"What the F are you still doing driving a cab?"

[TM101]

But its all so true isn't it? A lot of people don't realize their life is one huge coping strategy designed to deflect them from what they want to do but will never do due to the mess that spins around in their head because of the life they've lived to get to this point right here.

Its crazy when you think about it because movies are laced with profound gems like this whilst the educational system and the rest is filled with useless crap. Makes you wonder if everything is actually flip turned upside down on purpose to see who gets it?

This entire movie was so dope as it just laid it out there, in black and white, because every Max truly wants to be a Vincent but won't because of the excuses and lies he tells himself.

It's not that simple, a lot of things people want to do take time and money. Max's dream may take so long that his kid or someone else from his familiy takes the business to another level.

climb higher to fall farther*

The "take life by the horns" strategy fails for 90%+ people. You have to know what you can and can't get away with. There are guys out there to tried to pull Trump level scumbaggery and are rotting in prision because they didn't have the charisma, status, protection, etc. to get away with it. Most 50 cent and Bandman Kevo type criminals don't bounce back and become millionaires, they end up be manual laborers for the rest of their life.

 

[Gloxina]

This is an actual quote from Mann, from an interview last year summer in the TImes

When Mann makes movies about visionary criminals, they offer him a means not only to tell lurid tales of ambition but also to learn about, and map, self-obscuring networks that govern the visible world.

I put a version of this to him at lunch, and he tilted in his seat, thinking for a moment. “If someone asked me, ‘Michael, take a look at your work and tell me, is there any common characteristic across your main characters?’ I don’t think about it this way, but I’d say, ‘They’re truly conscious,’” he replied. “They’re not just walking through life as automatons.”

He went on: “I’m not interested in people with their eyes glazed over, living life in a BarcaLounger, watching daytime TV, and they realize at a certain point, Oh, everything I was going to do, it’s too late to do, so I’m going to drift into whatever hellish human condition that is.” He smiled. “Those aren’t interesting characters to me.”

HEAT is also one of my favorite movies and is quite similar.

I love his work.

 

[Van Cleef]

I know I posted in another thread about this, but I say this part to myself every time I get someone number, and even think about hesitating

"and that girl, you can't even call that girl" and I always text lol

"most people, same job, same routine, just keeping it safe, you don't even know where you'll be 10 minutes from now"

"zone out in your barco lounger, being hypnotized by day time tv"

This movie stunned me when I saw it by myself way back in 2004, as a teenager.

Fear rules our lives, which is weird because like Vincent tries to get Max to understand in the movie, what does anything matter if we are going to die?

Vincent, beyond being a sociopath, is a nihilist, I find Vincent's philosophy on life and human existence in general fascinating. It's so nihilistic. He's like "fukk everything". Just do what you want to do. You won't change the entire entity of things and the universe if you kill people, start a limo company or call that girl. Of course, while it may be a bad idea to do whatever you want, there is only pragmatic forces stopping you, God doesn't exist. Someone who’s gotten to base zero, to accept that everything is meaningless, and to rebuild the world from that framework is playing a totally different game from the rest of society.

"Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"

 

[Elim Garak]

 

[Gloxina]

It's not that simple, a lot of things people want to do take time and money. Max's dream may take so long that his kid or someone else from his familiy takes the business to another level.

The "take life by the horns" strategy fails for 90%+ people. You have to know what you can and can't get away with. There are guys out there to tried to pull Trump level scumbaggery and are rotting in prision because they didn't have the charisma, status, protection, etc. to get away with it. Most 50 cent and Bandman Kevo type criminals don't bounce back and become millionaires, they end up be manual laborers for the rest of their life.

Good point.

I guess the point is to try. Do something. If his true goal was to be a cab driver- cool. But the fact that he was talking about a dream he’s had for years that was related to what he’s currently doing (moving from cab driver to essentially owning his own car service) means he wasn’t really satisfied and wanted more. So has there been any progression in all that time? If not, there’s a reason why. Some ppl kick the can down the road and don’t discover why they aren’t progressing, and some people realize they aren’t moving forward and do something about it.

Truth is, Vincent and Max needed to meet each other.

Vincent wasn’t capable of leaving his cold, rigid, nihilistic views/actions in the past- so he needed to be stopped. And Max needed someone to truly SEE him, wake him up and give him the inspiration to get in the driver’s seat in his life. Standing up to Vincent and ultimately killing him wasn’t something Max would’ve been capable of without meeting/learning from him. Quite ironic.


Fantastic film.

 

[Gloxina]

Fear rules our lives, which is weird because like Vincent tries to get Max to understand in the movie, what does anything matter if we are going to die?

Vincent, beyond being a sociopath, is a nihilist, I find Vincent's philosophy on life and human existence in general fascinating. It's so nihilistic. He's like "fukk everything". Just do what you want to do. You won't change the entire entity of things and the universe if you kill people, start a limo company or call that girl. Of course, while it may be a bad idea to do whatever you want, there is only pragmatic forces stopping you, God doesn't exist. Someone who’s gotten to base zero, to accept that everything is meaningless, and to rebuild the world from that framework is playing a totally different game from the rest of society.

"Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"

There aren’t many, but when you encounter someone who seems to operate with this mentality, you literally have to disappear LOL

 

[At30wecashout]

One of my favorite movies and I believe I saw it in HS shown by a teacher. All these years later, Vincent was telling Max some real truths about himself. Some of us stay on the toilet and never take the shyt or get up. I might need to sub to a service and see that this weekend as well as HEAT.

 

[Van Cleef]

It's not that simple, a lot of things people want to do take time and money. Max's dream may take so long that his kid or someone else from his familiy takes the business to another level.

The "take life by the horns" strategy fails for 90%+ people. You have to know what you can and can't get away with. There are guys out there to tried to pull Trump level scumbaggery and are rotting in prision because they didn't have the charisma, status, protection, etc. to get away with it. Most 50 cent and Bandman Kevo type criminals don't bounce back and become millionaires, they end up be manual laborers for the rest of their life.

Max's been driving a cab for 12 years... his dream was never going to happen. He's too timid and isn't comfortable with risk.

You either have it, or you don't. Most don't which is the point Michael Mann's making in the movie.

Whether you do or not is more about your personality, character traits and life experience than anything else. You can't change who you are or what your actions and reactions. Nobody can imbue you with tenacity.

It's better to accept the chaos of reality and going with it, rather than suffering through it by living a life on autopilot. Chaos, in rare instances, can lead to unexpected success.

One thing I know about coli posters is ya'll for sure gone be scary as fukk in any type of scenario. Y’all the same nikkas scared to lie on y’all resume, scared to lie to get an apartment, scared to get at hoes, etc...

But then again... like Vincent implies in the movie, humans are ultimately insignificant random chunks of meat on a piece of dirt heading toward a slow cold death.

Pursue your dreams or stay scary… not like it's going to matter anyway

 

[TM101]

Max's been driving a cab for 12 years... his dream was never going to happen. He's too timid and isn't comfortable with risk.

You either have it, or you don't. Most don't which is the point Michael Mann's making in the movie.

Whether you do or not is more about your personality, character traits and life experience than anything else. You can't change who you are or what your actions and reactions. Nobody can imbue you with tenacity.

The bold is called survivorship bias where we praise the 1% who take risks and succeed, while conveniently forget the 99% who take the same risk and fail. Max could subconsciously understand he doesn't have the financial, social, emotional capital to take some risk that he knows could potentially ruin his life.
Having "it" is only 15% of the equation, and a lot of "it" comes from factors outside of people's control (family background/stability, social class, income available from skillset, etc). If Max came from a deadbeat family that didn't have any stability, it makes sense that he would stay at his job, especially if he has kids to take care of.

Vincent's advice doesn't have any nuance and comes from a very privileged point of view.

 

[Van Cleef]

The bold is called survivorship bias where we praise the 1% who take risks and succeed, while conveniently forget the 99% who take the same risk and fail. Max could subconsciously understand he doesn't have the financial, social, emotional capital to take some risk that he knows could potentially ruin his life.
Having "it" is only 15% of the equation, and a lot of "it" comes from factors outside of people's control (family background/stability, social class, income available from skillset, etc). If Max came from a deadbeat family that didn't have any stability, it makes sense that he would stay at his job, especially if he has kids to take care of.

Vincent's advice doesn't have any nuance and comes from a very privileged point of view.

The bold is called survivorship bias where we praise the 1% who take risks and succeed, while conveniently forget the 99% who take the same risk and fail.

For any success story you can name, things happened in that person's life that did not happen to equally talented, equally motivated, and equally connected people. No doubt, part of a lucky draw has to do with abilities and action. We didn't choose our genes, we didn't choose our environment and how said environment uniquely interacts with our genes and brain to produce unique actions.

But history is extremely sensitive to random, unforeseeable events, which means actual outcomes are highly path-dependent. (The road you take matters VERY much.)

Your job is to maximize exposure to these positive events while minimizing your exposure to the downside.

You can't guarantee anything. You can't copy the 1% and expect their results. What they did is not a repeatable path to success. This kind of mistake blinds you to ruinous failure.

Like throwing your life savings into $20,000 Bitcoin in December of 2017.

It's the same attitude, absolute faith that what has happened will happen again, that what you can see is all that matters.

What you can do is set yourself up in attitude and action to be as prepared as you can be for a future that offers no guarantees.

Having "it" is only 15% of the equation, and a lot of "it" comes from factors outside of people's control (family background/stability, social class, income available from skillset, etc). If Max came from a deadbeat family that didn't have any stability, it makes sense that he would stay at his job, especially if he has kids to take care of.

I already said whether you have "it" or not is more about your personality, character traits and life experience than anything else. All of which is out of your control.

If you're meant to be somebody, you will. If you aren't, you won't.

Everything that has happened, and will happen, throughout history was determined 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was created.

Every detail of every event has already been set on an unalterable course.

 

[Complexion]

It's not that simple, a lot of things people want to do take time and money. Max's dream may take so long that his kid or someone else from his familiy takes the business to another level.

"All it ever took was a Lincoln Town Car and that girl, you can't even call that girl" ethers your perspective as the "Its not that simple/Its got to be perfect/When I've got this that and this I'll start" mentality is exactly the kind of self decep I'm speaking about. Even if it was a legacy thing like you posit he'd never started and wouldn't hence "What the F are you still doing driving a cab?" making his Soul burn slow.

The voice in your head that says these things is your enemy pretending to be your best friend and that is the devils greatest trick on this particular level of the Game of Souls. Perfect is the enemy of good and it all points to a fractured self esteem and the role in which you cast yourself as its a low frequency thing as the greatest Opponent in this realm is inside your head, pretending to be you and saying you can't do it when the truth is you can and are a more than capable.

Perfect is the enemy of good.


Great responses in this thread though, liking the discussion and will swing through in a bit as there truly is nothing right or wrong, just perspectives so share them with reckless abandon as your words may be the inspiration someone reading needs to make that change and take it to another level.

 

[re'up]

Fear rules our lives, which is weird because like Vincent tries to get Max to understand in the movie, what does anything matter if we are going to die?

Vincent, beyond being a sociopath, is a nihilist, I find Vincent's philosophy on life and human existence in general fascinating. It's so nihilistic. He's like "fukk everything". Just do what you want to do. You won't change the entire entity of things and the universe if you kill people, start a limo company or call that girl. Of course, while it may be a bad idea to do whatever you want, there is only pragmatic forces stopping you, God doesn't exist. Someone who’s gotten to base zero, to accept that everything is meaningless, and to rebuild the world from that framework is playing a totally different game from the rest of society.

"Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"

I struggle with that myself. I can be very charming and friendly, and drop it in a second, like his character. Not for killing lol, but I have done that same speech wth cab drivers/drivers before, flashed the money, "Hey, whatever you want, just drive me around a few stops, no worries" "yeah you do"

I do have a lot of empathy but I can turn it on and off, and I do lean towards that kind of nihilism. When you live a life outside the rules of "normal society" even as you walk within it, it happens. You think more like "whose going to stop me", or even like Vincent says, sneering at Max, "what are you going to do about it"?

But, you can't have only nihilism as a philosophy, you have to balance it. And you have to realize the source of all this wisdom and advice, Vincent, like someone pointed out. It's not just some kind of motivational speech, he's speaking from the perspective of a very specific lifestyle, with very specific values, and person, it's not like all purpose motivational speech lol

Max may have been deluding himself, but his values are much more consistent with what would be considered a "good person", even as just a cab driver.

Really really good discussions in here.

survivorship bias. wow. great analysis. That's exactly what we do in America. It's a cognitive/logical fallacy.

 

[Van Cleef]

I struggle with that myself. I can be very charming and friendly, and drop it in a second, like his character. Not for killing lol, but I have done that same speech wth cab drivers/drivers before, flashed the money, "Hey, whatever you want, just drive me around a few stops, no worries" "yeah you do"

I do have a lot of empathy but I can turn it on and off, and I do lean towards that kind of nihilism. When you live a life outside the rules of "normal society" even as you walk within it, it happens. You think more like "whose going to stop me", or even like Vincent says, sneering at Max, "what are you going to do about it"?

But, you can't have only nihilism as a philosophy, you have to balance it. And you have to realize the source of all this wisdom and advice, Vincent, like someone pointed out. It's not just some kind of motivational speech, he's speaking from the perspective of a very specific lifestyle, with very specific values, and person, it's not like all purpose motivational speech lol

Max may have been deluding himself, but his values are much more consistent with what would be considered a "good person", even as just a cab driver.

Really really good discussions in here.

survivorship bias. wow. great analysis. That's exactly what we do in America. It's a cognitive/logical fallacy.

If you're meant to be somebody, you will. If you aren't, you won't.

You can't change who you are or what your actions and reactions are from listening to a motivational speech. What's the difference between someone who can accomplish their dreams, and someone like Max who can't?

It always comes down to genetics and experiences, which are factors outside of people's control, like dude pointed out. If you take a decision, and not another, it's often because of how you think, or how you feel. And that comes from who you are and what happened to you.

 

[Turbulent]

His own momma didn't respect him

 

[Complexion]

That Yayo vs 3 Stacks thread got me waxing poetic and thinking at depth about the meaning of this symbolism and its implications for me as it filters through my awareness:

There really is something deeply profound in all of this, if you think about it.

Talent without drive is akin to a gun without a firing pin as you can wave it around to scare people because its threat is in its function but when push comes to shove you'd be better off throwing it at them as it would cause more damage due to what is lacking. On the flip if you just have a rock you already know what time it is.

Sometimes I think you can be too smart for your own good as you end up over analyzing every aspect and variable whilst one of less intelligence will do and see what happens. Perfect is the enemy of good, as they say and all of this discussion really, really makes me think:

"What the F are you still doing driving a cab?"

Are you Vincent or are you Max? Are you selling yourself dreams then lining up to buy them as you hide from the life you want but are afraid to live because, deep down, you don't feel you deserve it or are you doing what needs to be done, in the moment, one foot in front of the next with fixed...

www.thecoli.com

Am I Vincent or am I Max? Am I Yayo or am I 3 Stacks?

Ask yourself. See what happens as there is a message in all of this for those that can comprehend it...

The resonance to this thread is obvious.

Is there anything worse than having then wasting your talent? How disrespectful is that to your gift because you couldn't get out of your head to share it? Instead you offers glimpses here and there but never the full thing whereas one with less does far more due to not second guessing every little step and the drive for perfection.

What are you thinking as you read this?

Tony Yayo has me questioning my entire existence.