The movie "Finger Sucking Boy" truly presents the process of the protagonist Justin's establishment of identity to the audience, allowing us to see and feel the state we are experiencing or deja vu. It is a film about the establishment of identity. It not only records the confusion and confusion of 17-year-old Justin in adolescence, but also intersperses the continuous exploration of self by adults.
Exploration requires a certain carrier. People must enter a certain situation or state and face different complex situations. Changing themselves is the first prerequisite for exploration. The protagonist Justin has undergone four changes in total. At the beginning, he was just an ordinary high school student with finger sucking quirks, introversion, timid and sensitive. Afterwards, Justin was misdiagnosed as ADHD due to the quirk of finger sucking. Under the action of the medication to treat symptoms, he turned into an arrogant and arrogant debating genius, which won the attention and honor of everyone. However, when the success achieved through drugs eventually failed, a failed debate made Justin decide to abandon the debate. He began to be exposed to marijuana, experimenting, and his relationship with his family became cold and tense. After experiencing everything, Justin was admitted to the university of his dreams. Although he still couldn't get rid of the habit of sucking his fingers, he embarked on a hopeful journey to pursue his ideals. Justin went from ordinary to successful, from success to depravity, and from depravity derives hope. These four changes and experiences are the process by which he explores and tries to obtain identity, and each process has a different state.
Different people have four different states in the process of acquiring identity, namely, identity gain, identity delay, identity premature closure, and unity disorder. Identity acquisition refers to investing in certain values, beliefs and goals after a period of exploration; identity delay, that is, only exploration is made without investment; identity premature closure refers to the lack of exploration Under the circumstances, investment is made; identity chaos is a state of indifference with neither exploration nor investment. The four stages of Justin correspond to the four states of obtaining identity.
At first Justin was in a state of identity confusion, he lacked a sense of direction in his life. Although he participated in the debate team, he did not take part in the debate seriously. He liked the girls in the class, but because of inferiority and not daring to expose himself, he had not developed yet and ended up with a breakup. Coupled with the excitement of failing the ideal university, Justin is exhausted. He didn't have the ability to deal with these things, he didn't know the reason for the failure, and he was in a state of chaos and stagnation.
In the helpless and hopeful mood, Justin slowly enters a state of premature homosexuality. He chose to invest in certain values and goals without exploring things. He did not analyze and reflect on his unsatisfactory life state, nor did he have the ability to understand the reasons. He could only decide what changes to make for himself through the values of others. Justin accepted the opinion of the authority and his father’s aversion to his finger sucking behavior. His father believed that finger sucking was an absolutely unacceptable habit. He also believed that his little quirk was unacceptable and must be changed. . Justin also accepted the judgment of his teachers and doctors. The teachers and doctors determined that his introverted, absent-minded, irritable, and blatantly rushing out of the classroom behavior was a manifestation of ADHD. On the contrary, Justin suddenly understood. He felt that it was just the cause of ADHD. It turned out that bad habits and personality can be changed only by taking medicine. How simple it is. He didn't realize that his behavior was only the result of depression and depression. He accepted the ready-made identity that the authority helped him choose, the obedient taking medicine; the obedient to participate in the debate; the obedient to get the ranking. Justin quickly devoted himself to the two things of taking medicine and debating, but he didn't explore it. He didn't think about whether these values of adults are suitable for him. When the teacher saw that he became self-inflated and arrogant because of his repeated awards, he asked him: "What have you learned?" He only replied: "I learned how to win", and simply "winning" is worthless , He has not actually made a change of intrinsic value. Justin has been successful in his debate career, but what this success brings to him is only unknowingly satisfying desires and self-righteous arrogance. Success without sublimation and meaningless is not true success. Questions about him follow. The teacher no longer appreciates him, saying that he is loose, domineering, lack of self-control, and there is no previous harmony between the family members, and he becomes nervous because of Justin's arrogance. Justin began to think about his current situation. He knew that his achievements were the effects of drugs. Drugs made him quick thinking and concentrated, but they also had great side effects. Those prescription drugs were equivalent to drugs and eroded his life.
After Justin decided to give up drugs and debate, he entered a state of delayed identity. He began to spontaneously want to change himself, want to change to a life state of his own choice, find the values and goals of life, and make attempts. Justin found his former girlfriend. They smoked marijuana together and enjoyed the pleasure of sex together. He felt that he had changed and he was in love. At the same time, he believed that his mother was cheating and believed that his mother's love for the family and himself was false. He began to reject his mother and hated his father's cowardice. The connection with the family seemed to be getting farther and farther. But these thoughts were uncertain guesses, and he didn't know the truth. Until the truth is revealed and the exploration is over, Justin will not enter the final state of identity attainment. His immature view of feelings believes that he is in love, and he feels that he has found a meaningful existence. But the truth is often not as expected. Justin's so-called girlfriend just treats him as an experiment, just trying to accumulate experience for himself and make himself "mature". The truth made him understand that he has never been in love. Unilateral emotions are not called love. He has explored and tried, but he has never been involved (in love), nor has he had the opportunity to be involved. This state of "delay or wait-and-see" is a state of delayed identity. Individuals are only in the process of trying to explore, but what is the carrier to explore, and what has been explored is not clear.
However, the exploration has slowly approached the truth, approaching the state of obtaining identity. Justin knew that the love he thought was not true; he knew that his mother was not cheating, and that his mother’s love for every member of the family was beyond his imagination; he also learned from his young brother that he had always regarded himself as self. The center ignores the feelings of others and does not see the concern of family members. These truths made Justin relieved, sighed, and introspected and integrated. At the same time, the stimulus from the outside came again and fortunately, Justin received an admission notice from his ideal university, which means that he has the opportunity to realize his ideals, while also facing separation from his family. When separated from his family at the airport, Justin's sadness and the two emotions of expectation coexisted. He had firm values for his family and made his goal clear. On the plane, he dreamed of becoming a news anchor. Everyone who knew him watched his success on the other side of the TV. He was recognized by everyone. This moment is only a temporary state of his identity acquisition, and it is also an important first step in the process of establishing identity in adolescence.
The end of the movie here is not to say that Justin has successfully established identity and will definitely succeed in the end and realize his dream. For Justin who has not entered the society, establishing identity is a continuous task. He is bound to go through such explorations, only with different intensity and different directions.
The establishment of identity is often the main problem faced by adolescence, and it is an important process for adolescents to develop a sound personality. Eriksson said, “This sense of unity is also an increasing self-confidence, an inner continuity and sense of identity (a person’s psychological self) formed in past experiences. If this The self-feeling is commensurate with how a person feels in the minds of others, and it is obvious that this will add splendid color to a person's life." The acquisition of identity is the main achievement of adolescent personality development, and it is also the first step for an individual to become a happy and happy adult. But this step is not easy. The contradictions and confusion experienced in it will bring a strong sense of despair and emptiness to the teenagers. If these negative emotions have been suppressed and cannot be positively converted and released, then there may be unpredictable the result of.
Not only teenagers, but even some adults face such contradictions and confusions. Just like the dentist in the movie, he is already an adult, but he is constantly improving himself, wanting to determine his position and values. After exploration and integration, the dentist said, "Don't think that I have found the answer. The important thing is to be able to live without an answer."
Faced with a complex and changing environment, everyone cannot guarantee that they can be loyal to themselves from beginning to end; they cannot guarantee that their knowledge of themselves in any environment is fixed from beginning to end, and sometimes people feel that they suddenly don’t know themselves. Now, this is actually a signal and opportunity for self-improvement. Self-exploration is a life-long work, but unlike the special period of adolescents, this is the first exploration of adolescents. Before that, they have not established an independent personality. This is an important and dangerous period. Self-exploration in adolescence can make them confused, they may easily listen to unsuitable opinions from others, or they may avoid responsibility and reality because of fear.
Teenagers sometimes reject the concern of family members and cut off the original close ties in the family, but after all, they are in an immature and unindependent period and need family support. If family members can maintain a certain degree of intimacy with them and become a "safe base" for them to explore the world and self, and at the same time give them a certain degree of freedom and allow them to express themselves, this is the best support for the establishment of identity among young people.
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