After Watching Detachment, I Finally Got It: You Can’t Save Everyone — But You Don’t Have to Give Up on Yourself
- Film
- Listening
- Detachment
A heavy film that still holds hope — listening isn’t rescue, but it can make someone feel less alone.
Keywords: Camus, detachment, education, listening, hope
It is a bleak film, but I would rather call it a film with hope: it does not promise you will be saved — it reminds you that you can still choose how to live.
01｜That opening line from Camus: detached from the self, yet present in the world
“Never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.” (Albert Camus)
I love this line because it names a hard-to-pin state so precisely: you see your pain, and you see yourself; you are no longer wholly swallowed by the pain, yet you are still in the world.
02｜Why it feels suffocating: a grayscale reality and a dull system
Detachment does not move on plot “payoffs.” It unfolds layers of reality. School, teachers, students, parents… everyone is hurt, and most of the time no one can truly catch anyone else. That is where the heaviness comes from.
03｜The powerlessness I saw: we are all ordinary people
Afterward I kept thinking: as humans we often feel an urge — to be the world’s savior. I have felt that too.
With time, reality settles in: no one is all-powerful. We ourselves are ordinary people living ordinary days. You may say you still have family and friends — but they also face hardship and happiness like yours. Who do they lean on? Often the answer is still: themselves.
04｜The “apple” metaphor: life hands you fruit; you learn how to eat it
I once wrote a metaphor: life (or time) hands us different apples. How you wash them, how you eat them — everyone has a method:
- some bite into a worm, curse their luck, and keep going;
- some feel sick and throw the whole thing away;
- some cut out the bad part and finish what remains.
No single way fits everyone. What they share is this: how that apple is finally handled is up to you.
05｜One line I took from Detachment: listening isn’t rescue, but it can ease loneliness
In this film, “education” often looks powerless. But “listening” still matters: it may not change the ending, yet it can briefly let someone feel — I was seen.
One line to close: It’s fine if you can’t save everyone. Just don’t abandon yourself along the way.
By Miaoqiu · Written Nov 2020