The Dude Abides

How The Big Lebowski teaches us to surrender our pain and let things go.

From the movie 'The Big Lebowski' © Universal Pictures. (Jeff Bridges is The Dude)

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand

Take it easy

-       The “fucking” Eagles

The Dude

The Big Lebowski is a movie every hard-working American should watch, and every lazy American should avoid.

Early in the film, two bad guys invade Jeff Lebowski’s apartment, mistaking him for a billionaire also named Lebowski. After roughing up Jeff, they say his wife, Bunny, owes money to their boss, a pornographer named Jackie Treehorn. 

“Nobody calls me Lebowski,” Jeff tells them. “You got the wrong guy. I'm the Dude.”  Soon the crooks realize that “the Dude” (what everyone calls Jeff) is indeed the wrong guy. Unlike the billionaire Lebowski they’re looking for, the Dude has no money, no wife, and no job. All the Dude really has is a beat-up car, a little weed, his bowling pals, and a very nice rug that “ties the room together.” 

Before the crooks leave, one of them pees on the Dude’s rug.  And so begins the Dude’s quest to get the rich Lebowski to buy him a new rug.  

When the Dude goes to Mr. Lebowski’s mansion, he asks the old man to reimburse him for the rug. Lebowski says no and then tries to shame the Dude for being unemployed. The Dude ignores the lecture and takes a rug anyway.

Soon after, the Dude is called back to Lebowski’s mansion.  Greeted by Lebowski's lackey, Brandt, the Dude is offered $20k to rescue Lebowski’s wife, Bunny, who has apparently been taken hostage by a group of German nihilists.

Armed with a beeper, the Dude’s adventure begins.  Driving across Los Angeles – from Simi Valley to North Hollywood – the Dude battles nihilists, pornographers, an apathetic LAPD, a fascist Malibu cop, and one ferocious marmot.  Always by his side is the Dude’s trusty (yet unhinged) sidekick, Walter Sobchak, whose entire identity is wrapped up in being an angry, divorced Jew who will never get over Vietnam.

As the Dude faces one obstacle after another, all while enduring Walter’s hare-brained schemes to get Bunny back, the movie’s message becomes very clear: When facing the troubles of life, be more like the Dude.  

No matter what life throws at the Dude, he always finds a way to "take it easy" and say, “fuck it, man.”  Throughout the movie, the Dude says these two things a lot -- so much so that Walter finally says, "That’s your answer for everything, Dude.”

Strikes and Gutters, Man

A 90-year-old Oliver Wendell Holmes once told a friend that “life is one damned thing after another.”  The Dude knows this to be true.  Everywhere the Dude goes, he sees people getting pissed off every time things don’t go their way.

The billionaire Lebowski, the ransom-seeking nihilists, the greedy pornographer, the resentful Walter – all of them are miserable.  The Dude sees the end result of those who lack to the tools to deal with life's inevitable disappointments. And the Dude refuses to live that way.

All the Dude really wants is to bowl, drink White Russians, smoke the occasional joint, listen to Credence Clearwater Revival, and be there for his incredibly flawed friends – friends that the “high-achieving” billionaire Lebowski calls, “bums.”

Throughout the film, the Dude is there for broken men like Walter, passive men like Smokey, and lonely men like his landlord, Marty.

Walter

From the movie 'The Big Lebowski' © Universal Pictures. (Left to Right: Walter, Smokey, and Marty)

When Marty asks the Dude to attend his dance quintet on a Tuesday night at Crane Jackson's Fountain Street Theatre, the Dude doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there, man,” he says.  Knowing the dance recital means a lot to Marty, the Dude even brings Walter and Donnie along to sit inside the empty theater and watch poor Marty's abysmal (though hilarious) performance.  Why?  Because the Dude is good dude -- nothing more and nothing less. He’s not trying to leave his mark, make a million, save the day, or be a hero. He’s just a good guy who gives people his time.   

After helping friends, enduring assholes, and watching his tender-hearted bowling pal, Donnie, die of a heart attack, the Dude somehow keeps himself together and continues to roll with the punches of life.

In the movie’s final scene, the Dude and the film’s narrator, a cowboy-clad drifter who remains nameless, see each other at the bowling alley bar.  After the Dude orders “two oat sodas,” the cowboy asks him how everything’s going.  The Dude replies, "Ahh, you know.  Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.”

As the dude walks back to his lane, the cowboy turns from his bar stool and says, “Take it easy, Dude -- I know you will.”

With two beers in one hand and a smile on his face, the Dude says, “Yeah man, well you know, the Dude abides.”

Starting back at the camera, the cowboy speaks to all of us.  “The Dude abides.  I don’t about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowing he’s out there… the Dude… takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.”

Surrender

Lately, I’ve been ruminating about all my life’s regrets and shaming myself for not doing all I had intended.  All while lamenting my ailing body (back, hip, and elbow pain) to anyone who will listen. In other words, I’ve been a bit angry and sad, and trying like hell to repress those bad feelings. In short, barbarians, I have not been following the Dude’s advice to abide. 

Then everything changed. Two weeks ago, my inner-pain reached a crescendo when I fainted in Colorado and hit my head on the floor in the middle of the night coming back from the bathroom. After I came to and climbed back into bed, I wondered if I'd suffered some sort of internal head trauma or brain bleed. “Would I even see the morning?” I asked myself in a panic. Then I felt all my repressed emotions -- those emotions causing my back and hip pain --- crash into me like a tidal wave of sadness.   

Staring up to the ceiling fan from my bed, I began to lose hope. Then something miraculous happened. I suddenly felt a warm and positive energy come into my heart. It was an energy I'd never felt before.

Though I'd never felt this energy before, my intuition told me right away: this is God. Suddenly, I felt I could offload all my regrets and anger to this energy force. Soon I took a deep breath and exhaled, releasing all the repressed anger from my body. With my exhale, I surrendered to God. And when I did, oh my God, I felt better.

I now have less hip pain, less back pain, and above all, less ego pain.  I started weight training again, and this is my first blog post in months. Life is good. And to ensure it stays that way, everyday as part of my practice (call it prayer), I let out another big exhale, surrendering to God and ejecting the pain lingering inside of me.

What I felt that night, I truly felt -- and it felt damn good. And that's all I need to keep on trucking through this life with Vigor, Wonder, and Fellowship.

The Dude teaches that when we surrender (i.e. abide), we feel better. And when we feel better, we treat ourselves (and others) better -- just like the Dude.

So give yourself a hug today, barbarians, and let it all out. You'll be glad you did. In doing so, your friends and family will thank you for it.