Up In the Air

 

“Ryan Bingham: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.”

A 2 years late movie review?  I wanted to watch this movie for so long.  Can’t deny I like George Clooney much.  He is more than sexy and charming….

Sorry for being carried away.  Back to the movie.  Attracted by the first 10 mins. of movie. It started with a backpack philosophy.  What stuff would you put in a backpack and carry with you?  How about people? A backpack is too small.  You can’t stuff everything in or you would bent with a heavy burden and difficult to go further.  So just empty it?  Is an empty backpack means carefree life?  Ryan has tried to empty the backpack for someone new but with disappointed ending. 

What you want to fill in the backpack?  Do you want it full or empty?  I have no answer on that.  It’s too philosophical.  No short and definite answer. 

Another thing interest me is if there are jobs of firing people?  If that’s real.  the job would be awful.  Being a killer everyday.  How to live with it?  And the film was produced during economic recession.  Lots of layoff around.  I didn’t realized it was so serious which could prosper the “firing industry”.  

Besides, technology makes the world smaller but also makes distances between people.  Fired people through internet?  Quite one’s job by text message? Broke by a text message? Is that ridiculous?  No more face to face discussion.  Everything done by sending messages. Are people trying to avoid interaction?  Make sure message passed through.  That’s it. Well, sometimes I feel scare when looking at my cell phone statement.  The cost for text messages is much higher than airtime. The cell phone is not for calls…..

How can people travel so much?  Woke up every morning, not sure where they are.  Really not miss home?  Or really can make planes and airports home?

So many to think of after watching the movie.  It is a bit too heavy for weekend. 

Wonders what’s in your backpack…….