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Homework for the newsletter client. I know that less then 3% will follow through on this and truly feel learn from the message Trust me I have been running financial newsletters for close to two decades and what I have learned is you don’t need good stock picks because you will find a way to fuck it up.You need to build the character of a warrior a man that no matter what will stay the course the key to Wealth in my world is being able to handle massive uncertainty until the Goal is reached.
So go watch Fight Club and Feel the message.
fight club is the most important film
about the state of western masculinity
in recent memory the 1999 classic
painfully highlights the greatest
disease of our civilization
namely the emasculation of the western
man we're still
men yes we're men
man is what we are over the course of
its narrative
the film offers the viewer a radical
antidote to this disease
it presents the philosophical concept of
the nietzsche ubermensch
ÜBERMENSCH
the nameless protagonist of fight club
simply described as the narrator
embodies a typical late 20th century
american consumer
his life is dedicated solely to the
acquisition of wealth which he invests
in the products of international
mega-corporations
i'd flip through catalogs and wonder
what kind of dining set defines me as a
person
he has been thoroughly emasculated by
the egalitarian conformity of postmodern
society which has left him fearful lazy
and entirely mediocre nihilism has
corrupted his soul to a point where he
cannot identify a clear purpose for his
existence
his lived experience is an endlessly
repeating loop of insignificant events
split between the offices of his
employer business trips and the
suffocating comfort of his ikea
furnished apartment
everything's a copy of a copy of a copy
this vicious cycle of meaninglessness
turns the narrator into a chronic
insomniac
he seeks comfort in a self-help group
for survivors of testicular cancer
here he meets a group of disillusioned
men who suffered through actual
emasculation as a result of their
disease
this male safe space becomes a form of
escapism for the narrator where he can
feel good about himself by feeding off
the misery of others
this proves to be a temporal arrangement
though the distortion of reality
evaporates immediately
when a girl named marla singer joins
their group this reminds the protagonist
subconsciously of his own emasculation
secretly he is attracted to her but
remains in denial about this fact to
avoid facing his own impotence
his insomnia resurfaces which results in
dissociative identity disorder
if you wake up at a different time in a
different place
could you wake up as a different person
this is where the plot introduces tyler
durden who is
unbeknownst to the narrator a projection
of his deranged mind
tyler represents his innate desire to
overcome emasculation and
OVERCOMING EMASCULATION
nihilism this becomes the main conflict
of the narrator's character arc
his old impotent self struggles against
his new hyper-masculine identity for
dominance
ultimately the story is about becoming
who one really is
tyler's strategy to guide his other half
towards enlightenment is preaching a
contemporary interpretation of nietzsche
and philosophy
the film itself functions as an allegory
for the philosopher's 19th century
magnum opus the book thus spoke
THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
seraphustra
the central story here revolves around
the character zerafustra who preaches to
the great unwashed masses that
god is dead and therefore man has to
evolve or be annihilated
in it nietzsche also offers a harsh
critique of western christianity
according to him its most emphasized
value was humanity's search for truth
which it offered in form of its own
dogma
this caused civilization to perpetually
seek truth which culminated in the
discovery of the scientific method and
the emergence of the age of
enlightenment in the 18th century
this in turn resulted in the decline of
christianity in the west
the implication of this was a dark one
however because the refutation of this
heist of all beliefs created cynicism
towards all other supposed matter truths
and values
existential nihilism they believe that
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM
there is no objective meaning to
existence
has become the dominant quasi-religion
of western civilization
ever since zarathustra warns the masses
about the dangers of nihilism as the
disability of values leads to the era of
the so-called last man
LAST MAN
a period in which man stagnates because
of his lack of purpose
he therefore turns away from creation
towards endless consumption and apathy
at this point we return to fight club
and to the narrator
who represents the contemptible last man
his attitude is cynical and pessimistic
despite the supposed fulfillment he
finds in mindless consumption
deep down however he's aware that his
time is slowly running out and he's
achieving nothing in the process
this is your life and it's ending one
minute at a time
his namelessness or in other words
interchangeability
echoes the masses of the spokes
arafustra
they are also aware that they are
numbing the chronic meaninglessness of
their lives with hedonistic consumption
greater men such as sarah fustra himself
or those who take action and create are
secretly envied but publicly ridiculed
people end up conforming to the
mediocrity of their neighbors either
because they fear the public shaming or
are just
outright lazy which applies to most men
this exemplifies nietzsche's idea of
slave morality which entails a mindset
SLAVE MORALITY
of obedience
patience and humility the result is
postmodern society as we know it
which preaches weakness and pacifism as
virtues
and elevates victimhood to sainthood
the weak despise the strong and
therefore start to attack their
achievements with vitriolic slander
the masses eradicate individualism from
within and turn western civilization
into an egalitarian and declining
nightmare
tyler durden takes on the role of sarah
fustra in the internal dialogue of the
narrator
and preaches to himself about the
decline of civilization
murder crime poverty these things don't
concern me
what concerns me are celebrity magazines
television with 500 channels some guy's
name on my underwear
rogaine viagra olestra martha stewart
[ __ ] martha stewart martha's polishing
the brass on the titanic it's all going
down man
he rejects the notion that the
accumulation of property by mindless
labor can be an inherently meaningful
task as it rather takes away from our
ability to focus on pursuits that really
matter
things you own end up owning you in a
6:08
cataclysmic event
6:10
the apartment of the narrator is
6:11
destroyed by an explosion which
6:13
accelerates his personal transformation
6:16
this readjusts his focus onto
6:18
self-actualization
6:19
a process which he visualizes in his
6:21
interactions with tyler
6:23
a key aspect of tyler's approach is the
6:26
theme of self-destruction or as he puts
SELF-DESTRUCTION
6:28
it
6:29
self-improvement is masturbation
6:32
self-destruction
6:34
excuse me he encourages the narrator to
6:37
punch him after their first meeting in
6:39
loose tavern
6:40
this escalates into a full contact fight
6:43
this kind of rough play breaks up the
6:45
inner wiring of the last man type
6:46
narrator
6:48
according to nietzsche the emergence of
6:50
existential nihilism coincides with the
6:52
return of death anxiety
DEATH ANXIETY
6:54
western man has lost his faith in the
6:56
afterlife as a positive outlook
6:59
the suffering experienced throughout a
7:00
lifetime is therefore amplified because
7:02
there is no heavenly salvation to
7:04
comfort the pain
7:06
postmodern civilization is mostly
7:08
concerned with numbing this exact pain
7:11
it denies suffering as a critical
7:13
element of the human experience
7:15
demonizes any form of violence and
7:17
promotes hedonistic escapism the desire
7:20
to build a society that denies the value
7:22
of pain
7:23
and suffering is a deeply utopian one
7:25
which leads to the constant expansion of
7:27
the state
7:28
it offers to protect its citizens from
7:30
death while simultaneously providing
7:32
pleasure and comfort
7:33
nietzsche is disgusted by this idea as
7:36
he believes that the state turns human
7:37
beings into mere herd animals that live
7:40
ignorant of their own mortality and
7:42
without purpose
7:43
instead he proposes to face one owns
7:46
mortality head-on which is necessary to
7:48
overcome death anxiety
7:50
he rejects the other worldliness that
7:52
both christianity
7:53
and the secular state offer to mankind
7:57
the fight with tyler introduces the
7:59
narrator to the idea of embracing pain
8:01
and suffering as something that is as
8:02
much part of the human experience as
8:05
pleasure and comfort
8:06
self-help groups only served him to deny
8:09
the inevitable physical destruction of
8:11
his human body
8:12
fights on the other hand allow him to
8:14
confront his own impermanence
8:26
this sort of rewiring becomes very
8:29
appealing to other last man types that
8:31
witness the narrator fighting himself
8:38
they too are castrated by the
8:39
life-denying comfort seeking and
8:41
escapist culture of corporate america
8:44
within a few weeks a fight club is
8:46
founded where men meet to fight on a
8:48
weekly basis
8:49
in the basement of loose tavern the
8:51
disaffected men
8:52
find spiritual salvation and violence
8:54
for they rediscover the purpose of
8:56
masculinity
8:58
the evolution of testosterone was not an
9:00
accident
9:01
a man's natural traits are increased
9:03
strength and aggression
9:05
this was essential to protect and
9:07
provide for one's offspring
9:09
a role without which civilization would
9:10
have never been possible
9:12
contemporary society supplants the
9:14
traditional role of the individual man
9:16
with the state monopoly on violence
9:18
consequently it feminizes men by
FEMINIZATION
9:20
suppressing their biological tendencies
9:23
some men however will never be pacified
9:26
the truth of the matter is that men were
9:28
created to suffer
9:29
men were born to fight and therefore men
9:32
were born to create
9:33
creation however is not a passive
9:35
process as it requires the input of
9:37
force
9:38
nietzsche once formulated every creation
9:40
requires some form of destruction
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
9:43
the ubermensch is aware that his life
9:45
will end in annihilation
9:46
so he overcomes the plain will to live
9:48
and rather embraces the will to power
THE WILL TO POWER
9:51
he shapes his environment through force
9:53
to create something that will outlast
9:54
his short existence
9:56
but in order to do that he has to accept
9:58
enduring pain
9:59
suffering and destruction as part of the
10:02
process
10:03
the frustrated last men discover two
10:05
truths in fight club
10:06
the first is that they have to confront
10:08
hardship to truly accept the
10:10
inevitability of death
10:12
the second is that they have to destroy
10:13
their postmodern self-conception
10:15
before overcoming their emasculation to
10:17
create something new
10:19
it is revealed that tyler set the
10:21
narrator onto this path by destroying
10:23
his old condo
10:24
this forcibly detaches the protagonist
10:26
from his materialistic obsession and is
10:28
the first step towards destroying his
10:30
postmodern self-conception
10:32
tyler however understands that rejecting
10:34
materialism and joining a fight club is
10:37
not quite enough to fundamentally
10:38
repolarize the narrator
10:40
say this about marlin she's trying to
10:42
hit bottom
10:43
oh what and i'm not sticking feathers up
10:46
your butt does not make you a chicken
10:47
a part of him is still clinging on to
10:49
his former self because in his core he
10:51
is still fearful which prevents him from
10:53
taking any meaningful action what are we
10:55
doing tonight
10:57
tonight we make soap tyler emphasizes
11:00
the act of human sacrifice as the
SACRIFICE
11:02
ultimate expression of heroism in the
11:04
face of certain annihilation
11:06
enduring and accepting the value of pain
11:08
is a trait of higher men
11:09
the narrator however is initially
11:11
incapable of that despite him claiming
11:13
to be enlightened
11:14
what is this this is a chemical burden
11:19
the first soap was made from the ashes
11:20
of heroes like the first monkey shot
11:22
into space
11:23
without pain without sacrifice we would
11:25
have nothing
11:26
what tyler achieves in this scene is
11:28
highlighting the dilemma of existential
11:30
nihilism
11:31
if god has abandoned us we are faced
11:33
with two options
11:34
we can either escape from reality or we
11:36
can face the fact that nobody but
11:38
ourselves will save us from our mortal
11:40
suffering
11:41
to choose the latter one has to be
11:43
clear-minded and brave
11:44
fear on the other hand would only lead
11:46
back to the former i have to consider
11:48
the possibility that god does not
11:50
like you he never wanted you in all
11:52
probability
11:53
he hates you you have to know not fear
11:57
no someday you're gonna die you don't
12:00
know how this feels
12:07
it's only after we've lost everything
12:08
that we're free to do anything
12:11
nietzsche himself believed that the
12:13
heist must come to its height out of the
12:15
deepest depth meaning that man has to
12:17
hit bottom
HITTING BOTTOM
12:18
to truly grasp the finiteness of his own
12:20
existence
12:21
only then can he positively embrace his
12:23
short life and evolve into the
12:24
ubermensch
12:25
who creates his own purpose and takes
12:27
action to fulfill it
12:28
congratulations you're one step closer
12:32
tyler continues to introduce the other
12:34
men of fight club to the idea that they
12:36
belong to a generation of
12:38
last men who have been turned into a
12:39
homogenous herd of western consumers
12:41
misguided by a set of false expectations
12:44
advertising has us chasing cars and
12:46
clothes working jobs we hate
12:48
so we can buy [ __ ] we don't need
12:54
for the middle children of history man
12:57
no purpose a place
12:59
we have no great war no great depression
13:05
our great war is a spiritual war our
13:08
great depression
13:10
is our lives he attributes great
13:12
unfulfilled potential to the members of
13:14
fight club which mirrors nietzsche's
13:16
idea of the higher man
HIGHER MAN
13:18
the philosopher accurately concludes
13:20
that the decline of christianity
13:22
inevitably led to the emergence of
13:24
egalitarian mass movements throughout
13:25
the western world
13:27
they all share direct lineage to their
13:29
religious ancestor however
13:30
because christian morality originally
13:32
popularized the concept of the blank
13:34
slate
13:35
man was created in the image of god and
13:37
therefore contains an element of
13:39
divinity within a soul
13:41
nietzsche sees this dogma of fundamental
13:43
equality as a poison for mankind
13:45
because it is used by the mediocre mass
13:47
to enforce slave morality
13:49
he despises both socialism and liberal
13:51
democracy as unnatural ideologies that
13:54
will lead to the dominance of the
13:55
nihilistic herd of the western world
13:57
until the end of the 21st century
14:00
in nietzsche's book the prophet zarah
14:02
foustra ultimately comes to the
14:03
conclusion
14:04
that the masses are unwilling to accept
14:06
the significance of the ubermensch
14:08
as the antithesis to the degenerate last
14:10
man for the sake of civilizational
14:12
survival
14:13
instead he assembles a group of higher
14:15
men in whom he sees the potential for
14:17
greatness and a willingness to transcend
14:19
the egalitarian grip of the herd
14:21
tyler mimics this approach by building a
14:23
group of dedicated followers
14:25
who seek to overcome the emasculating
14:27
nature of contemporary western society
14:30
fight club transitions to project mayhem
14:32
where recruits have to prove their
14:34
perseverance before discarding the fake
14:36
individualism that consumer and
14:38
advertising culture has sold to them
14:39
you're not your job you're not how much
14:44
money you have in the bank
14:49
not the car you drive you're not the
14:52
contents of your wallet
14:55
you're not your [ __ ] khakis
14:59
you're the all-singing all-dancing crap
15:01
of the world
15:03
what unites these men is that their life
15:05
is without purpose or meaning
15:07
and so they decide to sacrifice
15:09
themselves for a greater idea
15:10
like a monkey ready to be shot into
15:12
space
15:14
space monkey ready to sacrifice himself
15:17
for the greater good
15:18
tyler prepares them for a spiritual war
15:21
to overthrow the unnatural order of
15:23
postmodern society
15:26
[Music]
15:35
tyler built himself an army his ultimate
15:37
goal is the destruction of the last man
15:39
mentality
15:40
that has created a civilization of
15:42
mediocrity and decline
15:44
the group initially vandalizes various
15:46
inanimate objects
15:47
targeted specifically because they
15:49
symbolize the corporate mentality of
15:51
western consumer culture
15:53
the narrator grows increasingly
15:55
uncomfortable with this situation
15:57
as he fears the ever expanding scope of
15:59
tyler's movement
16:00
this reveals his remaining attachment to
16:02
the established order
16:04
mostly because he fears the consequences
16:06
of overthrowing it
16:07
in his mind fight club was intended to
16:09
be a high level self-help group
16:11
and should have never evolved into
16:13
anything greater this however would have
16:15
meant that the weekly basement fights
16:17
would have been nothing more than a way
16:18
for these men to escape the emasculating
16:21
nature of their everyday experience
16:23
escaping into an imaginary ice cave
16:25
during a self-help seminar or escaping
16:27
into the basement of a local bar
16:29
neither would have been fundamentally
16:30
different tyler understands that fight
16:33
club could only ever serve as an
16:34
introduction to a dissident mindset but
16:36
the logical endgame would have to be the
16:38
establishment of a new civilizational
16:40
order
16:42
project mayhem is the practical
16:44
implementation of this ambition
16:46
its primary purpose is to destroy
16:48
centralized financial institutions
16:50
to accelerate the inevitable collapse of
16:52
the current system
16:53
its secondary purpose is to create a
16:55
decentralized network of spiritual
16:57
warrior types
16:58
who will form the aristocratic backbone
17:01
of the new order that will arise from
17:02
the resulting state of chaos
17:04
the ubermensch will be born out of the
17:06
dark cloud that is mankind and will
17:08
implement this process by what nietzsche
17:10
describes as the
REVALUATION OF ALL VALUES
17:11
re-evaluation of all values this will
17:14
challenge conventional slave morality
17:16
and ultimately aims to fill the
17:17
nihilistic void that was left by the
17:19
metaphorical death of god
17:21
with a new set of values that emphasizes
17:23
self-mastery over the human mind
17:26
the values of materialism and
17:28
egalitarianism
17:29
will be rejected for the emasculating
17:31
and inauthentic nature
17:32
in the world i see you're stalking out
17:36
through the damn canyon forest
17:37
around the ruins of rockefeller scent
17:42
you'll wear leather clothes that will
17:44
last you the rest of your life
17:47
you'll climb the wrist that cuts of
17:48
vines that wrap the sears tower
17:52
and when you look down you'll see tiny
17:54
figures pounding corn
17:57
laying strips of venison in the empty
17:59
carpool lane
18:00
some abandoned super highway the
18:02
narrator lives through a so-called
18:04
near-life experience
18:05
in form of a car crash after which his
18:07
psychological alter ego
18:09
and quasi father figure tyler abandons
18:11
him this allows the narrator to witness
18:14
the progression of his own movement
18:15
which immediately frightens him
18:17
especially once he realizes that people
18:19
are actually sacrificing themselves for
18:21
this greater cause
18:23
in death a member of project mayhem
18:26
has a name his name is robert paulson
18:32
his name is robert paulson his name
18:36
is robert paulson his name
18:39
is robert paulson come on guys his name
18:43
is robert paulson his name is robert
18:46
paulson
18:47
upon further investigation he learns
18:49
that fight club chapters have sprung up
18:50
across the country which leads him to
18:52
the discovery of tyler's true nature as
18:54
part of his imagination say my name
18:56
tyler durden tyler dern you [ __ ]
18:58
freak what's going on
18:59
tyler i don't understand this you were
19:01
looking for a way to change your life
19:03
you could not do this on your own all
19:06
the ways you wish you could be
19:08
that's me i look like you wanna look i
19:12
[ __ ] like you wanna [ __ ] i am smart
19:14
capable and most importantly i'm free in
19:16
all the ways that you are not
19:18
little by little you're just letting
19:21
yourself become
19:29
no you have a house rented in your name
19:31
you have jobs you have a whole life you
19:32
have night jobs because you can't sleep
19:34
where you step and make soap
19:38
uh technically you're [ __ ] mama but
19:40
it's all the same to her
19:44
oh my god this represents the process of
BECOMING ONESELF
19:46
becoming oneself as described by
19:48
nietzsche
19:49
by rejecting the vision of how a western
19:51
man ought to behave as defined by the
19:53
system itself
19:54
and embracing a lifestyle that embodies
19:56
the nature of what a human man actually
1
is
19:58
the narrator slowly but surely becomes
20:01
an individual
20:01
among a herd of nameless last men the
20:04
struggle to accept tyler durden as the
20:06
authentic identity of the narrator
20:08
is the ultimate purpose of the film
20:10
fight club this can only be achieved by
20:12
destroying the inauthentic aspect of his
20:14
identity
20:15
a process that naturally leads to
20:17
resistance by the former self in a
20:19
desperate bid to survive
20:21
the narrator hands himself to the local
20:23
police department and informs them about
20:25
project mayhem
20:26
in an attempt to sabotage the planned
20:28
attack on the before mentioned financial
20:30
institutions
20:31
the pd however has been infiltrated by
20:33
members of project mayhem who then
20:35
attempt to physically castrate the
20:37
narrator
20:38
he successfully defends himself against
20:40
his own men however and manages to
20:42
escape
20:43
i ran until my muscles burned and my
20:45
veins pumped battery acid
20:49
then i ran some more sabotaging the
20:52
movement that lifted the narrator out of
20:54
a state of apathy and nihilism to
20:56
protect the status quo
20:57
proves that he is still emasculated by
20:59
the system greatest thing you've ever
21:00
done
21:00
nah i can't let this happen you know
21:03
there are ten other bombs in ten other
21:05
buildings
21:06
god damn it since wendy's project mayhem
21:07
about murder the buildings are empty
21:09
security maintenance all our people
21:11
we're not killing anyone man we're
21:12
setting them free
21:14
god was dead they shot him in the head
21:17
you want to make an omelet you got to
21:18
break cement in a penultimate scene the
21:20
inner conflict between the narrator and
21:22
tyler is visualized wherein the former
21:24
is eviscerated by the latter
21:26
finally the protagonist throws himself
21:28
of a staircase hitting
21:30
rock bottom in a metaphorically nitrogen
21:32
sense
21:33
the narrator now finds himself engaged
21:35
in the last imaginary conversation with
21:37
thailand this is too much
21:39
i don't want this what do you want wanna
21:41
go back to the [ __ ] job
21:43
[ __ ] condo world watching sitcoms
21:45
[ __ ] me
21:46
i won't do it at this point he has
21:48
endured a maximum of pain and suffering
21:50
he cannot stop the following events but
21:52
for the first time he takes action on
21:54
his own initiative
21:56
hey good for you doesn't change the
21:57
thing
22:05
tyler
22:09
i want you to really listen to me
22:13
my eyes are open
22:21
this act symbolizes his transformation
22:24
from a disillusioned nameless consumer
22:26
to the individual tyler durden who
22:28
embodies the qualities of zarathustra's
22:30
ubermensch
22:31
he accepts suffering and death as part
22:33
of the human experience
22:35
and does so without fear in a clear
22:36
state of mind by pulling the trigger
22:39
he willingly removes all attachments to
22:41
his previous life
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and the expectations of postmodern
22:44
society while fully embracing the
22:46
possibility of immediate annihilation
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it is in this moment that his former
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self is destroyed as he regains his
22:53
masculinity
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by taking action and sacrificing himself
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for a higher purpose
22:58
he gives up all illusions of hope or
23:00
control because they've been pacifying
23:02
him his entire life
23:04
tyler regains the freedom to give his
23:06
life meaning because all distractions
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evaporate the second he faces this
CONFRONTING DEATH
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mortality head on
23:12
the bullet passes through his cheek but
23:14
metaphorically kills the projection of
23:16
tyler
23:16
because it has become superfluous now by
23:19
killing his imaginary father figure
23:21
tyler becomes his own man independent
23:24
and free to make his own decisions
23:26
this reflects the essence of
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zarathustra's teachings
23:29
in which god is the father and upon his
23:31
death mankind has to overcome its own
23:33
mediocrity
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to reach a higher state of being and
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fill the void of nihilism with meaning
23:39
consequently tyler accepts not only his
23:41
new self
23:42
but also his final break with postmodern
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society symbolized by the climactic
23:46
explosion and most importantly his
23:48
desire for malasinger
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she was the reason why his impotence
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escalated into the creation of his
23:54
imaginary hyper-masculine alter-ego
23:57
his character transformation now allows
him to finally overcome emasculation by
engaging in an honest romantic
relationship
this is punctuated by a single vulgar
frame that flashes across the screen
during the last shot of the film
nice big all in all
fight club is not a simple story but it
is relatable to many men of our
generation
it reflects nietzsche's belief that
western civilization has been descending
into mediocrity
ever since the self-destruction of
traditional christian values
western men are suffering from a disease
that can only be described as
emasculation
resulting from existential nihilism and
death anxiety
instead of heroically facing the
inevitability of their physical
annihilation
they seek refuge in meaningless
activities such as hedonism
consumerism and self-improvement the
resulting postmodern society is one that
is defined by lazy
fearful and impotent last man types that
drag each other down
under the pretense of equality fight
club depicts the spiritual path of one
such man
to step over his metaphysical impotence
and ultimately the system itself by
embracing pain and suffering
courageously
only once he has sacrificed his form-up
psychological self-conception
can he regain his masculinity and with
it the freedom to create a meaningful
existence
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