The steering wheel begins to slip. No hands. Motion in darkness. Headlights and horns.
“Guys,
what would you wish you’d done before you died? ”
“Paint a
self-portrait.” “Build a
house.”
“You?”
“
I don’t know. Nothing. Nothing, come on, get in the right
lane.”
Swerve.
“You have to know the answer to this
question!
If you were to die right now, how would you feel about your life?”
“I don’t know.
I wouldn’t feel anything good about my life. Is that what you wanted to hear me say? Fine.“
And I
cringe, trying to keep this hollow feeling of
disgust from my stomach before it explodes. I’m right with you there,
Mr. Norton. I don’t know either.
Nothing. I wouldn’t feel anything good about my life.
I watched
Fight Club for the first time with some
high school friends in a
second-run theatre over Xmas break about a year ago, at the heart of the lowest of my lows I’d ever had. I watched it sometime about
six months before I changed every single thing in my life that I could to get myself out of this hole of worthlessness and
stagnation that had been turning me colder and colder for months.
I swallowed and I
curled, unable to believe I could
feel so small. I couldn’t think of anything. I felt absolutely nothing good about my life, and I was
scared scared scared scared scared to the point of convulsion and cowardice and pain of
dying. Scared of
dying. Funny how we’re most
terrified of death when we have
nothing to lose. I was crying in a darkened movie theatre.
How could you do this?
I was terrified of dying so I clung to the pathetic shell that was that life because I felt I had done
nothing. Absolutely
nothing. I felt I had
nothing to show for myself. My
life was a waste of this pathetic world and I was a horrible slobbering creature too afraid of the
light to stick my head out of my cave, lost in its tears and in sweat of
nothingness. And I wanted to die. Dying would get me out. Dying would be
easy.
But there would be nothing to show. No
reason to say I lived.
I saw the film again a couple months later, and I still couldn’t think of anything either.
"With a gun in your mouth, you speak only in vowels."
How long do you have to feel like shit before it snaps?
I was a the strangest point in my life, and it was a
crossroads. It was a crossroads to not follow into my
mother’s footsteps and become a shell of
unhappiness lit by a strange and unidentifiable spark that won’t go away no matter the
misery. I was in a
relationship that was going nowhere. No, it was going
somewhere, and it was down and down and
down all the way. It was like my
father. My
lover was pulling me and I was letting myself fall into this pit of self-loathing and
isolation, afraid of the world outside. I was in a
field of study that was sucking my life away because it didn’t let me
make anything. I was working and couldn’t find
joy.
I felt nothing good about my life. And this was the first time anyone had put it into words. How can you fear dying when there’s nothing like life in your world? Afraid to
lose because you aren’t really sure you have?
"You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh."
It didn’t take a
near life experience. It didn’t take a complex
personality disorder or
insomnia. I left the continent and felt Caribbean warmth and began to
wake up. I lost my lover by telling him to go
away. I fell in love for the first time in ages and cried and cried and cried when I looked back at the
year behind me and felt the stillness of all of it.
I hadn’t felt a thing in a year. I always thought I was so strong.
I had died. And that’s why I was afraid of
death. I saw
Fight Club for a third time and laughed and laughed and laughed at the sickness and the
irreverence for all that our society holds sacred. I
laughed. And I started to think of things...
I became an
artist. I started writing again. I made friends and had lovers and felt so much I could
cry all the way home, and I saw death when a father of a friend commit
suicide. So much
horribleness has happened.
I have never felt more
alive.
Perspective is everything.
I saw
Fight Club last night. And I still can’t think of anything.
I can’t think of anything! But I can feel. I am whole. I’m a little bit whole. I can’t think of anything because
there’s nothing right now that I could have done with my life that I haven’t.
No regrets. That’s how I always used to live, and I think I can find it again. Oh sure, there's stuff I want to do before I die. But nothing I could look back on and say 'I wish I
had done that while I had the chance'. It's stuff I look forward to doing when I'm ready, someday, someday far away.
I don’t want to die yet. I have a lot more work still to do. I want to marry and have
children and see what they grow up to be. I want to make something. I want to love and to cry and be
real. But in the end, I am. I haven’t lost anything. And I came through to
the other side.
I’m not
afraid to die. I just don’t want to. Having something to lose means I did something right. I can die knowing that. I did something
right.
“If you were to die right now, how would you feel about your life?”
I feel
pretty fucking good,
Mr. Durden. Pretty fucking good.
How did
Fight Club change my life? It asked the
question. And it took a while, but once it was asked, I had to find the
answer.
So I wrote 'I still can’t think of
anything, or how
Fight Club changed my life'.