watch tHe skies

Stuck in a hotel in Swindon last night, I watched the Director’s Cut of Payback, starring Mel Gibson. I remember hiring this movie when it first came out, and I thought it was terrible. However I read that the original director (Brian Helgeland) had walked out following creative differences with Mel Gibson and the studio, had been allowed to piece together his version of the movie from the  original footage, returning his vision to us.

Central to the story is Mel Gibson’s Porter, a guy looking to get $70,000 that was stolen from him by Val, his partner-in crime, some time before. Tracking Val down, he is double-crossed, blackmailed by the cops, beaten up and loses his wife to heroin. Yet he keeps after his money, leaving a bloody trail of organised crime bodies in his wake. As he climbs up the mob ladder, he is surprised to find that they even laugh off his paltry demand, and even forget how much he wants. Yet he never wavers, asking only for his $70,000, unconcerned about the carnage that he has to cause to get it.

Now some people would think it’s daft. “Why wouldn’t he take the $130,000 they gave him?”, “why is that so important to him?” and people asking those questions are right. Of course they are, if Porter’s motivation seems odd to them then it is because it isn’t their motivation. To you or me it might seem a little daft but I guarantee there are people out there that would watch the movie and nod in agreement with everything Porter says regarding the debt he owes, without necessarily being sociopaths.

Because it just means that their values are aligned with Porter’s in that respect.

My guess on Porter’s motivation is that his world rotated around the validity of a promise, an agreement between two people. When that word was broken by Val it invalidated the very foundations of his view of reality, with the effect that until that money was regained, nothing else held any sense or value. To the point where death was a viable option if balance couldn’t be restored. And you will find that the most supremely motivated people are those that have made a direct line of sight connection between actions that need to be taken and the achieving or maintenance of a fundamental belief. “Singlemindedness” is the term that comes to mind. I’m sure you can think of someone that is singleminded, not about everything, about certain things, and those things are closely aligned with their values.

Now Porter’s values aren’t mine. However I do sympathise with him… being let down by a broken promise would certainly wreck my foundations of belief. And I do find that actions that best align with what is important to me motivate me most.

So I wonder, have you ever considered what’s important to you, in life, love, work and play? Think about the things you simply love doing and ask yourself “what does that give me?”, and keep asking that question (chunking up) until you can go no further… those criteria that you get are your hot buttons… and if you can connect whatever you need to do to one or more of those criteria by line of site, then your motivation will be off the scale.

So as Porter drives off in to the sunset with Rosie, I smiled, and agreed with myself that the Director’s cut was a far better movie. Very cool in fact, and very re-watchable. I was glad that having gotten his money back, Porter could find time to notice what new directions his heart would take him in.

Another night in Swindon, I wonder what philosophical nonsense I will extract from old movies this evening?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 9:04 pm and is filed under movies, nlp & hypnosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.