Last night I watched Fight Club again. It’s been almost 8 years now since I last watched it as a teenager leaving high school. I’m now a 26 year-old boy and I can’t help but feel stuck in a haze on interpreting various aspects of the film.

When I first watched the movie, I thought I understood the meaning as a clever little 18-year old. I had assumed that the film was a representation of the dangers of repression of the self; the folly of self-sacrifice on the alter of consumerism. I remember the very next day going out to buy a leather jacket since leather never tears.

But now watching it again, I realize there’s so much more. As I approach the age of Edward Norton’s narrator, I find myself having more and more similar thoughts. While not identical in nature (I have a loving father, I’m a married man, and I work for myself), I can’t help but shake some of the ideas I had while rewatching the movie.

For starters, the scene with Raymond K. Hessel at the gas station was incredible. As Tyler Durden held the gun to Raymond’s head in the back lot, I saw myself in the dreams Raymond had failed to pursue. Unlike our traumatized Raymond, I did graduate college; but, I never actually applied myself in my studies. I was a passive actor in this stage of life, in which I chose the easy option that let me graduate on time and with something deemed “useful” by the world (BA in Economics). But I’ll be honest, I can’t even remember a single damn thing about my degree. I got a $100K piece of paper, dozens of blackout nights, and an aversion to graphing paper.

I immediately went from college into pursuing a startup that wasn’t even my original idea in the first place. I spent four years of my life dedicated to this company, for little-to-nothing to show for it and no clear success either financially or socially. I’m still working on it now, but at this point, I’m ready for a change. I don’t think I’ve made an impact on anyone’s life with it, not even my own. I think, much like Raymond, I was (and am) living to make others proud.

But this is just empty complaining. I suppose I’m fulfilled enough and I’m complaining despite having every possible advantage and gift in this world. That must make me the world’s greediest bastard.

The next part of the movie that got to me was the disassociation of emotion the narrator conveys. I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise. I am Jack’s broken heart. And I can’t quite pin why this had such an impact on me. I don’t disassociate to this level, but I do find myself sometimes reframing myself to react like a mirror in accordance to the person I’m talking to at the time. I know how they would react, so I respond in a corresponding manner; but I don’t know how I would react. I am Jack’s ____________.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m completely blind to my emotions, but I don’t know how to adequately express them into my own words or through my own actions. Maybe that’s why this blog article has gone on so many tangential stories, with no clear linear path.

The part that I resonated the most with though was the scene with Tyler Durden and our narrator in the car. As the car speeds down the road, Tyler swerves the vehicle into oncoming traffic. As he swerves the car, he yells at the narrator “Hitting bottom isn’t a weekend retreat. It’s not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go!”.

Now, I’m not advocating anyone go and commit vehicular destruction in the act of letting go, but it did make me think. What do I need to do in the next step of my development? What do I need to let go of? My old self? My new self? My ties? That’s the part that makes me think the most. At what point is it fine to fully let go and pursue the things that I want to pursue in life.

I don’t know yet.