I can flesh this out better later, but I'll quick hit it now before I fall asleep in my chair...
The "something deeper" that's going on, I think, started with was what he was made to believe about himself (being a bastard child of a whore) and what that was supposed to mean.
Everything he has done since, has arisen out of that - and his resistance to it.
Definitely. It annoys me when people describe Don as just some selfish, delinquent asshole who doesn't care about anything. He's the opposite, which is why he's in the position he's in now, self-medicating his depression.
What I think Don desperately needs to discover is that we are not "our stories" - not the story that is told to us by others about ourselves, or the stories we tell about ourselves to ourselves and to others. Two parts: A) I think he does realize this on some level (he said as much in his pitch to the dog food lady), but... B) Good luck with that. Because it's really easy to say, but IMO impossible to do. The earlier that dialog starts (from conception for Don)
( ... )
I think it's important to acknowledge the part that Betty used to play in Don's sense of his own identity, and how much the divorce has set him adrift. The family in the suburbs made him the Big Strong Man; no matter what he did (who he slept with, how much he drank) he still had that anchor of respectability to rely on. He can no longer tell that story to himself, the one where he's the husband-hero.
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The "something deeper" that's going on, I think, started with was what he was made to believe about himself (being a bastard child of a whore) and what that was supposed to mean.
Everything he has done since, has arisen out of that - and his resistance to it.
Definitely. It annoys me when people describe Don as just some selfish, delinquent asshole who doesn't care about anything. He's the opposite, which is why he's in the position he's in now, self-medicating his depression.
What I think Don desperately needs to discover is that we are not "our stories" - not the story that is told to us by others about ourselves, or the stories we tell about ourselves to ourselves and to others. Two parts: A) I think he does realize this on some level (he said as much in his pitch to the dog food lady), but... B) Good luck with that. Because it's really easy to say, but IMO impossible to do. The earlier that dialog starts (from conception for Don) ( ... )
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