Setting-up Franchises.

 
 

Cornelius/Rupert/Travis and Tyler Durden 

are discussing the impact of Fight Club.

"If you could fight anyone," Tyler asks, 

"who would you fight?"

"I'd fight My Boss."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Who would you fight?"

"I'd fight My Dad."

"I don't know my Dad. 

 
I mean, I know him, but he left when I was like six years old, married This Other Woman, had some more kids. 

He did this like every six years - 

he goes to a new city 

and starts a new family."

"Fucker's setting up franchises."

Tyler pauses.

"My Dad never went to college, so of course 

its real important that I go. 

So I graduate, I call him up long-distance 

and say, 'Now What?' 
He says, 'Get a Job'. 

So, I'm 25, I call again 

and say, 'Now What?' 

He says, 'I Dunno. 

Get Married.'"

"I couldn't get married. 

I'm a thirty-year-old boy."

"We're a Generation of Men raised by Women - 

I'm wondering if Another Woman is really 

The Answer We Need."

That's The Tyler

The Mouth of Sauron 

 is what emerges from The Black Gate, 

when you approach, 

To Talk You Out of Coming in.

"That's Not Your Opinion."

"You Don't Really Believe That."

"You Don’t Really Know What You’re Talking About."

"That Isn't True."

I started to pay very careful attention to what I was saying. 

I don’t know if that happened voluntarily or involuntarily, but I could feel a sort of split developing in my psyche. 

I’ve actually had students tell me that the same thing has happened to them after they’ve listened to some of the material that I’ve been describing to all of you. 

But I split into two, let’s say. 

One part was the old me that was talking a lot, that liked to argue, and that liked ideas. 

There was another part that was watching that part, just with its eyes opened, and neutrally judging. 

The Part that was Neutrally Judging was watching The Part That was Talking, and going,

that wasn’t your idea; 

you don’t really believe that; 

You Don’t really know what you’re talking about; 

That Isn’t True. 

I thought, 

"Hm! That’s really interesting!" 

That was happening to like 95 percent of what I was saying, and then I didn’t really know What to Do. 

I thought, 

"Okay, This is Strange. Maybe I fragmented, and that’s just Not a Good Thing, at all." 

It’s not like I was hearing voices, or anything like that. 

It wasn’t like that. 

People have multiple parts. 

So then I had this weird conundrum: 

"Which of These Two Things are Me?

Is it The Part That’s Listening and Saying --

'No, that’s rubbish'

'That’s a lie'

'You’re doing that to impress People'

'You’re just trying to Win The Argument.' 

Was that me?

Or was I the part that was going about its normal, verbal business? 

I didn’t know, but I decided that 

I would go with The Critic. 

And then what I tried to do 

— what I learned to do, I think — 

was to 

Stop Saying Things that Made Me Weak.

 I mean, I’m still trying to do that. 

I’m always feeling, when I talk, whether or not the words that I am saying are making me align or making me come apart. 

I really do think that the alignment is the right way to conceptualize it, because if you say things as true as you can say them, then they come out of The Depths inside of you. 

We don’t know where thoughts come from. 

We don’t know how far down into your substructure the thoughts emerge. 

We don’t know what process of physiological alignment is necessary for you to speak from the core of your being. 

We don’t understand any of that — we don’t even conceptualize that. 

But I believe that you can feel that. 

I learned some of that by reading Carl Rogers, who’s a great clinician. 

He talked about mental health, in part, as the coherence between the spiritual —

or the abstract — and the physical —

that the two things were aligned. 

There’s a lot of ideas of alignment in Psychoanalytic and Clinical Thinking. 

But, anyways, I decided that I would start practicing not saying things that would make me weak. 

What happened was that I had to stop saying almost everything that I was saying —

95 percent of it. 

That’s a hell of a shock — this was over a few months — to wake up and realize that you’re mostly DEAD WOOD. 

It’s a shock. 

You might think, well, 

"Do You Really Want All of That to Burn Off? 

Well, there’s nothing left but a little husk — 5 percent of you.

Well, if that 5 percent is SOLID, then maybe that’s exactly what you want to have happen.