Synopsis
Drama Name: HOCK
[Hock] is a drama that reflects the daily life of a young adult in the current society. “Hock” is an ordinary Chinese name, which is quite often to be used by the Chinese. In the drama, the main actor was named Hock, and he was, like anybody else in this society, need to confront to series of interactions in the society, such as the relationship with his friends, colleagues, parents, girl friend, boss, etc. The drama focus on series of thoughts that flash into Hock minds, as well as his emotion while confronting to those situations. Eventually, Hock was overwhelmed by those difficulties and decided to commit suicide. After his death, his spirit was being rebirth to the demonic world, yet he was killed by a demon due to a conflict with a demon. Eventually, he re-birth again to the mouse kingdom, where he had few conversation with the mouse emperor. Both of the rebirth lives also focus on the contradict ideas that haunted inside Hock mind, as contradicting as in the ‘human’ Hock’s mind. The drama ended with the scene where Hock’s friends, relatives, girl friend, etc sorrowing, sad over his death, in front of Hock’s monument. The following paragraphs will briefly describe some of the main scenes played in the drama.
For the first few scenes, the drama described the background of Hock. Hock was just finished his study in college, and he was facing many “expectation pressure” from multiple parties while starting his career in the society. His parents expected him to return home frequently, his colleagues expected him to help them to complete all the work, his boss expected him to excel and perfect in all the task and his girl friend expected him to accompany her more often. Every people expected him to do better, instead much better, and keep reminding him that it was for his own good. All people around him seem to do well in the society, and he was stressed, frustrated, and inferior when he compares his performance with them.
The following scenes clarified that Hock actually dream of having a simple life and simple family, yet he seem to be flooded with the society expectation, keep urges him to do better than that. He feel that he was rejected by the society when he intend to just have a simple life and simple family, due to the society only accepted the “he” who is hardworking, and who will strive for the best in every aspects.
The scenes followed focus on the struggling thoughts in his mind. When Hock looked into the mirror, the people inside the mirror, who represent the ‘virtual him’ challenge her with all the contradict thoughts. The ‘virtual him’ keep asking for further clarifications from him, yet he was miserable in every aspects. Moreover, when his “virtual him” ask for confirmation to a certain extent, he was more likely to be more less confidence, and eventually changed his mind. For example, when his “virtual him” asked him repeatedly either his girl friend was happy when dating with him, initially he seem to be confidence that his girl friend was happy, yet eventually, he changed his mind after repeated questioning from the ‘virtual him’, self-confirmed that he seem able to notice the ‘tiny sorrow symptom’ from his girl friend’s smile. Thus, he further pushes himself into difficulties. Guilt, shame, worry, anger, frustration finally overpower him, and he finally committed suicide.
The last few scenes were focusing on the rebirth lives of Hock. Immediately after his suicide, he rebirth as a monster, and was killed by his peers (demon) due to conflicts among them. The conflict was Hock refused to disband his name “Hock”, while all of the monsters insisted that being a monster, no name should be remembered. It seems that the drama was indicating that Hock refused to release his status, while in a culture that ‘no status representation is required’. Later, he reborn as a mouse in a mouse kingdom, and few conversations held between the king and Hock. Upon the end of the drama, Hock asked few unsolved questions, and seem to be few of the most important questions for all of us as well, such as “why do men exists”, “what if we have gain all the things that we intended”, “why we need to follow the pre-existing script of society to live” and “why people intend to live, and afraid of dying”.
Reflection:
Firstly, Hock is considered to be the “typical” type personality in this society. He did not have any mental retardation, instead he could use his brain to think from multiple perspectives, allowing him to explore much deeper into his own thoughts. Besides, he did not seem to have any childhood traumas that probably drive him to crazy, instead his memories on his childhood were those guidance provided by the elders, who taught him to strive more hardworking in order to gain the status, material, wisdom which eventually will benefit him himself. Most of the people in the current society are influenced by these similar perceptions, and probably had self-asked those Hock’s unsolved questions to them. The main different between the norm of the society in contrast to Hock is probably the final action that he eventually committed, which most of society members are less likely to do it.
Personally, I think the best way to understand a person personality is to study his/her thinking paradigm, provided that he/she does not have any physical and biological defection. A people will be emotionally and mentally healthy if he can think in the ‘correct’ way, else he may feel overpower by the negative emotions and act in negative ways, eventually lead to self destruction as the Hock had did.
The tendency for Hock to think too much is not an issue, instead thinking thoroughly and actively is very beneficial. It is the ‘direction’ of thoughts that matter, not the activeness of the mind. Instead, to a certain extent, I think that Hock at least take the initiative to find the answers for those questions, and comparatively more initiating than those alive people that do not even think of those questions, or refuse to think about them. Those people who seek only maintain the primitive requirements to stay alive, without hope or dream in their life, could be analogize as dead as the suicidal Hock. Hock should learn how to think and plan without emotion, just like what we do when solving for a mathematics problems. The more emotion involve in a thinking process, the more likely the people will be charge by emotion complexity, and probably degrade the outcome of the thinking process.
Besides, being hardworking or striving towards the goal is not the root of the stresses, frustrations, depressions; the root of these emotions is to have the virtual line that encompasses the ‘self’. Immediately after the establishment of the perimeter of the self, the contrast between ‘you’ and ‘I’ formed spontaneously. Instantly, the hope of becoming the ‘most successful’ suddenly becomes a competency. In the drama, Hock was charge by the emotion complexities whereby he needs to compete with millions of people in order to success, as taught and emphasized by the elders during his childhood. If Hock could view the world as being shared with everyone, or broaden the perimeter of the self, then at least he would view that other people successes as his own success, other people happiness as his own happiness, etc. Furthermore, if his self perimeter includes all the human being on the earth, then all successes will be considered as share with himself, and there are no conditions for those negative emotions to arise, since the root of competency is base on the differentiation between ‘you’ and ‘I’.
Moreover, even if Hock maintains the perimeter of self, he still can be able to live normally with moderate emotion fluctuation, provided that he needs to accept the nature of the mind itself. In the drama, Hock tended to think from multiple perspectives and considered over many possibilities of consequences. The problem of Hock was when he thought of some pessimistic consequences, he will further be dragged into the valley of sadness by those thoughts. He tends to unconsciously, and unintentionally manipulate by those thoughts. Human mind seem able to think without limit, from the extreme optimistic to the extreme pessimistic, yet it is our consciousness that make the decision, and carry out the subsequent action that affect the result. Sadly, Hock en-realized all his pessimistic thoughts, and subsequently, fears create fears, he denied himself eventually. If Hock knew that it is normal for his mind to contemplate on pessimistic thoughts, and there is no reason to angry or frustrate over the mind itself since the mind is just functioning in its natural way, then probably Hock would able to live normally, instead of ended in self-destruction. Moreover, pessimistic thoughts serve the purpose to increase the awareness of one-self, those thoughts are indicating that something need to be done in order to avoid those pessimistic outcomes. In short, there is always space exists between the current and future, and it is the space where freedom lay inside it. Thus, pessimistic is indicating for opportunistic optimistic outcome, and neither fear nor frustration is suitable to be applied when thinking pessimistically.
Lastly, Hock did not able to contemplate on the preciousness of the life. If he could able to see the inter-relating relations between the world and him, he would probably become one of the happiest people in the world. To raise Hock to the twentieth, there are many contributing factors. To raise a baby to young adulthood, the parents themselves need to lives for years healthily, and eventually they can meet together and give birth to Hock. Besides, those foods that consumed by Hock all along is due to the hard-work of the farmers, and if we consider the background of those farmers, it seem that the inter-relating relations is too infinite, marvellous to be describe here. If Hock managed to study the inter-relating relationship in detail, he would able to surpass all the negative emotions. In short, when a person is able to contemplate on these inter-relating connections in detail, then there is no space for negative emotions to arise.
In summary, Hock was a thinker, but an inexperience thinker. He is not confident, and often kept himself in emotional complex dilemma. However, all of the complexity that faced by Hock can solved if he is taught on how to percept his own life correctly and healthily. Maybe the society successfully educated Hock on the skill to earn a living, yet the society fail to enlighten Hock on the way to live happily.
Frankly yet compassionately, I do think the best way to understand a person’s personality is by describing and analyzing his world-view, as every actions, emotions, etc are just the masks of those world views. Hock was the typical example of the youngsters that stray aimlessly in the society nowadays, probably one from the thousand-millions. Even that Hock does not have any future, yet he may be our future, if we still maintain the level of awareness as low as the current level.
