Didn't move me much — 4 years ago
On the topic of relationships, I found Before Sunrise and Before Sunset much more relevant and touching.
We Don’t Live Here Anymore did have an interesting quote, by Terry, the wife who is no longer loved by her husband:
[Terry] You say, “You are what you do”? Who really believes that?
I mean, what does that mean?
Does that mean I’m a cook, an errand runner, a fucker, a goddamn cleaning lady?
Because if you, you bastard, lost all discipline and folded up, and turned drunk and got bald and lost everything, I’d love you.
I love you. You, Jack.
In that hypothetical situation, I think Terry would love Jack for the history between them, but if she met that Jack at that moment, for the first time, she wouldn’t look at him twice.
Imagine Terry would ask herself this question, called zero-based thinking:
“Would I have ever gotten started with this project, relationship, career, etc. if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I now know?”
By answering “Yes”, she condemns herself to a future identical to her dreadful present situation: unloved by her husband, ignored, criticized, cheated on. But still, she says Yes. Why? Beats me.
Hence, I don’t think that it’s sane to love a person for “who they are” even if they do terrible things. You’d actually love not that person, but a past version of them. “Is this the person I’ve married?” is the question that would arise in such situations, and the answer should be “Judging by their behavior, no.”
Philosophically speaking, we are what we do. To do is to act. The only way to interact with a person (except perhaps brain scans or brainwave manipulations), is through their actions. Any form of communication is an action as well. If one thinks something but acts otherwise, that’s hypocrisy or a mental disorder.
So yes, we are the totality of what we do. A philosophical movie that illustrates that very well, as opposed to the tautological idea that we are what we are, is Total Recall, where one character says:
You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.
