That's pride fuckin' with you

While I don’t worship at the alter of Tarantino, Pulp Fiction was a great movie. It has one of my favorite scenes from all of film. All we see is Marcellus’s neck while he is telling Butch to throw a fight. I love this scene because the mood is perfect. I didn’t know that anyone could express so much emotion with the back of their neck. I really like the use of Al Green in the background. But most importantly, this is one of the best monologues that I have ever seen.

Marcellus: I think you're gonna find, when all this shit is over, I think you're gonna find yourself one smiling motherfucker. The thing is, Butch, right now you got ability. But painful as it may be, ability don't last. And your days are just about over. Now that's a hard motherfuckin' fact of life, but that's a fact of life your ass is gonna have to get realistic about. See, this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't. Besides, Butch, how many fights do you think you got in you anyhow? Two? Boxers don't have an Old Timers Place. You came close but you never made it. And if you were gonna make it, you would have made it before now. (holds out the envelope of cash to Butch, but just out of his reach)You're mine, dig?

Butch: It certainly appears so. (takes the envelope)

Marcellus: Night of the fight, you might feel a slight sting. That's pride fuckin' with you. Fuck pride! Pride only hurts, it never helps. You fight through that shit. 'Cause a year from now, when you kicking it in the Caribbean, you gonna say to yourself, "Marcellus Wallace was right."

Butch: I got no problem with that, Mr. Wallace.

Marcellus: In the 5th, your ass goes down. (Butch nods silently) Say it.

Butch: In the 5th, my ass goes down.

I was thinking about how we all think that our abilities will last forever. When you are young, you think that you can only get better at everything. You think that you can party all night and still get in a productive day the next morning. You think that friendship is easy as long as you have fun. You think that you can go around and “just chill” with people of the opposite sex forever and not make any kind of commitment.

Then, you wake up one day with a big hangover because you thought that you could party like you did in the old days. You feel like crap, but you still have to go to that job of yours, where you are overworked and under appreciated, to pay your mortgage on the picket fence house in the Burbs, along with little Jimmy’s piano lessons and little Sarah’s ballet, jazz, and tap. You lose touch with a lot of your friends, because your work and your home life consume you, and you are so tired that you don’t know how to be a good friend to anyone.

I think that in most areas, if we are lucky, we do age like wine. I can only hope that I am a better programmer from year to year. I hope that I can be a better friend to those that I care about. I hope that my knowledge and wit will grow. I hope that I can be happier as time passes.

But I think that we all have our ups and downs. We can’t feel like we are on the top of the world forever, but it seems like when we are at the bottom of the barrel, it does last forever. Everything, at the end of the day is transient. We find and lose love. People, friends and foes alike, come in and out of our lives. Work has its ups and downs. We pursue our passions and we give them up in pursuit of something else. We live, and like all living things, we die.