Reality, Philosophy, and Fight Club

 

 

 

The light bulb pops on.  In a split second millions of connections in the brain have touched each other.  A concept is begins to take its first breath in the mind of a person for the first time.  The world makes sense, or perhaps the world makes less sense for the first time.  The concept, or idea, exists outside of the normal everyday world.  It’s an idea, a thought, or a theory.  One cannot touch it, feel it, or hold it up for a person to see.  It is not tangible…but its affects on the world of tangible seem to be great.

 

The love of money is the root of all evil.  Fairness is not everyone getting the same treatment, but rather everyone getting what he needs.  People who put the needs of others before their own usually find greater satisfaction in life than those who do not.  There is a being beyond our world that loves everyone greatly and intimately.

 

Ideas.  Concepts.  Conclusions.  We believe these things whole-heartedly.  Why then is it that when the connection is made, the results wain in the “real world.”

 

C.S. Lewis describes a man in a library in this very situation.  He has his mind wrapped around something like a snake around a tree.  “It makes perfect sense,” he tells himself, “this is going to change things, from this point on things are going to be different.”  But do they change?  On his way out of the building things that seemed so concrete begin to show signs of fluttering and soon become more abstract.  People are talking in a corner.  A librarian is closing books loudly behind that long desk near the door.  The door makes a creaking sound on the way out.  His shoes scuff in the sidewalk.  He smells grilled food in the air; highlighting his hunger.  Traffic weaves in and out in the street a few feet away.

 

Back to the real world, no more daydreaming, he tells himself.  He can see people in the library.  He can hear books being shut, or a door closing.  He can smell food and know he’s hungry.  These are the things of reality, and they hold far more weight than a few words on paper from moments ago.  Ideas…those are thoughts, and I exist in the real world, out here if a car hits me I’ll die.  Better to spend my time more concerned about crossing the street than on some mumbo-jumbo fluff I was reading back there in the library.

 

Let me put it another way.

 

Tyler Dirten has just dumped a chemical all over Edward Norton’s character in the movie Fight Club.  The chemical has reacted violently with his skin and is searing his flesh.  He remembers his therapy for a cancer treatment from his past, meditation for coping with a phony disease.  He’s going to his cave, his place of transcendence where he feels no pain.  This has worked before, why not now?  But its not going to work this time.  The cynic side that we all have and know too well has been made alive in the movie and embodies a living breathing alter-ego.

 

“FUCK YOUR CAVE, THIS IS YOUR PAIN RIGHT HERE,” Tyler screams as he smacks Norton right across the face.  Go outside the reality, and the dark side of our own nature threatens to pull us away from any other world but this reality kicking and screaming. 

How can we worry about fairness, kindness, love, or even God when we cannot pay the bills let alone cross the street?  How can we contemplate reality and all its implications when we cannot even cope with “the real world?”