"Up in the Air" and Me

  When I went to the University of Central Florida about a decade ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!), the film director Jason Reitman came over to give a Q & A. Below is a picture I took of him, and I even got to shake his hand. At this point he had already directed the film “Thank You for Smoking” and “Juno,” and would soon premiere his film “Up in the Air,” which I would say is one of my favorites of his.

“Up in the Air” is a 2009 movie in which George Clooney plays a man named Ryan Bingham, a “termination assistant” and motivational speaker. Basically he is paid to fire people on behalf of companies not willing to do so; since this was made during a dark time for the American economy with many people being laid off, it was a very timely film. Bingham is one of those perhaps rare people that truly loves his job, and revels in the fact that he gets to travel around the country and fly in planes most days of the year. While he doesn’t work as either a pilot or a flight attendant, he’s very knowledgeable about air travel and its history. He doesn’t own many material possessions, preferring to collect frequent flyer miles rather than souvenirs, and has no plans to get married or have kids. He has a thankless job, although when firing people he does his best to make sure that there is at least some dignity to it.

During the movie Ryan Bingham goes to Wisconsin for his sister’s wedding, meeting siblings that are his polar opposites. He meets his future brother-in-law Jim, played by Danny McBride. They chit chat and get to know one another at a bar, with Jim talking about his work maintaining houses. He then says, “We all need a place to call our own. This is America. This is what we were promised.” Jim is then flabbergasted when Ryan says that he gave up the apartment he was renting and is also not planning on buying a home, simply continuing to live out of a suitcase. The idea is totally foreign to Jim, and perhaps to a wide swath of the American population.

Currently I am an English teacher living abroad. I’m absolutely loving my job, both gaining a sense of fulfillment when teaching little ones and getting to explore a new land. And currently I do not own my own home, living in an apartment provided by the school I work for (a fairly common and great benefit for English teachers abroad). 

Honestly I’m not sure if I will ever own my own house, and I am kind of okay with that. If I were going to settle down and own a house, it would probably be because I got married and planned on having kids. While I like the idea of eventually getting married and having my own family, if it turned out that I was truly destined to remain single for the rest of my life, then I don’t think I would bother with a house. I think I’d be okay with continuing my current profession for many years to come, simply going from one country to another. Maybe I could continue with my teaching and travelling if I got married (and there are some isolated cases of that happening) but it would really depend on the woman I ended up marrying.

Many of the people I knew in high school and college have since settled down, gotten married, had kids, and bought homes in the suburbs. Based on Facebook pictures I’ve seen, and the occasional talk I have had with them, they all seem happy. And maybe someday that will happen for me. But I feel that if I had gotten married and settled down at a younger age, that I would have longed for adventure while commuting to a more normal job and heading back to a house. Ultimately everyone is wired differently with different desires and interests, sometimes vastly different from what many people strive for. While there are a lot of differences between Ryan Bingham and me, I feel that the one thing we have in common is a desire to be able to explore.