I found myself listening to Lana Del Rey again, by accident. A happy accident.
I don’t know what happens to me, but whenever I feel sad or begin to dissociate, some part of me takes the steering wheel and drives me back to Lana Del Rey.
It is not the sensuality, the depressive tone, or worse, the self-destructive feeling people often associate with her music. I have never seen Lana as a fragile woman who uses sensuality as her shield, or as a permanently depressed girlie. There is so much power in her songs, and I know that power has to come from experience.
When I dissociate, Lana doesn’t cheer me up. She doesn’t drag me out of sadness either. But somehow, the sadness suddenly has a shape. I can touch it. I can recognize what I’m feeling, or at least recognize myself inside it. Lana never ‘beautify’ her experiences before putting them into a song. Nothing is sterilized. Maybe that’s the power I keep hearing. That’s what makes her so… her.
And this time, it was Video Games. Then dun-dun-duuun~ Jin and Will appeared in my head.
In 3 Body Problem, “Video Games” is playing when Will walks in to buy a star for Jin. Almost his entire £20 million inheritance, gone. For a fucking star. Jin is the woman he has quietly loved for years, and Will himself is already dying from pancreatic cancer. I literally cried watching this scene. How can you love someone that deeply, keep quiet about it, then walk in somewhere and buy her a fucking £19.5 million star? AND never tell her you bought it for her? He somehow turns that feeling into an actual object floating in space. Damn, Will. You set the bar way too high.
But here’s the thing. Will does not exist. Jin does not exist either. At least, not in this perfectly written form. I don’t think the point of that scene is to go outside and manifest a real-life Will, or decide that every man should at least be like him. Bruh, nobody would survive that standard.
What hits me is simpler: love doesn’t always need to make a spectacle of itself. Which is funny because he literally buys a star. But Will doesn’t plan to tell Jin that he bought it, or how he feels about her. There is no performance around it.
So this is what I mean by the title. Be your own Jin. See yourself as someone worth choosing, protecting, maybe even worth buying a fucking star for. Then be your own Will too. Don’t sit around waiting for another person to prove it. Do something that costs you something. Money, time, pride, comfort, whatever. Love has to show up somewhere in what you actually do. Otherwise, it stays an idea.
“Love yourself” is usually delivered like a scented candle. Nice smell, pretty jar, but what the fuck am I supposed to do with it? I don’t always feel love for myself. Sometimes I just decide not to abandon myself. Maybe the feeling arrives later.
And this is why the star got me. The £19.5 million is insane, obviously, but what ruins me is that Will asks nothing from Jin. He buys the thing, puts Jin’s name on it, and refuses to put his own name anywhere near it. He isn’t trying to change her mind or make her choose him. The star is spectacular. Will isn’t performing.
I still think love can be complete even when the other person never understands what it meant. Complete inside the person who feels it, I mean. A relationship is different, obviously. That requires two people who actually know what the fuck is happening, plus communication, timing, consent, and all the annoying logistics of being human. But the feeling itself is yours. You decide what to do with it. You can say it, hide it, act on it, or let it die if it has to.
Will is like someone standing in a dim light, while Jin is someone so perfect that it hurts to love her. Still, hiding your love for a lifetime does not automatically make you brave. Silence can be restraint, yes, but it can also be fear. I don’t want to romanticize that part.
What I admire is the way Will never treats his feelings as a claim on Jin’s life. He never arrives with ‘I love you, therefore you should want me’. He knows she may choose someone else and build a life without him in the frame. It hurts, obviously. But he doesn’t shrink just because she might never choose him.
So no, being your own Will doesn’t require buying someone a £19.5 million star. Not even Elon Musk would do it. He loves himself too much. Being your own Will, to me, means knowing that your feeling is real without making it someone else’s obligation. You can love someone and still understand that their life is not arranged around your feelings. Sounds simple. Well it’s fucking not. It takes a colossal amount of bravery.
And then there’s Jin. She feels it too, but love is not the only thing happening in her life. The woman is trying to save humanity, for fuck’s sake. Will has unfortunately fallen in love with someone who has a slightly bigger problem than whatever is happening between them. Her head is going one way while her heart is annoyingly pointing somewhere else. She doesn’t solve it. She just keeps going.
Also, “be your own Will” doesn’t mean “need nobody.” That would be a completely different problem. Being your own Jin doesn’t mean acting like love is beneath you either. I can refuse to abandon myself and still want someone else to choose me. I can take care of myself and still need love that comes back. I don’t want to disappear while waiting for it. That’s the difference.
In “Video Games,” Lana is a woman devoted to a man. Then 3 Body Problem takes the same song and places it behind Will’s devotion to Jin. And now here I am, dragging it into my own life. To me, it has become the sound of a woman trying to show herself that she is worth the effort.
Maybe that’s why I keep going back to Lana whenever I dissociate. I don’t even know what I need yet, but apparently some part of me does. She takes the steering wheel, puts Lana on, and comes looking for me.
Maybe she is Will. Maybe the person she keeps looking for is Jin.
Apparently, both of them are me.
So yes. Be your own Will. Or Jin. Or both.
All stills © Netflix. Watch 3 Body Problem @ Netflix.
