Each Monday, I would like to share a reminder about the importance of being mindful. These will come from literature, popular culture, music--anywhere one might get this sort of everyday life nudge.
Check out this beautiful art by Carina Wagner
called "Fight Club - Crystal Mess Fanart"
I promised to write the blog to share positive thoughts--I am still committed to doing so--and although Fight Club is considerably violent, lately I've thought a great deal about how much people feel like they are lacking in their lives. Lacking items. Stuff. New stuff. Exciting things. The best that money can buy.
Instead of baseball, consumerism has most nearly become our national pastime.
This, in turn, got me thinking of a film I enjoyed in high school. To be honest, I loved the underlying ideas, the concept, looking at some of the actors, but the violence and mayhem in the second half of the film disturbed me.
Even still, the movie (which was adapted from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk) raises some important and difficult concerns. I don't necessarily mean to recommend the movie, if you've never seen it, but simply to remind us that we can gain insight from many different sources and perspectives.
The following quotes come from Fight Club. Please read and consider whether there is anything you can glean from them for making mindfulness and creating the life you want for yourself (and try to see the positivity buried within).
Narrator:
"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time."
Tyler Durden:
"I see all this potential, and I see it squandered ... an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit 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 is 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. And we're slowly learning that fact."
"You are 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 f*ing khakis."
"The things you own end up owning you."
"We're consumers. We are the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra..."
"Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned."
Please don't misunderstand this post as attempting to insight fights or riots, but read and consider if any of these insights can help you mold the life you truly want, rather than the life into which you have simply fallen. Make the tough choices and changes required for the life you deserve.Labels: Mindful Mondays
