Ever make a life altering decision because of a movie or book

[hatredisnotavalue]

I was a biology major but became a newspaper reporter after seeing "All The President's Men". I would like to say I did those boys proud by my 15 years of work. NOthing to compare to what they did, but I was pretty good at digging to find the heart of the story.

[Magrittes Pipe]

1. I watched "The Days of Wine and Roses"....

And started drinking hard.

[XNASA]

2. Good idea.

Be right back.

[CanuckAmok]

5. Oooooh...Drums and Wires!

It doesn't matter where you put your bike, 'cause someone else will come along and move it and it's always been the same, it's just a complicated ga-e-ay-e-ay-e-ay-e-ay-muh-uh!...

[XNASA]

8. "A little boy asked me ...........

......................should he put his vote upon the left, no
A little boy asked me should he put his vote upon the right, no
I say it really doesn't matter where you put your vote
Someone else will come along and move it
And it's always been the same
It's just a complicated game"

[sendero]

3. No ...

... but I have taken seeing certain out-of-the-ordinary things happen over and over to be a sign about which side of a decision I should pick.

One summer, before I reached a fork in the road in the fall - I saw 3 fatal traffic accidents within the span of about 5 weeks.

More than I've seen in my other 30+ years of driving put together. It was like someone was trying to tell me something. I listened :)

[CanuckAmok]

4. Fight Club

Made me pick fights with random strangers, and sabotage Starbucks locations with pieces of corporate art.

Oh, and castrate my local chief of police.

And pee in your clam chowder.

[tjdee]

6. Sadly, I suspect I'm being affected by a John Grisham novel.

I read "The Last Juror" a few weeks ago, in a day or so, and I'm not feeling as miserable about living where I'm living as I used to be.

[Catch22Dem]

7. Catch-22 (the book)

Affected me a great deal. I can't really put it into words, but I was in the Air Force when I read it. For some reason, I was "changed" in some way.

ON EDIT: Check out my avatar. LOL :)

[mcscajun]

9. Yeah, I'm cuckoo. I went back to college after 17 years…

…After watching "Back to School"

Weird, eh?

[Cadence]

10. This is off topic but since

you were a reporter, do you have any tips on how to get reporters to pay attention to a press release?

[hatredisnotavalue]

13. Certainly, what are you trying to do? n/t

[Poppyseedman]

11. Book - LOTR trilogy

changed my outlook on life tremendously.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

12. After reading " The Bluest Eye " , written by Toni Morrison ...

I decided to love myself , love myself and not wish to change myself into the girl on the cover of the magazine .

[trof]

14. Kinda. "Brain Sex"

After reading Brain Sex, I had a whole new outlook/understanding about women and gays.

[NNadir]

15. After reading "Slaughterhouse Five" I understood that war is always

wrong under all circumstances.

[Orsino]

16. Well, Maybe...

Starship Troopers* did play a big part in getting me to enlist in the Army--probably not so much as did the Reagan/Bush economy, though.

*The book, not the damned movie.

[Schema Thing]

17. "Who Wrote the Bible?" and "Demon Haunted World"

Both books had a huge role in changing me from a brainwashed-from-birth-fundamentalist into the beautifully pixeled political progressive you see even now gracing the pages of the DU lounge.

Freidman's "Who wrote the bible?" made me see that the answer to that question is; we don't know, but there is certainly nothing supernatural about it's being written or the words therein. Thereby saving me untold wasted hours/months/years looking for the "true" way to worship a mythic god named Yahweh after having painfully extracted myself from the controlling cult that is Jehovah's Witnesses. You go Yahweh and I'll go mine.

Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" helped me see that I am far more at home with reasoned non-belief (not "dis" or "un" belief) than I am with unsupported yet dogmatic belief.

Also, I saw the movies "The Year of Living Dangerously" and "Brazil" about 5 times each when they were first released, surely that affected me somehow? :shrug: :)

[mondo joe]

18. Anne tyler's EARTHLY POSSESSIONS changed

Anne tyler's EARTHLY POSESSIONS changed me from a packrat to someone able to abandon anything.

[jeffrey_X]

19. Autobiography of Malcolm X...

I was on a journey to strip away the layers of conservative prejudice and bias that had been severely embedded in me by my family and environment. I had just been with my wife for a few years (i'm white, she's african american) and I really hadn't been listening to what she had been saying (encouraging me to get acclamated with AA history). I had read a few books (Richard Wright, James Baldwin, etc.) and then I picked up Alex Haley's book on Malcolm X. Keep in mind this was just before we invaded Iraq and at the time I still wouldn't have proclaimed myself to be a full fledged liberal or even a democrat for that matter. (I would have voted for Bush in 2000....yikes)

Anyway...I read the autobiography of Malcolm X, from the perspective of the african american community and I can honestly say that it has changed my life forever. I began to see the world we live in and the distorted history of this country with a lot of clarity and objectivity. This new clarity is what has lead me to become an anti-racist activist, liberal and free thinker.

That's my story.

[u4ic]

20. After watching "Remains of the Day"

I enrolled in university in my late 20's to study acting. The 'go with your heart' theme played to me.