With Friends Like These by Dorothy Rowe Voice Over Script
We value friends, but the path of friendship, like love, rarely
runs smooth. We may feel jealous of a friend’s achievements
when we want to feel happy for her. We might find it hard to give
friends objective advice, unrelated to the person we want them to
be. We can be reluctant to allow each other to change, sometimes
falling out in a way that is painful for all involved. And yet, friendships are vitally important; central to our enjoyment of life.
More fundamentally, friendships are essential to our sense of
who we are. Neuroscientists have shown that our brain does not
reveal to us the world as it is, but rather as possible interpretations
of what is going on around us, drawn from our past experience.
Since no two people ever have exactly the same experience, no two
people ever see anything in exactly the same way.
Most of our brain’s constructions are unconscious. Early in our
life our stream of conscious and unconscious constructions create,
like a real stream, a kind of whirlpool that quickly becomes our
most precious possession, that is, our sense of being a person, what
we call “I,” “me,” “myself.” Like a whirlpool, our sense of being a
person cannot exist separately from the stream that created it.
Because we cannot see reality directly, all our ideas are guesses
about what is going on. Thus our sense of being a person is made
up of these guesses. All the time we are creating ideas about who we are, what is happening now, what has happened in our world, and what our future will be. When these ideas are shown by events to be reasonably accurate, that is, our ideas are validated, we feel secure in ourselves, but when they are proved wrong, we feel that we are falling apart.
Friends are central to this all-important sense of validation.
When a friend confirms to us that the world is as we see it, we feel
safer, reassured. On the other hand, when we say, “I’m shattered,”
or “I’m losing my grip,” we might not be using clichés to describe
a bad day but talking about something quite terrifying that we
are experiencing: our sense of who we are is being challenged. So
terrifying is this experience that we develop many different tactics
aimed at warding off invalidation and defending ourselves against
being annihilated as a person.
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safer, reassured. On the other hand, when we say, “I’m shattered,”
or “I’m losing my grip,” we might not be using clichés to describe
a bad day but talking about something quite terrifying that we
are experiencing: our sense of who we are is being challenged. So
terrifying is this experience that we develop many different tactics
aimed at warding off invalidation and defending ourselves against
being annihilated as a person.
We are constantly assessing how safe our sense of being a person is. Our assessments are those interpretations we call emotions. All our emotions relate to the degree of safety or danger our sense of being a person is experiencing. So important are these interpretations to our survival that we do not need to put them into words, although of course we can. Our positive emotions are interpretations to do with safety, while the multitude of negative emotions define the particular kind of danger and its degree. Joy is: “Everything is the way I want it to be”; jealousy is: “How dare that person have something that is rightly mine.” We can be invalidated by events such as the bankruptcy of the firm that employs us, but most frequently we are invalidated by other people.
A friend told me how her husband had used her password and
pin to drain her bank account and fund his secret gambling habit.
Losing her savings was a terrible blow, but far worse was her loss of
trust in the person she saw as her best friend. When she described herself as falling apart, I assured her that what was falling apart were some of her ideas. All she had to do was to endure a period of uncertainty until she could construct ideas that better reflected her situation.
Friendship can be rewarding but, like all relationships, it can
also be risky. Other people can let us down, insult or humiliate
us, leading us to feel diminished and in danger. Yet we need other
people to tell us when we have got our guesses right, and, when
we get things wrong, to help us make more accurate assessments.
Live completely on your own and your guesses will get further and
further away from reality.
The degree of risk we perceive from our friends relates directly to the degree of self-confidence we feel. When confident of ourselves, we feel that we can deal with being invalidated; when lacking self-confidence, we often see danger where no danger need exist. Take jealousy, for example. Feeling self-confident, we can rejoice in our friend’s success at a new job; feeling inferior, we see danger and try to defend ourselves with: “It’s not fair.” We can fail to see that our friendship should be more important to us than our injured pride.
Our levels of confidence also relate to how ready we are to
accept change, and how able we are to allow our friends to change.
To feel secure in ourselves, we need to be able to predict events
reasonably accurately. We think we know our friends well, and
so can predict what they will do. We create a mental image of our
friends, and we want to keep them within the bounds of that image.
Our need to do this can override our ability to see our friends in the
way they see themselves. We do not want them to change because
then we would have to change our image of them. Change creates
uncertainty, and uncertainty can be frightening.
However, an inability to allow change can lead to the end of a
friendship. Falling out with a friend shows us that our image of
them, from which we derive our predictions about that friend, is wrong; and if that is the case, our sense of being a person is threatened.
If we lose a friend, we have to change how we see ourselves and
our life. Each of us lives in our own individual world of meaning.
We need to find friends whose individual world is somewhat
similar to our own so that we are able to communicate with one
another.
The people who can validate us best are those we can see
as equals, and with whom there can be mutual affection, trust,
loyalty and acceptance. Such people give us the kind of validation
that builds a lasting self-confidence despite the difficulties we
encounter. These are our true friends.
TOP-10 Scripts from Edge Studio's Voice Over Script Library
[Skyrim opens with an Imperial wagon driving four prisoners down a snowy mountain pass. All are seated and bound; the one dressed in finery is gagged.]
Ralof: Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.
Lokir: D**n you Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn’t been looking for you, I could’ve stolen that horse and been half way to Hammerfell. You there. You and me — we should be here. It’s these Stormcloaks the Empire wants.
Ralof: We’re all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief.
Imperial Soldier: Shut up back there!
[Lokir looks at the gagged man.]
Lokir: And what’s wrong with him?
Ralof: Watch your tongue! You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King.
Lokir: Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm? You’re the leader of the rebellion. But if they captured you… Oh gods, where are they taking us?
Ralof: I don’t know where we’re going, but Sovngarde awaits.
Lokir: No, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening.
Ralof: Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?
Lokir: Why do you care?
Ralof: A Nord’s last thoughts should be of home.
Lokir: Rorikstead. I’m…I’m from Rorikstead.
[They approach the village of Helgen. A soldier calls out to the lead wagon.]
Imperial Soldier: General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!
General Tullius: Good. Let’s get this over with.
Lokir: Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me.
Ralof: Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. D**n elves. I bet they had something to do with this. This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in. Funny…when I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe.
[A man and son watch the prisoners pull into town.]
Haming: Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?
Torolf: You need to go inside, little cub.
Haming: Why? I want to watch the soldiers.
Torolf: Inside the house. Now.
Galadriel: (speaking partly in Elvish)
(I amar prestar aen.)
The world is changed.
(Han matho ne nen.)
I feel it in the water.
(Han mathon ned cae.)
I feel it in the earth.
(A han noston ned gwilith.)
I smell it in the air.
Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the Fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life.
One ring to rule them all.
One by one, the free lands of Middle-Earth fell to the power of the Ring, but there were some who resisted. A last alliance of men and elves marched against the armies of Mordor, and on the very slopes of Mount Doom, they fought for the freedom of Middle-Earth. Victory was near, but the power of the ring could not be undone. It was in this moment, when all hope had faded, that Isildur, son of the king, took up his father’s sword.
Sauron, enemy of the free peoples of Middle-Earth, was defeated. The Ring passed to Isildur, who had this one chance to destroy evil forever, but the hearts of men are easily corrupted. And the ring of power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur, to his death.
And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.
It came to the creature Gollum, who took it deep into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. And there it consumed him. The ring gave to Gollum unnatural long life. For five hundred years it poisoned his mind, and in the gloom of Gollum’s cave, it waited. Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and the Ring of Power perceived its time had come. It abandoned Gollum, but then something happened that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire.
For the time will soon come when hobbits will shape the fortunes of all.
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp, shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
Do I really look like a guy with a plan, Harvey?
I don’t have a plan …
The mob has plans. The cops have plans.
You know what I am, Harvey? I am a dog chasing cars… I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.
I just do things. I am just the wrench in the gears. I hate plans.
Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans.
Schemers trying to control their worlds.
I am not a schemer. I show the schemer how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.
So when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know I am telling the truth.
I just did what I do best. I took your plan and turned it on itself.
Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.
Nobody panics when the expected people gets killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying.
If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics. – because it’s all part of the plan.
But when I say that one little old mayor will die, everybody lose their minds.
Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order and everything becomes chaos.
I am agent of chaos.
And you know the thing about chaos Harvey?
“IT is FAIR.”
Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.
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