Ed Norton's "Worm" in Rounders
The Paradigm of a Chaos Friend
In the movie “Rounders,” Matt Damon’s character Mikey is on a great life path. Law school, part-time job, living with a fellow law school classmate, played by the beautiful Gretchen Moll.
Then his old friend Worm is released from prison and the chaos starts, disrupting Mikey’s life.
My thought of Chaos Friends was sparked by a post by
who writes the substack . I recommend checking it out.Laura wrote a recent post about being addicted to chaos, and it made me think about how even if you’re not addicted to chaos, you probably have had a Chaos Friend. Someone whose chaos you’ve accepted, maybe through loyalty, but maybe also because you like the excitement their chaos brings you.
In Rounders, Mikey tells himself that it’s loyalty that makes him welcome Worm back into his life, but it’s the excitement that takes over.
The closest I’ve come to a Chaos Friend was my best friend in high school. Among other things, he loved to drive way too fast and convinced me to join him as an illegal hockey ticket scalper.
I’d love to hear examples in the comments of your Chaos Friends. Preferably from real life. But otherwise, examples from a book or a movie or a TV show.
And if you haven’t seen Rounders, you’re in for a treat.
Rounders is great indeed. I must admit in a honest look back at my drinking and using days that I was that chaos friend to many of my own friends. They all breathed a huge sigh of relief when I sobered up, particularly the married family men 😉
I wonder whether it's a shared feeling that "non-chaos" people have of: "why do I keep attracting chaos friends?". Interestingly, since childhood I've always had exactly one chaos friend at any given time.
As a kid, chaos friends got me into small-time trouble. As a teenager, chaos friends lived life on the edge, and sometimes dragged me there with them. As an adult, chaos friends seem to have an air of disorganisation, swinging in and out of my life, and being generally, well... chaotic in their larger pursuits.
Interesting how in one movie Ed Norton plays the chaos friend, but in Fight Club, he's very much the non-chaos friend.