Wake Up Call

Having a gun pointed at the back of your head while being questioned about your life is an interesting situation.  This scene in fight club is one that sticks out to me the most.  It shows how extremities can be used for good, and makes one question if maybe we should all be daring enough to scare someone have to death to get them off of their lazy ass.  This includes ourselves.  The scene itself sums up one of the general messages of the movie, and that is we are all asleep in a sense, a slave to this materialistic world.  We get caught up in the idea of money and problems that ultimately distract us from the goals we want to reach and that would make us happy.  Similar to the clerk that Tyler takes out back of the mini mart and threatens to kill.  Without that wake up call, that character could have been stuck working that job for a long time before ultimately realizing he wasn't truly happy or reaching his goals.  We all need a taste of death in our lives.  We need it in order to realize we are still alive, and that we are vulnerable.  This is what keeps us pushing on and makes us enjoy life for what it is.  We cannot stay in a constant state of comfortableness, if we do we never grow.  We need that growth in order to not only reach our own goals but to evolve as human beings.  That is why, even though the entire situation got out of hang by the end of the movie, there is truth in what Tyler was preaching.  The only problem is that his ideas and actions lost balance.  "Project Mayhem"  went to the opposite end of the spectrum instead of staying well balanced like it was at the halfway point of the film.