameness for closeness. we feign sameness when the slightest similarity pops up. to better relate to people we convince ourselves that we are alike.

or when we dish out advice, what we say might have more to do with ourselves and our own experiences than it does with the person's actual situation. how many times have you listened to someone give advice only to think, 'they're saying that because of what they went through and it actually has next to nothing to do with what i'm talking about ...' well, if that hasn't happened to you, it has happened to me and now i am doing the same thing - projecting my own experiences onto you and expecting you to relate, HA.

when we watch a television show or a movie we naturally pick out a character to relate to. we compare ourselves to the characters and find ourselves in them, somehow, in some way.

sometimes our friends will even do that for us. "chelsea we just watched the funniest movie and the one character totally reminded us of you." "really, what movie?" "the losers!" needless to say i felt real good about my friends going to the movies without me and finding a character like me in something called the LOSERS.

no matter who i am reading about i find something that i relate to. maybe that's what sells articles - writers getting a message across that everyone reading can relate to. publishers portraying celebrities in a way that we as the audience can relate to them. aren't autobiographies and biographies consistently the bestselling genre? i could be making that up because i like them.

emma stone is one of my favorite young actresses. she's about my age and she is smart and hilarious and beautiful. so basically by comparing myself to her i am saying that we are long lost twins separated at birth. minus the fact that we look nothing alike and by "about my age" she is one year younger.
but when i read in vanity fair that emma stone's grandmother is from lancaster, pennsylvania my jaw dropped. she had just been visiting her and picked up some strawberry-rhubarb jam at a local farmer's market and was making vanilla ricotta cupcakes.
NO WAY. because i am from lancaster and i shop at farmer's markets and i just made chocolate peanut butter brownies. and when i declared that i make the best chocolate peanut butter brownies my mom looked at me and said, "chelsea, they're from a box." and i said, yes but are there any left? there weren't and my point was proven. and the role of the youngest child as incorrigible was once again confirmed.

her close relationship with her parents reminded me of myself too. she used to persuade them with powerpoint presentations. i never went the powerpoint route, but i definitely nerded it up growing up (do you like how i put that in the past tense? as if the nerdiness and growing up has ended? it hasn't, shh.) and in eighth grade i even circulated a petition across school to get shorter classes. i only use that example because it was one of my cooler nerd moments. well, mildly cooler.

if you combined my nerd power with emma stone's, not to mention her celebrity status, i can only imagine what could be accomplished. if nothing else maybe she would let me tag along the next time she hosts SNL. frankly i'd even settle for sitting in the audience.

i'd also love to star in an amazing movie like "crazy stupid love" with her and steve carrell and ryan gosling. oh i can't wait to watch that movie again, i loved it! i could totally relate to her character and to the whole movie in my own way. go see it and let me know whatcha think.

"Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless,
collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema."
[Andrei Tarkovsky]