At first I wondered how this could possibly be realistic because how could anybody get into such a rut for so long? How could they let things get that bad without doing anything about it? Then I thought about other people in my life and I see that it happens frequently. And I can see it happening to anybody if he isn't careful. So many things going on, so many of our own irons in the fire, so easy to get so caught up in all our own things that we could forget to share.

Another aspect of the “rut” is that people lose their ability to be direct. The root of that is fear. Most people are afraid to be direct with others. We fight the fear on a regular basis, and most are generally, but not always equally, successful. What is this fear? It is the fear of not being good enough. It is the fear of not meeting some incredible expectation that we can look at as being set for us by others, but secretly feel that we contributed to in some fraudulent manner. It is the fear of not only being discovered to fail to be something that we were expected to be, but to have contributed to the false expectation that was unfulfilled. The latter part of this feeling is what creates guilt. It is a tremendous guilt, and though any rational mind knows that it is irrational, somehow this knowledge does not diminish it. There is a powerful joy in being absolutely direct and honest. It is a joy that only some discover, and those who do usually regret only that they discovered it too late in life.

Part of the film is about how one man breaks through all of this not only to rediscover a zest for life that he had in his younger days, but to experience a totally new and greater sense of freedom and independence not possible in his younger years because it requires years of experience and wisdom to discover. Most adults think their own problems are far more important and stressful than anything they experienced when they were children. I have always known this is not true. The frustration and stress I felt when I was a child were no weaker or more trivial than what I feel today. But what I never before realized is that the very opposite might be true. As an adult I have a perspective that I never had as a child. I know from experience that no matter how bad things seem, they could get worse or they could get better, and I can make the difference. In a very real sense, this perspective actually shrinks whatever frustration and stress we might experience by illuminating it in contrast to a more concrete sense of reality. In this way, the frustration and stress I felt as a child was actually greater and more urgent because I did not have the ability to see around it.

What makes the film so heavy is that it is so simple and direct. What Lester learns is a simple fact of life. He learns that the only way he can get out of his rut is to live his dream. He realizes this while smoking pot with his daughter’s boyfriend, in the back of the building in which his wife is schmoozing her shallow real estate friends. He sees this 18 year old kid asserting his independence – not any power over others but instead true independence. This inspires him. He realizes what he has lost. Up to that moment he felt that he could never risk losing everything he had accumulated over the last 20 years of his life. But in that instant he realized that all that stuff was just “stuff” and worse, was “stuff” that he did not really value at all. It was all a bunch of nothing. So while he did have something to lose, all he had worth losing was not worth keeping either. That’s what he means when he tells his boss that he is a man with nothing to lose.

To follow the dream is to realize that he only gets one life. That means he only gets once chance. There is no dress rehearsal. You have to overcome the fear and guilt to get to anything worth having. And maybe even then you don’t find anything worth having, but even in that worst case scenario you aren’t any worse off. But chances are you might find something worth having. And if you do, instead of clinging to it with a death grip, you let it flow through you and you move on, enriched by the experience.

Another way they get into their ruts is that they never communicate with each other. Here “communicate” has gotten a bad rap from a bunch new age sophists but still it’s the best word I can come up with. They are not direct and honest with each other. Part of the reason is because each feels ashamed for what he has done with his own life. This makes it difficult for them to be direct with each other because that shame is a wound they do not want to open or examine. Because of this it never heals, it just gets worse and worse. It festers and helps completes the vicious cycle that is insulating each of them from their own feelings.

Breaking the cycle is a balancing act and this is where both of them failed. She goes not far enough and he goes too far. She never really changes anything in her life, she just diverts herself by daring to do things to shock herself. He really does improve his life but in doing so he loses touch with everybody else around him. The balance is to understand that one is ultimately responsible for his own life, but also has taken on responsibilities to share it with and to help other people. He might have been better off had he never gotten married.

And what happened in the marriage? He was in love with a crazy adventurous spirited woman. But he never realized that she was also a shallow woman. Sometimes the shallowness is hard to identify in youth because people spend so much time experiencing and learning new things. It can take adversity to discover one’s own depth. Neither of them ever experienced any real adversity. After a while each start resenting the other for not bringing himself out of his own rut. Each expected the other to rescue him, but was unwilling to rescue the other. Over the years each’s own sense of shame, and his resentment of the other, increased and they grew apart. They remained physically together only because it was more convenient than splitting up. Besides, being together gave each of them someone else to blame for his own misery.

In the end, the moral of the film is that most people waste their lives. And it is a tragedy because life really can be wonderful. But people get so caught up in what is going on around them that instead of pushing their lives in the direction they need to go, they become passengers and let life drive them around aimlessly. People become afraid of life, then over time as they fail to address this they become ashamed and guilty of their failure.