our futures, our present, how we interpret our past, our relationships, our jobs, our life callings...
I just came back from seeing this fantastic new movie and want to take a moment to reflect on it.
This movie follows the life of Ryan Bingham, a guy who is paid to fly all over the nation in order to fire people and provide severance packages in place of the boss. From the very beginning, you see how this role plays out, as disgruntled employees react to the camera after hearing that they have been laid off. Ryan remains stoic through this because he has seen it all. He also asserts how this travel has become his home. He has become accustomed to the grueling hours spent waiting for planes and going through security. He takes great pleasure in the people he meets along the way, all the while remaining free from attachments to anyone of significance, even family. Along his travels, he also speaks at conferences about "baggage" we carry around. Among this baggage, he mentions, is family and friends. He says that while some species are created to live symbiotically, humans are not. Ryan has become accustomed to being the loner who flies around to tell them their jobs have been terminated.
Pretty soon, his business picks up a new young female employee who is hired to advance the company into the technology world through video conferencing. However, she is given the role to travel along with Ryan in order to get a sense for how these conferences with soon to be fired employees plays itself out. She is very naive to this world he lives in. She soon begins to see him as a mentor in dealing with these conversations. Before too long, she discovers Ryan's disdain for human connection and becomes disgusted.
Meanwhile, Ryan meets a new woman with a very similar lifestyle who he begins to fall for. They acknowledge a fleeting relationship built on keeping each other company on the road. However, as Ryan's sister's wedding approaches, he feels the need to invite her along. At this wedding, he begins to see how his distance from family and friends has hurt him. He begins to long for intimacy.
Without spoiling the climactic ending, I will just say that he soon learns that the world he has created is one that he cannot escape. However, he begins to see this in a new light. He begins to see that humans are indeed symbiotic creatures, that need to live and love with one another and for one another. He gains a new perspective on his role on the road and as one who delivers bad news.
The movie ends with moving testimonials of people who have been "laid off." Once again, speaking to the camera, these people give moving affirmations of the need for family and friends to love and support through such life transitions.
These situations and messages are very timely to us here and now. I think of my life here at BSM - constantly in conversation with people who have been laid-off, or without jobs for a long period of time. I have no doubt that all would affirm the need for friends and family to live with them during their struggles. This is what has drawn many into the fold of BSM - the need for community, for love and support.
This is also why I find myself writing on this blog - knowing that YOU out there reading are family and friends who are supporting me. So, thanks!
We all need places we call "home" that truly are so. Of course you may consider your current location home. You may consider hanging out with friends home. You may consider the town you grew up in as home...
However, is your home a place that you are willing to carry on your back, knowing that it is also carrying you at the same time?
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