WHERE IS MY MIND?

WHERE IS MY MIND? 

I will fully admit, I was one of those 20 year old pieces of shit that, at the release of the film, I liked Fight Club and found it far more compelling for all the wrong reasons. I mean, I was one of those who would have been hooked line and sinker into the world of being a project mayhem space monkey ready to be shot into fucking space. Completely sold on this anti-Ikea catalog world ready to blow up shit and get Robert Palson killed doing stupid shit like vandalizing billboards with unhelpful advice like putting motor oil on your lawn.

I was that little shit, that was full on willing to accept that men shouldn't be the ideological visual representation of Brad Pitt 20 years ago, let alone full on wanting to be him 20 years later in such films like Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.  Yeah, is that really what a man looks like? Well, shit, of course it isn't. That's what a man looks like when he has nothing but time to train in a gym with four different trainers on a Hollywood film stipend to get him where the picture wants him to be.



I bought into the anti-capitalistic view point completely and well, am I really a better person for it today?  I'd say... yes. You see, I am Jack's sense of raging confusion. I loved that film, even though it had a sort of slap to the face message that really was a sort of mocking of all who ate into it.

Then we get to the ending. Wrapping it all up with the Pixies? Come on. That's some dirty pool. Completely unfair. I asked myself where is my mind once the credits came up so many times. And pushing this destructive anarchist sort of message and tying it off with the bow that is this concept of taking down the credit companies, creating a social collopse of all that keeps civilization sort of running in some sort of order?



Yeah - I fully ate up lines like "I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I'm free in all the ways that you are not."   And you know what, it's true. In Tyler we trust. I so wanted to be that. I wanted to have the freedom of not giving two shits and saying the shit he was spouting. Tyler spoke for me. And you know what, that's the beauty of that book and film. It really is. That it wanted you to be such a piece of shit toxic thing and fully embrace that part of yourself.

20 years later I can see how I am the person I am because of that film. The soundtrack was amazing by the dust brothers. The film pushed the anti-corporate consumerism bullshit message that I still struggle with today. The message in itself is still very relevant. So much so that USA made Mr. Robot, which the first season seemed like just a televised version of Fight Club.

But Project Mayhem, much like in Mr. Robot, was still there. And it was still just a bunch of fucking idiots trying to stick it to society that rejected them with a "Blow up the civilization so that men can be real men again!" sort of mentality. And ultimately that's not something folks understand in their first viewing of Fight Club or their first reading of the book, though the book has a lot more self help quirks to it.  By the end of the film, Project Mayhem seems like nothing more than literal skinheads doing some social chaos.

And while the whole concept of disaffection with the modern world was something that could be understandable and relatable. Especially to someone in their late teens and early 20's with their sort of anarchist tendencies, the fact is that anyone who went on with cheering for project mayhem, or more so, even going home after the film and running "fight clubs" for themselves would be considered Incel pieces of shit in today's day and age.

But hey, you met me at a really strange time in my life, isn't that the cute line. Look, I know all this about the film... because Tyler knows this.

In any case, I thought this sort of mentality was amazing at that young age, and then ten years later I liked Fight Club for other reasons that were completely different from when I first saw it ten years previously. Not in the project mayhem sort of way, but because I felt like Jack at work. Just going in day in and day out talking about the Corporations naming everything. I embraced the notion that Project Mayhem folks were fools for eating in to it all and just thought that it whole tearing down society was a bit much, but I could feel above it all. Especially flipping through catalogs defining myself through defining my space.

I mean, it didn't help that at that point I wasn't sleeping much. Though, I guess that's a through line to most of my life - not sleeping much at all. Feeling like I need sleep but not sleeping. Hell, as I write this right now it's currently 4am.  This is just the way it is with me. I often get the most creative juices flowing at the odd hours of the night.

Let me tell you about young me.You see I never really liked sleeping. I thought I could survive off little amounts of sleep - And in many ways I did. I still survive off little sleep even though it has a huge amount of negative aspects. I guess I just didn't want to miss what was happening and I could sleep when I'm dead. Which, I guess could be a lot sooner because of this choice to not sleep as much. I could also just fall asleep anywhere. I mean, Any...where. I could knock out really fast. But that was just me and I guess after a while of not really sleeping great, your body decides if you are going to go to sleep, you best not just piss time away NOT actually sleeping.

Another appealing aspect of the film was that I felt like I was Jack. After three pitchers of beer I still couldn't ask. Hell, to some degree I still can't ask. But that aspect of having confidence and being able to ask really appealed to me. Anyhow,

My place was literally Paper Street residence. Run down to hell. Doors not locking, the place looking like it was ready to get torn down. I bought my place from my pops as it was a project he long since gave up on, I guess you could say I felt for the place. Sort of like how he gave up on the project that was being a father to me. In any event, that place is now my building that is about to be done. So, I really can relate to the character just surviving in what is a run down piece of fucking shit. And turning it into something crazy, or at least something special and unique and actually beautiful. Especially from that garbage.


Anyhow, I'm getting off topic. I mean, I still fiddle with the notion that self improvement is masturbation and that self destruction, on the other hand....  Well, I mean, again, the whole concept of Fight Club has been one that I have enjoyed for the last two decades for ever changing reasons. I mean, I'll never look like what they were critical about, but shit, then they turned into that very criticized thing. You can't tell me Brad Pitt wasn't a shredded beast and the exact same thing they were critical about - I mean, that was exactly the point.

Ultimately the commentary that Fight Club does on consumerism and buying into social norms and then saying fuck it to all is in itself buying into a social norm. I have so much respect for the source material and what it does in the grand scheme of things because it does work well on so many different levels. And ultimately, I guess that makes a perfect story.  The ability to touch you on so many different levels and through so many different lenses.