The Dark Side of Following Your Passion

***WARNING: This review of The Wrester contains spoilers.***

It’s late at night and outside the rain is falling. It seems an appropriate setting to reflect on the dark side of the American dream, or the dark side of following your passion. We are encouraged by so many self-help books and self-styled gurus and coaches “to follow your passion” with the promise of riches and happiness at the end of the hard work and tough choices. But what if that passion has you so much in its hold that there is no time or space, or even emotional or psychological resources, left for anything else?

We’ve just been watching The Wrestler, the movie that came out recently starring Mickey Rourke as a professional wrestler who was once at the top of his game but is now past his prime and just barely keeping his battered and tortured body in the ring. The opening act is relentlessly brutal showing the physical beatings he takes for the sake of his sport and for the adoration of the fans. Wrestling at this level is partly pre-determined in that the wrestlers agree the general flow of the match and the moves they are going to make but it’s very real in that they really do brutalise their bodies to some degree. It’s part of the show and showmanship that sends the fans into cheering hysteria. The climax of the first act is a match that involves barbed wire, a staple gun, broken glass and falling from a high ladder.

In the ring, the wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson moves with ease and in the locker room, he is the top dog, comfortable, confident, genial and a hero among the other wrestlers. But outside, in the real world, he lives in a trailer and is late with his rent payments. He is estranged from his daughter and the only human contact he has is with a stripper whom he pays 60 bucks to for a conversation and a lap dance. He takes casual work in a superstore, packing meat, to make ends meet but he’s gone the moment the next gig comes along. He is monosyllabic and uncomfortable in his bulking form and the people around him keep calling him by his real name Robin and he keeps having to correct them. “Randy,” he keeps saying, “It’s Randy”.

He gave up everything to follow his passion - his wife, his daughter, steady work, a house. And for a time, it is clear, he had the fame and the glory, those great prizes that we are promised for following our passion, all documented in faded press cuttings. But now, after a heart attack, he finds that he is left with nothing and no-one. On his doctor’s advice, he retires from the ring and for a little while, he tries to start a new life, re-connecting with his daughter, taking a permanent job at the deli counter at the superstore, tentatively building a real relationship with the stripper outside of the bar. But he seems smaller, emasculated, bumbling and ill-equipped for his role as father. He comes to be a pathetic figure, like a huge, pacing lion caged in a plastic cap and apron behind the deli counter.

The film is about a wrestler on the face of it but it might be about any artist, sports person or performer - or an entrepreneur or business person or anyone with a career - who has gives their all to their profession and who may achieve the heights of fame and glory in their endeavour. You might be like the wrestler in the movie with nothing to your name but your skill as a showman in the ring. Or you might be a rock star on endless tours or a golfing genius who works relentlessly to stay at the top of your game or a partner in a global accountancy firm with wealth and recognition within your industry. If the ring or arena that you have chosen for yourself is the only place you come alive then the rest of the time, you may one day find yourself in the same, dark, empty trailer where Randy lives all alone. If you do not take care of your life outside of your chosen ring, if you do not pay attention to those who love you beyond that arena or practice the skills it takes to live your life after the match, you may find that there is nothing and no-one waiting for you after your moment in the spotlight.

Did Randy become so unskilled in the real world and in the real relationships in his life because he spent too long in the world of wrestling and honing the skills that made him a star there? Or was it that in the final analysis, the only real skills he had were those that made him a success in the hard macho arena of a wrestler’s life and the world of the ring was where he found his place - and ultimately, the life where he belonged? Perhaps there are aspects of both those views that are true. Might it be that someone who is highly skilled in numbers and finance and spreadsheets might find themselves top dog in the world of multinational accountanting but have no real skills in building good relationships outside of that “ring”? And so they are celebrated as chief executive and a leader in their field, acclaimed and admired by business associates, colleagues and strangers within that industry - and they love their lives in that arena because their skills there make success so easy. In the meantime, they may be spending all their energy in that world to obscure the uncomfortable fact that they have no real skills with the wife (or husband) and children or in developing relationships that are not based on business or in bonding with friends who value them for who they are and not what they can do.

Following your passion is a great piece of advice because it can give you a sense of purpose and meaning as the many self-help books and success coaches tell us. But there is a dark side, especially if your passion becomes a replacement for the real relationships in your life - or perhaps a grandiose excuse to neglect them - because those relationships are too difficult or lacking the grand emotive drama of fandom or simply because you’re not very good at them. For someone like Randy, through the choices he makes, his passion becomes his real life because there is nothing else left. I found The Wrestler heart-wrenching, depressing, and poignant. Like all the classic tragic heroes, Randy is trapped by his fatal flow and you know from the beginning that there is only one way it’s going to end but you just watch on, helpless and crying out for him, as the inevitable conclusion rolls ever into sight. But what makes the film so powerful is that when the end comes, even while you despair at his choice, you also know that in some ways, it is a happy ending because it is in the ring that he comes alive so it seems apt that it is there that he chooses to embrace his death - and his only way out of the ring.

Poster photo: from Wikipedia, with thanks