How do We Know We’ve Changed? White Lotus and Becoming a Better Person, Whatever that is.

This week I finished watching White Lotus. Yes, I know the show came out ages ago and no one is talking about it anymore, but I'm a busy person, and so I didn't get to watch it, or write about it until now. The White Lotus is a limited-series on HBO that focuses on the high-end luxury resort of the same name located in Hawaii, and the interactions between its staff and the wealthy guests who visit the hotel. It is equal parts cringy, suspenseful, heartbreaking, and hilarious, centering on guests who at times attempt to be woke to their privilege and advantages, but in time slip back into the complacency that wealth and huge amounts of resources can afford you.

Like an American version of Parasite, it's hard at times to know who is taking advantage of whom; is it the guests who use their immense wealth as a tool to get what they want, or wax depressed on the incredible burden of wealth while not even acknowledging the labor of those immediately around them? Is it the college age girls who read books about colonialism whilst lazily exploiting their rich parents, or the surrounding staff. The most painful part is the glimmers you see of realization, and self-knowledge that peek out; the acceptance and understanding that 'yes, I hold immense privilege and power,' and there is an opportunity to use it that just floats gently by. Tonya, the wealthy socialite who has come to the resort to heal and let go of her mother's death; leans on the spa manager Belinda for emotional support, while bribing her along with the promise of helping her open her own wellness center. She is aware of herself enough to know she is deeply insecure and reaches for temporary romantic safety over actual self-reflection, and yet when push comes to shove, she chooses to pursue a romantic interest that she knows will most likely end up in heartache rather than doing the harder work of helping Belinda achieve her dreams. Paula tries to help Kai rebalance the historic injustices that have harmed his family and taken their land by proposing a plan that ultimately ruins his life. When she has opportunities to own up to her part in it, she instead chooses to read books about deconstructing racism, comforting herself with academic self-righteousness over concrete action. In all their own ways, they are confronted with their own issues and the weight of their privilege and the potential good, or harm, it can do. When faced with situations where they can learn and grow, they instead choose complacency and stillness.

The show is scathing, painful to watch, and yet thoroughly consuming. It forces us to confront our own privilege and power, and see how the ways in which we move through the world can knowingly or unknowingly impact others. It demonstrates that empty gestures are often just as dangerous or harmful as actual actions, and most of all, I think the show asks us, how do we know if we've ever actually changed? All the resort guests go home feeling like they've learned some sort of important truth, and perhaps they even feel like they've learned an important lesson, but how do we know that they, or we, have actually changed?

I was confronted with this a couple of weeks ago when an ex asked me whether I felt like I had properly processed our breakup, or if I had moved on to soon. The lines are gray when you are in multiple relationships simultaneously. Polyamory means the support of a community when you are hurt or grieving, but perhaps it also means that sometimes you don't do the heart work that can be accomplished when you are alone. What are the important things you learn as you move through life, and how do you know that you've applied those lessons? Sitcoms are shows all about how people will never change. Despite how many seasons they air, what makes them hilarious and bingeworthy is the inability of the main characters to adapt or truly transform themselves. In mythology, we learn all about characters such as Tantalus who, no matter how hard he reaches, cannot reach the tree branch above him bearing fruit, or the pool of water below him; thus being cursed with an eternity of deprivation. We also have Sisyphus, who rolled a large boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down once it neared the top for eternity. In many ways, the idea of eternity or unchanging, is itself a form of punishment, like the idea of hell, or the restlessness of a vampire; someone who is not alive and yet cannot die. We are fascinated by things that cannot change, and yet the world around us is constantly changing. We aspire to growth and yet find ourselves making the same mistakes over and over; falling for the same people, reaching for the same unhealthy coping mechanisms, and more.

Often it feels like it takes something catastrophic to change us for good; something to really shake our foundations. As demonstrated by Shane in The White Lotus however, sometimes even that doesn't break through to us. And Rachel is a perfect example of someone who wants so badly to change, and still finds herself absolutely incapable of doing so. She knows that she CANNOT change, and will not, even if the thought makes her absolutely despise herself.

So how do we know we've changed? Maybe it's that we act differently when we are put in the same situations that test us before. Maybe you no longer yell in arguments, but speak calmly. Maybe you are kinder where you used to get frustrated, or maybe you see need where you previously would've ignored it. We don't know that we've changed until maybe even the surrounding circumstances do, or the people. Maybe it's when we are confronted with bits of the past that we see how we've grown older, or added a couple more rings to our trunks. Or maybe we ask the people around us, trusting that they will be brutally honest. Maybe you just hope you're a good person, and you start spending the rest of your life desperately trying to prove it.