“The Things You Own, End Up Owning You” By Abbigail D. Baltazar We are living in a world wherein people own fancy cars, extravagant houses, luxury goods, and all the things that give us pleasure and satisfaction. Hence, people tend to keep up with the trend as we encounter advertisements that make us want the items even more and owning those stuffs also became the standard in the modern world. There is a movie that was really loved by me as it is a very interesting thriller movie that includes a psychological plot entitled “Fight Club” starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The narrator, who remained himself unnamed the whole movie met a strange soap salesman named Tyler Durden but turned out to be the narrator’s alter ego as he was experiencing schizophrenia. But later on Tyler Durden or his alter ego ends up controlling the narrator onto doing illegal things for the reason that he wants the narrator to exercise actual freedom and it turns out that the alter ego eventually ends up owning him. The narrator and his alter ego were different as Tyler Durden is way minimalistic while the narrator is the opposite for he showed us signs that he is materialistic at first as he depends his happiness through materialistic things, specifically on IKEA furniture as he became an addict of buying those. Furthermore, most people are like that too nowadays as it is similar to letting yourself be controlled by this materialistic world. In this movie, Tyler Durden said to the narrator “the things you own end up owning you” which is a famous line since we can all relate to that quote in the modern times as the quote means that people tend to depend or find their self-worth and happiness through the things they own. He also quoted in this movie that “you are not your job, you are not how much money you have in the bank, you are not the contents of your wallet, you are not your khakis, you are the all-singing, all dancing cr*p of the world.” He conveys that these things you own do not define who you are as a person, nonetheless you are how you treat people around you, you are the love and kindness you show them, you are your thoughts, ideas, and actions. Material things are only invented to improve the quality of our lives and not to be completely our lives. Thinking that material possessions in life is the key to happiness is definitely not healthy because you let yourself be overpowered by these things. You can find happiness by spending time with your family and friends, making new memories with your loved-ones, doing your hobbies, trying new things that you are planning to try, and more. Subconsciously, the narrator stopped from being materialistic right after his condominium unit was caught on fire and all the things he bought for his home were burnt down. Therefore, this movie is a good representation of the modern world as it also taught us great lessons about life especially on how we should not let ourselves be influenced too much about the things that we possess.
“It is only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything.” Tyler Durden (Fight Club, 1999)
Connect with us through:
@chtminsider
chtminsider@gmail.com
chtminsider