Breaking Point

Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) - Fight Club

Have I lost it? =)

Like many, I've hammered at walls of cubicles in toilets in frustration, slammed/kicked doors, threw furniture, vandalized, scrawled graffiti... I'd attribute most of that to teenage angst.

Later in life, I'd been held at knife-point in a robbery. Been taunted by a drunk with raised fists inches from my face at a bus stop. I had walked away from all of that with some anger but they had not amount to any serious injuries that would cause me to want to even retaliate. On some days, I do wish that same drunk will appear before me, so I have a reason to break his skull or break my own.

As I got older, I'd dealt with deaths of friends and relatives and began to understand and wrestle with the grim term- Mortality. But somehow most of us were able to walk away from all of that mostly unscathed too. Relationship problems have driven many insane, and killed or tried to kill many more. Simple rigors of trying to earn a living, to feed mouths, have driven many to suicides, corruption as well. It seemed that the limit at which one breaks depends on the individual. There's no fast and hard rules or formulas. All of us have known friends who are quick to anger, friends that are patient or ones that go crazy when we pushed a single wrong button.

I've always been known to be a patient person. So, I'm sometimes curious as to just what may be my own breaking point? Because I don't seem to be able to see it at all. Not on the horizon. Not on the plates. My life had been pretty shitty. Yet I'm still intact. What is wrong with me? So what does it take to break me completely? Or make me say enough is enough and retaliate with a hatred, mindless of my own survival?

The furthest I'd gone would be an incident in Navy- When I almost caused the lives of 40 to perish. It made me puke bile and gastric juices, fall on my knees. That's about as close as I got to... losing it. But I'm able to recover even from that. The only reason being that I 'didn't' really cause the 40 men to lose their lives. I'd been lucky. I'm reminded of a recent movie I've seen: Seven Pounds- Is it possible for a person to recover from that- killing 7 innocent people (including your own wife) in a car accident?

As I got older, I'd been able to walk away from nearly every situation with a mere cynical smile. I do cry sometimes. But tears will run dry eventually. At times it merely requires a retreat into my indulgence- music, movies, games etc. What happen when your whole world comes crushing down and you're supposed to feel sad but you're not? Like Brad Pitt/Edward Norton in Fight Club- You only smile while getting thrashed to death?

Numb. We gradually lose the ability to feel because pain and loss have become a steady diet. Late news on TV. Fake smiles. Obituaries. Walk away. You only have to walk away from it all.

But sometimes our limbs are tied.

"Rick Blaine : Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." - movie Casablanca


=) =) =)