the backpack metaphor

I've now seen Up In The Air twice and find it to be the most intelligent film made in the last five to ten years and probably the best singular film to be released since Almost Famous. Jason Reitman depicts a middle-aged man coming to grips with the harsh realities of his own detachment from the world around him. I'd seen commercials for the the movie a few times before going to see it with my roommate and a few friends, and I expected that it would be a typical romantic comedy. It was anything but typical and the impact of the story really surprised me. I was torn with my decision to go see Up In The Air because the same night we ventured to the theatre William & Mary was playing Villanova in the NCAA FCS semifinal game on ESPN2 - and yes I do blame myself and my decision to leave the apartment for the Tribe's loss. Thankfully, Up In The Air was excellent enough to justify any sorrow I may have caused Tribe-nation - did I really just write "Tribe-nation"?

Reitman masterfully presents the emotional struggles of his lead character, Ryan Bingham, through the character's own motivational speaking. In the film, Bingham initially presents his audiences with a backpack and asks them to feel the weight of draping their lives over their shoulders while depicting himself as a superior being because of the weightlessness of his own existence. But by its conclusion, Bingham suffers a crisis of identity and impulsively rushes to stuff what he believes is the first true emotional connection he's experienced into his backpack and zip it shut before it can escape. Tragically, he discovers that Alex, who operates as his mirror functionally in the film, already has a full backpack of her own.

I find the backpack metaphor incredibly insightful and thought-provoking. The great struggle of life is akin to the difficulty of deciding who and what to keep in our backpacks and who and what we should or need to let go. Like many aspects of life, it's all about balance. You can weigh yourself down by carrying too much emotional baggage or maintaining relationships that are counterproductive. Releasing your hold on these items does free you to continuously encounter new experiences and move perpetually in new and progressive directions. Yet at the same time, if your backpack is empty it's highly likely that your life lacks emotional fulfillment.

In addition to the metaphorical backpack forever slung over my shoulders, I actually do often carry a backpack - it's really a laptop case, but if it looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes, talks, walks and acts as a backpack, then I guess it's a backpack. In my physical backpack I carry the items I need to get through a given day, and to keep myself from being uncomfortably weighed down, I try to limit the backpack's contents to those items. Still, there are some constants in its contents - items I almost always carry because of their essential nature and/or their importance to me. The standout among these items is unquestionably my MacBook Pro, which is seemingly, and perhaps frighteningly, an integral instrument in all facets of my daily life.

Considering my metaphorical backpack, it's certainly not empty. It's full of good friends and amazing experiences. However, I do feel as though it's a little light for its size, meaning that my connections to its contents are not as strong, or as heavy, as I would like. I've focused on this lately, feel that I am doing a better job of adding meaningful weight to my life and am grateful to creators such as Jason Reitman for reminding me of the importance of doing so. The biggest challenge, both because of its difficulty and the personal obstacles I face, is attempting to find and secure the MacBook Pro of my personal life within my metaphorical backpack, which may be the least romantic analogy ever made - yeah I should stop writing now.