I know I did.
You're trying to keep her alive. You can't let her go.
You don't understand. These are moments I regret, the memories I have to change.
Your guilt defines her. It's what powers her. But you are not responsible for the idea that destroyed her, and if we are going to succeed in this, you have to forgive yourself...and you're going to have to confront her.
It's not very often that I find a story I'm going to like from the snapshot you get in a movie trailer. I did, however, the moment I got my first glimpse of Inception.
To be fair, you can't glean the entire story in a two-minute blurb (though most movie trailers nowadays love to try, to my chagrin) and Inception is such a dense movie to unpack as it is that in watching it multiple times I've finally begun to pick up on the relationship which appeals to me the most.
The one between Ariadne and Cobb.
In the last week of studying Cognitive Behavior techniques, one of the major components of it is differentiating positive and negative emotions which we use as part of coping with stressors. One of the most profound and dangerous ones is guilt.
I have guilt over a great many things, and like Cobb, the heaviest burdens come with the knowledge that actions of mine hurt the people in this life I care about the most. That guilt has been a part of who I am for close to 25 years in some cases, while others are much fresher. Either way, I've carried it as best I could with the understanding that I couldn't be free of it until I made amends, and if that meant waiting for weeks, months, even years to do so, then so be it. Such is the price you pay for a clear conscience.
Why Ariadne matters to Cobb is not because of her skill as an architect, but because she brings a new element to Cobb's life, learning to let go of the guilt he carries for Mal.
Whereas guilt is a harsh and unyielding emotion, regret is actually healthier. Even though regretting something means you still feel bad about the mistakes you make, it doesn't make you spend your time beating yourself up over them. It doesn't make you any less determined to right a wrong, if the opportunity presents itself, but it doesn't keep you awake at night reliving the wrong in your mind either.
For a long time I was sure guilt and regret were the same thing, but in reality they aren't. Regret allows for a broader level of perspective that can include forgiveness of both yourself and others. Guilt doesn't. It provides only the narrow focus on the self and your own perceived culpability, however accurate it may seem to you based on what you know.
As much as Cobb needed someone like Ariadne to perform inception on Fisher, he also needed her in a way to perform it on himself. To understand that he could let go of everything he felt for Mal, even though he'd still love her for the rest of his life.
To be honest, I'm still not very good at being regretful over being guilty, and that's going to take more time and more work.
The difference between the two may be subtle, but if it means being able to live with the things that have haunted you this far, then it's a worthwhile one as well.
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