I am a big fan of the television show Dexter. I began watching this past February and am still catch up by watching episodes online. Because I don't wish for anyone out there to throw a hissy-fit, let me put up a good ole' fashioned SPOILER ALERT. ... Hold on, it's a really good one. Ahh, here is it.
Stop reading this post at once, unless you want the truth to eat at your future love of Dexter.
Now then...
The primary antagonist of Dexter’s fifth season is a character by the name, Jordan Chase, a motivational speaker. Chase is a well-dressed, confident man who encourages others to “TAKE IT!” (it, of course, being their true desires in life). He’s a charming and all around stand up guy—if you ignore the fact he moonlights as a crime lord who tortures and rapes women.
Chase’s monologue, one episode, got me thinking; he asks, “Do you want to have control of your life? You have that power...you just have to learn how to use it. You can make up all the excuses you want; you're too tired, too old, too fat, too stupid! You know, I've heard them all. But if you want something...TAKE IT! You want that job? Well then TAKE IT! It's entirely up to you.” I liked this. People spend their lives complaining and stressing about things out of their control far too often. If only they could just read this nifty flow chart I have right here.
Like the most obvious thing that pretty much everyone forgets
From Chase’s monologue, I just thought he was some generic, confidence and empowerment self-help type… until I heard Chase tell Dexter, “Trauma is also opportunity. Tragedy tears us apart, sure, but it’s the one chance to recreate yourself. You get to put yourself back together again any way you want.” …Woah, now. Has Chase been reading some Viktor Frankl? Telling Dexter we find meaning in our hardest times to self-improve sounds very logotherapeutic? Hell, the more you look at it, Chase is a full-blown Existentialist! “Taking it”, defining and re-defining our lives however we want; that level of choice, free will, and self-empowerment rests only in Existentialism.
Later on, Chase even says, addressing some fans, “You're all going to die—some of us sooner than others. And if you're not in touch with your primal self, you're already dead. You may be breathing and walking around but you're an empty shell—just one of the herd. Completely unaware of what you truly want.” This sounds like something straight out of Fight Club (a shining model of Existentialism portrayed through film, not to mention one of my all-around personal favorites). Existentialism and Chase...okay fine, I would say that the only thing we really posses—call it our “existential currency”—are the few years of our lives. When relationships, emotions, and material possessions come and go, our time allotted by our biology—by which we make choices and act on them—is all we really ever have. Why would anyone waste them not loving every possible second?! Yes, there are some things that our out of our control, but many people grossly overestimate how much stuff that is. We control our lives, always.
Chase tells his followers, “We're gonna cast off those shackles that bind us to jobs we hate, people we don't love, lives that aren't worth living. We are going to TAKE IT.” Existentialism gets a bad rep from some, for they see it as cold and disloyal to loved ones. They don’t understand what others do, when they wake up one day during their unhappy and unfulfilled lives and ask, “Why do I keep doing this?” They see the man or woman that leaves it all behind to go create a new life somewhere else as selfish. In truth, what this person is doing is weighing their options—looking at the connections, the relationships, the luxuries, the comforts, and the responsibilities of their current life, and seeing how they compare to the grind, the uselessness, the aggravation, the boredom, the total inapplicability of everything around them to their very core, all things that are just as much a part of an unhappy life as the luxuries it may provide. The existentialist asks, “Is it really worth it?” “Do I truly owe anything to this husband or wife of mine? Is this monotonous task really going to matter to me in the long run? I’m not expressing who I truly am. This environment isn’t one I feel comfortable in.” They look at what’s holding them there. Is it tradition? Perhaps it’s simply expected or assumed you’d stay and do what you always were supposed to. Is it lack of power of will or fear of failure? Are they just too afraid to try and live without the fancy car and supportive community? Maybe it's a combination.
At its core, in a radically unhappy life, the Existentialist chooses to leave it all behind and recreate his or herself. They recognize that the only thing that matters is that they’ve enjoyed their life, and the only thing that truly belongs to them and depends on their actions is their own existential currency—time. And yes, I am well aware I used a nauseatingly obnoxious amount of italics in this connection. I hope my charm has somewhat made up for it. Cheers!
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