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I am Jack’s midlife crisis

Twenty-five years later, ‘Fight Club’s punches don’t land the same.

Photo: 20th Century Fox

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I was young then. I am old now, and getting older.

Another difference between yesterday and today: I’m not as pissed-off. My anger is a blue flame clinging to a blackened matchstick. The young rage at the unfairness of it all. But the old quietly wonder: “How did we let this happen?”

Fight Club stars Edward Norton as a nameless corporate drone whose identity is defined by whatever he last bought at IKEA. He yearns for a purpose, which is the default setting of every modern American. We yearn, we hunger, we want. We pursue happiness, as if happiness were a thing with hooves to hunt and roast.

He adopts the phrase as a mantra, a way to cope with his unraveling mind. His fears and insecurities become characters unto themselves, each capable of…