HopePaul

It’s quite clear what Midsommar aims to address, but I want to try and go deeper. At the beginning of the film, we are shown the protagonist, Dani, who suffers a trauma, losing her entire family. Dani's boyfriend wanted to leave her, but after the tragedy, he couldn't bring himself to do it. This is already interesting, as we notice throughout the film that she becomes a burden to him. We see that he is forced to invite her on his trip to Sweden; she doesn't want to get angry because he hid it from her. Dani doesn't want to be alone and goes to great lengths to be appeased, and on the other hand, he can't bring himself to tell her the truth because she seems depressed. We reach the point where the group of friends leaves for this trip to Sweden to study a community that celebrates Midsommar, a Scandinavian festival. The community is clearly a cult. As soon as they arrive, they take mushrooms for a psychedelic trip. At first, it seems to go well, even though they have no one to guide them through the trip. In fact, the mere word "family" is enough to send the protagonist, Dani, into a bad trip. I have had the chance to experience this firsthand, and I think the director captured that sensation very well. She tries to escape, both literally and metaphorically, from the bad thoughts and sadness she carries, but without success. The group arrives and is warmly welcomed. We are shown the tranquility and peace in which this cult lives. The cult appears to be at the Blue level of Spiral Dynamics; they have a conformist mindset, the individual is sacrificed for the good of the community, and tradition must be respected for any reason. Trying to be briefer, I want to focus on how this cult manages to prosper, because in this case, they are very closed off; they don't accept just anyone. The cult is very selective about who their followers must mate with outside the community. Dani is chosen as the May Queen. She is at a weak moment in her life; all she seeks is comfort, love, and a family. And that is precisely what they give her: they don't make her suffer alone, but instead, they suffer together as a single entity. This is my analysis. Let me know what you think and what your opinion of this film is.

Do you think that most of us, no matter how hard we try, will always be mediocre?

I hope this video helps other people, as it did for me, to better understand what is wrong with our society.

@Leo Gura Hi Leo, I'm asking if you can include translated subtitles, like on YouTube, in your course because unfortunately I haven't learned English well yet. Thanks

Just a little warning, I'm actually Italian and not very good at translating, I used Chatgpt, so please forgive me if you don't understand something. I can start by saying that I'm 23 years old and going through a tough period, or at least I hope it's just a period, where I can't live like I used to anymore. I'm not exactly sure what brought me to this state, but I've been trying to figure it out for a while and I think I have, which is why I'm going to talk about it here with you. It started about a year ago, but probably even longer. I just noticed it a bit too late. What I believe I suffer from is anxiety, which didn't allow me to breathe naturally. I was always completely tense, couldn't relax, constantly had pain in my shoulders and back, felt constantly cold, couldn't concentrate, had a constant headache, and couldn't live in the present. Nothing I did brought me satisfaction and I was completely in my thoughts, making me feel constantly tired. All of this then led to complications at work, in my friendships, and I didn't even think I could have a relationship. The only thing that relaxed me and gave me some relief was masturbation. For almost a year I continued to live in this situation, I didn't want to ask anyone for help because it seemed like a "weak" thing to do, and since I had gone through other tough periods when I was younger, and had managed to overcome them, I felt like I could overcome this one without anyone's help. Actually, the tough periods I was able to overcome were thanks to Spirituality. With Spirituality I had managed to overcome my victim mentality, to open my mind more and to have fantastic experiences both in terms of awakening and in daily life. In fact, there was a period in my life of continuous growth, where I slept 7-8 hours, meditated, exercised, read, stopped smoking both weed and cigarettes, was more extroverted and my friendships were growing. When suddenly, for no apparent reason, I became lazy (I think backlash from the ego?) and this led me to lose many positive habits and to resume old habits. From there, I could no longer enter that state where I really felt alive. In the last year, as things started to worsen, I continued on my spiritual path, but without any real practice, only collecting information, thinking that the more I knew, the more "Enlightened" I would be. The opposite was true, and I could now say that I was falling asleep even more. Today I have come to think that the Spirituality that had saved me at the time has become an obsession or a spiritual bypass for many of my shortcomings, such as my relationship with girls, which I continue to avoid, and never being able to create a relationship. In the last 3 months, I resumed positive habits, such as quitting smoking, exercising, limiting masturbation and sweets, but all of this didn't get me anywhere, I still had the same anxiety problems. Since I started to realize that maybe focusing too much on Spirituality and not enough on my daily life was the problem, I tried to eliminate anything related to Spirituality for a while and dedicate myself to the development of my life. It seems that day by day I see some improvements. Reading on the Forum about other similar situations, I felt the desire to write on the forum and I also feel a bit better. I hope some of you can give me some advice if you've been through situations like this. Thank you