Plan B

The characters in Douglas Coupland’s book Girlfriend in a Coma have completely messed up their lives. They argue they’ve lived relatively normal lives, but when challenged, can’t deny they are dead inside. They even mess up dramatic opportunities to change, learn and grow. They don’t. So finally they are offered Plan B. A chance to be different But there’s a cost. Not only must one character sacrifice herself, but the rest must pay a price as well. A job they must do.

They have a ghost friend who helps them out. He tells them some stuff when they finally start to figure it all out. Here’s some of what he says to them. I think it’s amazing!

“You’re to be different now. Your behaviour will be changing. Your thinking is to change and people will watch these changes in you and they’ll come to experience the world in your new manner.”

“Didn’t you often feel as if the only way you could fully truly change yourself in the powerful way you yearned for was to die and then start again from scratch? Didn’t you feel as if all of the old symbols and ideas fed to you since birth had become worn out like old shoes? Didn’t you ache for change but you didn’t know how to achieve it? And even if you knew how to do it would you have the guts to go forth? Didn’t you want your cards shuffled in a different way?”

“For all of you. And in your new lives you’ll have to live entirely for that one sensation—that of imminent truth. And you’re going to have to holler for it, steal for it, beg for it—and you're never to stop asking questions about it twenty-four hours a day, for the rest of your life.”

“In your old lives you had nothing to live for. Now you do. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Go clear the land for a new culture—bring axes, scythes, and guns. I know you have the necessary skills—explosives, medicine, engineering, media knowledge, and the ability to camouflage yourselves. If you’re not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world—if you’re not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order—then you’re wasting your day.”