Hitting Bottom

Picture a man getting beat up...slowly...to a bloody pulp, and laughing about it. Sadism? Masochism? ... a certain movie character would refer to it as the liberating process of "hitting bottom."

"The first rule of Fight Club is . . . you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is . . . you do not talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells "stop," goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: no shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And, the eighth and final rule: if this is your first night at Fight Club . . . you have to fight." ~Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt

I remember when Mark Bennett I believe it was...yes it was him, my freshman year of high school...he suggested I watchFight Club. Several people in the room thought it was a cruddy movie, but he said, "No, I think Josh would like Fight Club. It's not really about just a bunch of guys fighting." And he was certainly right.

I know, as always, I'm only...like...5 years late, but that's always the case with cinematic releases.

In any case, this is by far one of the:

• Grossest
• Most enlightening
• Most Profanity-laden
• Beautiful
• Disgusting
• Frightening
• Ironically, Sarcastically Funny
• Rough
• Philosophical

movies that I have ever seen. As I watched the Narrator (who remains unnamed) desert his white-collar job, his condo, his luxurious furniture, and any semblance of normalcy to live in a hole in the wall crumbhole with no material possessions, ... and to proceed simultaneously to fight in a "club" of guys disillusioned with corporate America ... all the while musing on such subjects as the consequence of a generation of males raised without fathers ...

...I realized just why this very eccentric film has become a bit of a cult classic. I leave you with a few quotes from Tyler Durden, to ponder. I agree with some of it...I disagree with quite a bit of it...but cleverly placed in such a film, these words keep echoing in my memory.

"You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fu**ing khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing c**p of the world.

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything

Who you were in Fight Club was not who you were in the rest of the world. A guy came to Fight Club for the first time, his a** was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.

[I] see in Fight Club, the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential. And, I see squandering. God d*** it! An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing car and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man--no purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars . . . but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact and we're very, very pi**ed off.

We just had a near-life experience.

We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

For six months I couldn't sleep. With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

The things you own end up owning you."