Flight Club: The Things You Own End Up Owning You

Flight Club was released on a special edition Blue Ray DVD this week honoring it's 10 year anniversary. It got me thinking.

In 1999 I was 16 years old. I was what you might consider a typical high school kid -- worked hard enough to get through school. Kept my head down. I did just enough to not get noticed.

1999 was the year I rebelled. I'd lost two grandparents in one year. I'd lost all faith in God as a result of losing them and seeing the effect of their deaths on my mother and aunts. I made it my mission to defy his existence every day I walked into my Catholic high school. I did everything I could to rebel against an existence I didn't want a part of any longer. I was depressed, apathetic and lost.

And then I saw Fight Club.

I immediately fell in love with the movie. David Fincher instantly became my favorite director. Chuck Palahniuk became my favorite author over night.

The dark cinematography; the nihilistic narrative of Jack, the main character; Tyler Durden's complete lack of acknowledgment for any law, rule or standard of American society all spoke directly to me. The Dust Brothers soundtrack added a deep and at times playful tone to the entire film. It wouldn't be the same movie without it. I was able to put myself in the shoes of the main character, Jack. He was a man confused about his place in life. Everything he was promised as a child never came true. He worked a dead end job he hated. He suffered from insomnia. He had nothing to live for until he found something that tested him. Something that was bigger than him.

Unfortunately his creation, Fight Club, outgrew itself and it quickly self destructed. But without the club, without Tyler Durden's constant test of Jack's limits, Jack would have shrunken to a worthless, cold shell of a man. Instead, and Palahniuk always has a knack for this, Jack becomes a demigod in the eyes of the other members of Fight Club. He finds a woman. More importantly he finds himself and a purpose amidst the chaos that Tyler and the Club created. He had control of his life for the first time. He had what he wanted -- something to live for instead of just existing in a world run by corporations. His rebellion had paid off.

That's not to say my little teenage rebellion was quite as cathartic (or destructive. I blew up no buildings in my youth...that they can prove). But Fight Club showed me I wasn't alone in the way I felt abandoned by what I once believed. I followed religions and adults blindly, believing everything they told me. I reached a time in my life where I was questioning everything and Fight Club made it feel okay to go against the grain of society, to think for myself.

It's 10 years later and Fight Club is still, by far, my favorite film. I'm no longer that quite, scared 16 year-old kid but at times I feel like one. I'm supposed to be an adult. I'm supposed to buckle down. Be responsible and start a family. Well, that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Fight Club continues to speak to me. I am Jack. I've yet to find and fulfill my calling. At times I feel like a phantom -- filling a space and nothing more. Just like Jack. But then I'll go to capoeira class and feel more alive than ever before. I get tested. I get hit. I feel worn out, hurt, exhausted and sometimes beaten. It's the most alive I ever am. It's my Fight Club.

I'm approaching my fifth year of training capoeira. It's embedded in me. It's become part of my daily routine and is a lifestyle I enjoy. The experiences, friends, trips and things I've learned are irreplaceable. They've molded me into the man I am today, just like Jack getting tested by Tyler. I've been pushed to the edge and there's no going back.

Now, thanks to those experiences, I can apply what Fight Club preaches and what capoeira has taught me to other parts of my life. I am more assertive, more confident and more willing to question the satus quo. To think for myself and not believe everything I'm told, like in these two classic scenes from Fight Club.



Those words will always ring true with me and every time I watch that movie I get reminded that I can make a difference in my own life. I just need to be willing to stick my chin out, take a risk and be willing to take a hit in the face. Then when it comes I know I can hit right back and leave my mark.

And by God, I'll leave it.