“Raymond, you are going to die.”
Don’t worry though, Raymond isn’t real. Raymond K. Hessel is a character from the movie “Fight Club,” starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. For those of you who aren’t familiar with “Fight Club,” I’ll go ahead and break it down for you.
Basically, the Narrator (Edward Norton) is a boring guy with a boring job and a boring life. He meets a stranger on a plane named Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. Tyler is everything Edward Norton is not. Tyler lives in a run down, abandoned house — laws and social norms do not apply to him.
The Narrator and Tyler decide to start an underground fight club where guys can blow off steam. This fight club grows exponentially and becomes a terrorist organization headed by the two, which vandalizes various things around town.
One evening, Tyler pulls a handgun from Norton’s backpack and walks into a convenience store. He drags the clerk behind the store, shoves him on his knees and takes his wallet, all while pointing the gun at the back of his head.
Tyler discovers the clerk’s name is Raymond K. Hessel and utters the phrase “Raymond, you are going to die.”
Raymond has naturally soiled his pants at this point. Tyler begins to ask Raymond about his life, his small, crappy apartment and his community college ID card.
He asks Raymond what he wanted to be. With a gun pointed to his head, Raymond answers with “a veterinarian.”
Tyler yells “Animals! That means you’ll have to get more school.” Raymond disagrees, saying it was too much school.
Tyler responds with “Would you rather be dead?”
Tyler puts down the gun, takes Raymond’s driver’s license and tells him if he’s not back in school and on his way to becoming a veterinarian in 6 weeks, he will be dead. The audience then sees the handgun was in fact never loaded.
Tyler says, ”Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.” Tyler scared Raymond into becoming what he always wanted to be. By making him think he wasn’t going to see tomorrow, he made his tomorrows mean more than they ever would have standing behind the counter at a convenience store.
All too often we have the desire to do something big, whether that be graduating college, traveling to Europe or becoming a veterinarian like Raymond. However, the majority of the time those dreams fail to materialize due to finances, relationships or a simple lack of motivation.
Spoiler alert: At the end of the film we find out Tyler is not real, but an alternate personality of the Narrator. Small, meek and unmotivated Edward Norton was the one holding the gun to Raymond K. Hessel’s head, not Tyler. Tyler was everything the Narrator wanted to be but was afraid to become. Tyler was the motivation inside the Narrator.
I’m not advocating anyone hold up a convenience store with an empty gun in order to motivate the clerk. That will get you shot — don’t forget this is the South. What I am advocating is not sitting around having dreams and lacking the motivation to make them a reality. Just do something, anything, it doesn’t matter what. That’s a personal decision.
It’s up to you to make yourself happy. We all have a Tyler Durden inside of us, it may be a good idea to let him out every once in a while.
Parker Cramer is a 20-year-old animal science junior from Houston, Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @TDR_pcramer.
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Contact Parker Cramer at [email protected]