Wholesome Life Tips from Heat (1995)

R.I.P. Tom Sizemore

Tom Sizemore passed away last week (rest in peace), and my Twitter feed was essentially this quote or picture, over and over again.

Of course this comes from this famous scene in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995):

The thing that struck me was how healthy of a worldview this actually is. It might just be the key to happiness and contentment in life.

In the context of the film, this always played to me as toxic and unwise. An inability to know when to walk away. But as I get older, I think he may be on to something.

This is process over outcome.

This is journey before destination (for all of you Stormlight Archive fans out there).

This is getting into a flow state, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

“Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.”

Whether it’s writing, making videos, exercising, working, or any other goal centered activity, when I can focus on the joy of doing, for its own sake, that’s when I’m the most satisfied.

The moments when I can forget about the goal, or reward, and just be present with the activity, that’s when I find the most contentment.

Because often the goal or outcome that was so important to me, and that I wanted so much, isn’t all it was cracked up to be.

And this is the same sentiment from one of my favorite movies from last year, RRR (2022), where Ram recites the Bhagavad Gita while doing pull ups using the chains in his cell.

You have every right to work but not to expect the result. Let not the result be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.

He then finishes by saying, “I don’t care about the result. I will be moving towards my goal until my last breath.”

So RRR = Heat. You heard it here first.