“The slower we move, the faster we die. We are not swans. We’re sharks.”
These are the words of Ryan Bingham, the road warrior character played brilliantly by George Clooney in the 2009 film Up in the Air (which was adapted from Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel of the same name). It’s my favorite movie.
Bingham is a human-resources professional and part-time motivational speaker who travels continuously from city to city. An expert in airlines and business hotels, he is obsessed with the goal of attaining 10 million frequent-flier miles on American Airlines. The movie is a romantic comedy, but for me, the love interest is an annoying distraction from the profound psychological portrait of a man who travels to find himself and escape himself at the same time, while simultaneously dispensing advice on human flourishing.
