No One Is Innocent

Mr & Mrs Smith, It Ends With Us & Savages... What happens when fire, water & paradox all want the same girl

Everyone knows Mr & Mrs Smith is my favorite romance movie…

… y’all also know how often I call the digital economy (the one I’ve been working & writing in for the last 7 years or so) the New Hollywood…

So I’m gonna explain how this whole thing works using storylines from the OG scene… & (to no one’s surprise, cuz yes hi hello, it me)… I’m gonna do it through the lens of vibes. Because feminine & masculine energy move through quite literally everything.

Yin does not exist without Yang. Anima doesn’t exist without Animus.

We’re gonna start with the gossip from my favorite… Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie!… & dive into what was happening on a deeper level.

Fire That Answers Itself (Mr & Mrs Smith)

Fans saw betrayal. Tabloids shouted “he’s trading up!” Jennifer was humiliated. Angelina was pedestalized & demonized. & yeah, sure, that’s true on the surface. But the deeper story was an anima story, not a beauty contest or morality debate.

Brad wasn’t just leaving Jennifer. He was chasing the part of himself he’d abandoned in being with her. (I go on side quests with this concept in my mini series You Don’t Become Obsessed With A Woman on Substack notes.) Angelina embodied his un-integrated fire.

We all know this move… it’s ancient.

You can be in the safest bond, but the part of your psyche that doesn’t feel alive keeps calling. Call it shadow, chaos, temptation. The hunger of desire never quiets.

Aniston was safe. Angelina was fire. Brad wasn’t just falling in love on set… he was surrendering to the shadow he couldn’t repress anymore. It’s the other side of the coin women experience with the “nice guy”… It’s conflicting when you got something that checks all the boxes, but doesn’t make you feel.

That’s why the rich guy who thinks provision is enough, still loses his wife to the pool boy… Even if only in her fantasies. Chemistry is truth in motion. It writes the next chapter of reality, real or imagined.

This story was about integration, not control… & like always, once the fire is chosen, the other polarity inevitably emerges. Later, gossip turned to Angelina needing safety & stability. Deeper inside their connection, Brad met the feminine integrating back towards home.

This isn’t just Hollywood…

At work, in a friend group, or in romance… you’ve seen these archetypes play out in real time. When a man sees a woman’s depth & chaos, or a woman sees the capacity to conquer in a man, energy shifts. The psyche always demands wholeness.

The Fantasy of Control (Reynolds, Scarlett & Lively)

Now compare Brad’s story with Ryan Reynolds. Both men move towards integration.

Scarlett Johansson was too sovereign. Too powerful. Too much her own animus integrated. Reynolds couldn’t dominate her… so he pivoted to Blake Lively.

Blake at the time embodied the “sweet housewife” archetype. The contained anima. The feminine energy he could control. The perfect reflection of that part of himself & his relationship with it… but control is always temporary. Energy moves. & when it does, whoever bet on stillness gets exposed.

Lively returned to work hungry to be more than mother & wife, & his fantasy cracked. He didn’t want the anima to integrate. She played a role well for him… until she didn’t.

When I scrolled past the Baldoni stuff from the set of It Ends With Us, it revealed things about the intimacy level in their connection to see Reynolds shook. Lively was in the wild, where the truth is reflected: she’s more than just his prize. He probably sensed her attraction to being responded to by the sexual marketplace outside the home, & looks like it drove him insane. Notice how he exerts control over the whole thing the tabloids cover. You could call it protection but there’s a vibe… You’d think two hot actors who play roles like this were more secure, & you’d be wrong. Jealousy is predictable when your prize is suddenly open to the feedback of the wild. If there’s a lack of security, thrown out into the wild, that’s pretty much a bomb waiting to blow.

The surface gossip was “Scarlett was too much, Blake was perfect.” The psyche story was Reynolds resisted integration. He chose control until it got tested or collapsed.

I’m no stranger to this archetype… One man tries to contain fire. Another tries to apprentice it. Neither is innocent. I’m not & neither are you. We all risk looking like villains in someone else’s storyline bc wholeness is complex. But attraction is nothing to demonize in my opinion. What gets suppressed grows.

Intimacy rooted in freedom is way favorable to compliance rooted in fear. When your partner chooses you with real or imagined options, that’s life responding to the fact you have something in demand, & it validates the truest loyalty alive. I’ve shared my thoughts on how society would be better if everyone was a flirt.

When someone doesn’t have options, are they making a choice?

Savages: The Paradox of Holding Both

& then there’s Savages.

Lively’s central character “O” is remembered as the girl with two lovers. The audience flattens her into slut jokes. Super fair tbh, lol. She’s having sex with two men the entire movie… But on a deeper level, this psyche story is about paradox. What happens when one feminine energy holds space for two archetypes, simultaneously?

Chon was fire… restless, aggressive & sharp.
Ben was water… steady, devotional & sensitive.

O holds both at once. Chon integrates softness, Ben integrates edge. Her presence is the force multiplier. She mirrors each man into becoming more whole… The anima isn’t cheating when it holds paradox until it reshapes the field. It provokes integration until the masculine energies themselves Become, & the decision of what can last is made.

& yes I know this path personally. At the risk of conjuring images in your head, I’ll say it’s been a wild ride to say the least. Lol. Without my intention, my energy tends to serve as a catalyst to integration by mirroring “lack” in a “container.” I’ve sparked it in men competing professionally. In women who start competing with me. In circles that break down with paradox at the center. I’ve lived it in romances where devotion learns edge, & danger learns safety… It sounds powerful but it is a burden. A pattern I try to avoid but is a natural response to my energy. When you are the paradox, you become the stage where other energies unconsciously wrestle their own integration.

Obviously I’m not writing an essay against monogamy. If you’re not mature enough to comprehend that without this disclaimer… please unsubscribe now lol. I’ll be writing about even tougher metaphors to consider when it comes to your humanity.

All Parties Are Guilty of Something

One masculine resisted integration. The other surrendered to it in the shadows. The feminine held paradox until it reshaped everyone in her field… None of us are innocent. Not me. Not them. Not you reading this.

Every psyche finds itself inside these triangles:
energetically, archetypally, metaphorically.

You’re either the one who resists, the one who chases, or the one who holds the paradox. The surface-level gossip is always shallow. The psyche story is always deeper.

& if you’ve ever been in my orbit, you probably already know which one you’re living. We’re all mirrors & we’re all thieves. Every archetype steals something while giving something else back. The tide doesn’t ask. It demands fire & water coexist or drown.

Paradox isn’t a forever stage… it’s an initiation. A mirror that demands we integrate the parts we’d rather reject. There’s usually a field where different energies reveal themselves. Usually in sequence, sometimes in memory, but never without some sorta “death” or sacrifice. Polarity is demanding… but the fire of alchemy doesn’t pull up to burn everything down. It shows up to see who can build something real from the ashes. Cuz devotion without an edge gets too comfy. & an edge without devotion turns into chaos... Integration is the ecstasy we’re all after.

So don’t ask me which way the tide is turning. Don’t ask me whether edge wins or devotion holds. I’ve been on my porqué no los dos shit for years. My whole life has been one loud, reckless demonstration of duality & Becoming. It sounds mystical but it’s very ordinary. We’re all just wrestling shadows. Brushing up against each other in the process. Against the edges of our own integrations… all trying to become whole.

Whatever happens on the surface level (heartbreak, scandal, surrender, devotion)… something poetic is always unfolding underneath. It’s an honor to have a front-row seat to your Becoming, in exchange for a seat to mine. Every gift has its burden.

Whether our season is fleeting or forever, the psyche is still becoming something… it always will. & I’m looking forward to how the story unfolds. Together or apart.