High Strung

Do we let the people we love control us? Is that real love? 

In ballet there are five starting positions with different leg and arm poses. The ballerina dancers are in the positions, 1 4 and 3. 143 is numeric code for “I love you”. 

Because they are also marionette dolls, it is implied that someone is controlling them. They are manipulated to spell out “I love you”.

I wanted to explore the theme of someone controlling you to love them. The type of people that try to convince you to love them, to see what they want you to see so you love them.

Puppets are easily manipulated, and some people are easily manipulated as well, even if they don’t realize it. Sometimes we can be easily manipulated, especially when we love someone, or at least think we do.  

So often we give the people we love control over us, whether that’s good or bad control. Sometimes people can abuse this power. 

One time somebody had said they had power over me. I thought about this for a long time and I disagreed. People only have power over us if we allow them to do so. There was a time where this specific person had power over me. I cared about what they thought, overanalyzed the words they said and their actions. Tailored myself to pleasure them, twisted myself into a smaller box to make them feel more comfortable. 

But one day, that statement wasn’t true anymore. They didn’t have power over me anymore. I stopped caring what they thought, stopped wondering what they were doing and with who etc. And it felt like I had cut the marionette strings off. 

We all want to be seen, want to be loved and cared for. But at what cost? To give up our own control of our lives? To lose ourselves in someone else? 

As Pinocchio once said:

I've got no strings / To hold me down / To make me fret / Or make me frown
I had strings / But now I'm free / There are no strings on me