the hunger games

I will freely admit that one of the reasons I didn't read The Hunger Games last summer when everyone was obsessing over it was that I hate appearing mainstream. I don't want to take the popular opinion of society and adopt it on my own; I don't want to get involved in a movement precisely because other people are doing it. I like being my own person and making my own decisions.

But the other reason I didn't want to read it was that I have an obsessive personality when it comes to fiction. I revisit books, movies and tv shows because I love the characters; because I sometimes think they're real; because I get a kick out of experiencing the same emotions over and over again (Harry Potter anyone?). I had heard that The Hunger Games was an emotionally-charged series and I knew that I should steer clear of it if I wanted to be able to sleep at night.

So when I picked it up last week to read it, I knew full well what I was getting myself into--but I couldn't stand to be left out of the conversations that were happening with greater frequency as the movie release approached. And I knew I couldn't go see the movie without reading the book as that would offend my literary nature.

Once I finished reading the book and watching the movie (both occurring last weekend), there I was in my obsessive state. I couldn't sleep for at least an hour as I mulled over thoughts of Peeta's motivations, Katniss's coldness and the implications they had for my life (and the rest of the books which I have yet to get my hands on). I just kept thinking of what they must have been feeling and wondered what could possibly move the characters from where they were at the end of the book to where they would be at the end of the series (it's already been told to me nbd).

I realized that I would have to put an end to this thinking before I started thinking that they were more real than my real life. The challenge this week for ReLENTless ACT:S of Sacrifice is to sacrifice what consumes you so my goal is to stop being consumed by The Hunger Games. I'm not tryna read the rest of the series in one day; I'll do it when I have the time and when I know it's ok for me to get lost in a fictional world for a day or two. But this will be hard...whenever my mind stops to wander around I end up thinking of the last interaction Peeta and Katniss had and the abundance of emotions that entailed. And here's the thing...I know it's a story, I know it's an overused plot device, I know the bigger implications are about society--and I think about those too, about the situation that the Capitol is in and how they don't know any better than to enjoy murder because that's how they were raised. Could any human be conditioned to that or do they, somewhere inside, know that it's wrong? Is there any room for absolutes in Panem? Or is it the relative decadence versus poverty that makes it all seem so bad?

So now that those thoughts are out there, maybe I can try and think about real life and real justice and real absolutes this week instead of a girl whose idea of radical is to honor an ally's death while ignoring a victim twenty feet away. She may have been sending a rebellious message to the Capitol but if you ask me, putting some flowers around that other kill would have been the coolest thing since Harry Potter "saved" Gabrielle Delacour. I guess Katniss doesn't have a hero complex, just a survival instinct.