When Life gives you Lemonade

What if what you want just falls into your lap?

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General Yue Fei was a Song dynasty patriot who fended off Jin incursions from the north, perhaps too efficiently. His devotion to killing invaders led to accusations of undermining peace efforts by traitorous bureaucrats. Left undefended by the decadent royalty he routinely rescued, he was executed for treason alongside his son.

I was going to make a film about him, set in modern day.

The central conceit was, "Would things have been different if Yue Fei had lived during the Nationalist period?" (Spoiler alert: given China's penchant for framing and executing effective commanders, no.)

All I had after years of daydreaming were a few pitch elements, like targeting Father's Day, and swooping long takes to classical music.

Then this happened: 

In that short video review, I saw the tone, themes, and action of my vision. A pampered citizenry bewildered by besieged warriors a mere river's width away. The contrast between the ostentatious international settlement and the dilapidated factory Alamo. The face-off between pragmatic politician and obstinate officer. The closing shot of the battleground framed by present-day Shanghai. All seemed to have been picked straight from my brain.

I felt relief.

What I'd wanted is now real. It's out there. Not an exact match, but clearly more coherent than my mixed bag of stylistic beats. I'll get around to watching it one day.

Then again, it seems almost shameful that my desire - though admittedly vague - was completely decoupled from the effort to bring it into being.

This is not isolated.

2009 me: "Wouldn't a 'Goonies' - 'X-Files' mash-up be cool?".

2016:

A non-pop-culture example came when 2008 said to me, "Here are those ASX-listed, international index funds you've craved for years. You don't have to form trusteeships, entice buyers, or manually motivate market-makers. You just have to click 'buy'."

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Let's get real. There are absolutely no causative links between my fancies and their realisation. I did not magic them into existence.

However, should the fact that I did nothing more than desire them diminish my enjoyment?

Unfortunately, it does. We reflexively know that wonderment feels much better with added pride.

"Check out this awesome show." is way less impressive than "Check out this awesome show I made."

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First-year Psychology rats taught me something:

• No behaviour + reward = entitlement. BO-ring.
• Behaviour + no reward = discouragement. Also boring.
• Behaviour + reward = A story.

Humans and other animals have evolved to piece together action and consequence - the building blocks of a story. Rats that learn 'press bar' leads to 'noms' ramp up that activity to the point where nothing else matters. Some even forget to eat. Story supersedes outcome. 

The ease with which story influences behaviour and how captivated we are by the best narratives tells me that we are addicted to it.

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Take a step back and think about how your strongest memories take the form:

Acquire secret knowledge - Enter strange territory - Overcome hardship - Bring home bacon.

Story examples:

• How you met your partner.
• How you found your profession.
• Your religious or intellectual conversion.

Life events aren't just events. They just happen to also include elements of agency, causation, and prediction. 

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But what of passive factors like class, race, wealth, and geography that we cannot easily frame as an Odyssey? Try to make an epic about receiving birthday money from Grandma.

Is it possible that we meaning-seeking creatures discount occurrences because they do not neatly fit that format?

Our insistence on action-reaction could lead to denial. If everything happens for a reason, then un-reasonable events never happened.

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Luck, in particular, is difficult to fashion into a narrative.

"I was born into the top twenty percent in a first-world country and lived happily ever after. The end." 

Another approach to meaning-less chance is to inject meaning, as tenuous as it may be.

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So you scored that job because you interviewed well. I bought that crypto because I had foresight.

New Thought philosophies like Law of Attraction shoehorn in higher forms of causation. So my 'vibrations' somehow manifested that feature film, Netflix series, and investment vehicle. 

The ability to fashion your own reality is a compelling story. Besides, what's wrong with a little fanciful thinking? 

What's dangerous is that our addiction to tales, tall or true, could act as a filter, preventing us from appreciating life as it is.

And as my experiences show, the need for a personal narrative can detract from the enjoyment of windfalls. If successfully inserted, it could impart a false sense of involvement.

I can suggest no remedy but to remember that when life gives you lemonade, you tend to make lemons.

🍋