I'm glad I stayed home tonight to watch HBO.
For couple of weeks, HBO in Chicago has been replaying Dark Knight and Valentine's Day.
I swear I have memorized both films eversince their first airing.
Tonight, after a Kate Winslet film that I did not catch the title, HBO's programming was to play Up in the Air.
I only remember its title as one of the Best Picture nominees of Oscars some years ago, and I knew George Clooney was the star.
Other than that, I don't know anything about the movie, or why the heck it was even nominated by the Academy.
The movie follows George Clooney's character as the guy who was hired by companies to fire people.
Not light them up, but to let go of their employment from the binding ties of the company.
He flies 340 days a year, and he flies around the US to do his job.
His job allows him to travel business class, or even first class. To live in a luxurious hotels.
His job allows him also to see each human get devastated for delivering the bad news to these people.
After several years of flying to different states to fire people, the company he has worked for wanted to cut cost of staff flying all over the US.
It's understandable for the company to cut down their operating costs, so they tried to pilot a new process of firing people - that is to do the firing in front of a computer screen from
the comfort of their own office in Omaha.
But the business of firing people is never easy to do in person, much more to try to do in a rather impersonal manner through a computer screen.
Having been in a situation wherein your boss asks you to leave the company because they no longer need you is probably one of the hardest situation.
For one, it is really devastating simply because when the company hired you, in your heart of hearts, you build up this dream of growing old in that company.
Not only because it pays your bill, but also because you believed that the company will take your life to greater heights while you give them your invaluable day-to-day contributions at work.
But business is business. Sometimes (or alot other times) the company needs to cut their operational costs and would sometimes rely to machines to cut their costs rather than keeping a staff who would incur more costs each year to their ever-growing list of cost.
The film does not end on a happy note, but George Clooney's character realizes some few things about life.
One, that he shouldn't be running away from his family just because he thinks that they are the responsibilities trying to strain his comfortable life.
Another thing he realized is that the new girl trying to pilot the new process of firing people isn't her enemy - and that he can learn a thing or two about human relationships with her.
And three, at the time he wants to settle with someone, the woman he wants to settle with is just seeing him as a paranthesis in her life. An escape from her married life.
Something that he was actually okay to be doing with her initially - but he had a change of heart.
In reality, we can toss everything up in the air. Our lives, our dreams, our families and even our careers.
Sometimes, someone else toss it up in the air. Alot other times, it is the circumstances that tosses them all up.
But when something is tossed up in the air, we always forget that it may just be one of the few things that are up there.
Not everything will be up in the air. Otherwise, gravity won't be working and the world will probably be damned if that's the case.
