I hear, all too often, about how movies are too violent. But frankly, I just don’t agree. Why? Because this week’s example of how Hollywood has made me a better person comes from the movie Fight Club.

I guess it’s hard for some people to imagine how anyone can get any philosophical value or learn any life lessons from a movie about grown men beating each other senseless in basements and parking garages. As it turns out, though, the fighting was just a detail in the story. The real story was about mediocre men discovering themselves while cutting through the crap of modern society.

Hitting rock bottom
The movie gets going when we see the main character lose everything he owns to a mysterious explosion in his apartment. With only the clothes on his back, he finds himself staying with his friend in a condemned house. Left without the mind-numbing qualities of television, playstation, and the Internet, these two decide to get out and feel life. That’s when they start their fight club.

But it doesn’t stop at the creation of the fight club. They build an entire empire, manned by people who, like them, have nothing. They gain power over businesses, politicians, and even the police, all because they stopped numbing their minds and instead set out about doing something. As the line from the film goes, “it’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.”

The things you own end up owning you
In a consumer-driven society, we are taught that it is our civic duty to spend. And no matter what ails you, there is something you can buy that will temporarily relieve you from your self-loathing.

We become garbage collectors, and our homes become our prisons. Soon enough, we’re keeping a $20,000 car in the driveway, in the rain and snow and wind, because there’s no room for it in the garage where we keep a few hundred dollars worth of junk nobody uses any more. Over the last 10 years, I’ve watched one of the fastest growing businesses in America — mini storage — popping up everywhere. We have more stuff than we have room for, so we’re paying other people to keep it for us!

We’re buying newer, bigger shelves to hold more and more CDs and DVDs; new dusting gadgets and disposable toilet brushes, and more injection-molded racks to hang them on; one blanket for the bedroom and another for the living room… for each person in the house… and then we complain that it’s too much work to keep it all clean! We want to travel, but we’re afraid of leaving our houses unoccupied for too long.

And everyone I meet is anxious to tell me how they’re not as materialistic as everyone else. Everyone is frugal. Everyone is economic. Everyone hates clutter. Nobody is part of the problem. So why is it a problem? As they say in the movie, “sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”

Day after day, becoming a little more like Tyler Durden
After watching Fight Club, I was immediately inspired to break out of the materialist pattern. I bought a black leather CD case, capable of holding 200 discs, loaded it with my DVD collection, and took two enormous bags of DVD cases out to the trash. I had a big garage sale and sold off all knick-knacks, the tools I didn’t need since changing careers, the guitars I didn’t play any more, and all the clothes I didn’t wear any more.

But I didn’t stop there. When a friend needed a tv, I gave her mine, and since that day, I have not owned a television. (Seriously, almost five years!) Without the tv to keep me complacent, I get out more, I read more, I travel more, I do more. And I snack less, too.

The same year, I gave another friend my microwave, and haven’t had one since. That’s one of the best things I’ve done. Now that I have to cook, I’ve learned to do it pretty well. I eat healthier food, and it tastes better… and usually it costs less! And the cooking time isn’t an issue… after all, it’s not like I’m missing my favorite show…

At this point in my life, everything I own fits neatly into one small room. I have some clothes, some books, a few cameras, and a computer. But more importantly, I have a life. Perhaps I haven’t lost everything, but for the most part, I really am free to do anything.