This month, I had the distinct pleasure of watching the topic movie,
Everything Everywhere All At Once
…and it was an incredible cinematic experience.
The movie is rated R, but besides that fact, I think I would encourage anyone within the appropriate audience demographic to watch it.
I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers as I go through this.
I’m reminded of The One starring Jet Li (and Jet Li!), particularly with the connection among an individual and their multiversal selves. The protagonist spends his time dealing with the implications of who he might have become if he had made different decisions. Jumping through universes is a direct process, and the antagonist’s primary objective is to kill the other versions of himself in order to redistribute that individual essence to fewer and fewer universes, thereby making himself more powerful in each.
I’m also reminded of Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – which I’ll just shorten to MoM hereafter. In MoM, the premise has less to do with the individual and more to do with the fascinating potential for events to be different. Jumping through universes is not so apparently simple – the only being with a confirmed ease of travel is the America Chavez character.
In Everything Everywhere All At Once – EEAOA – Evelyn finds she is able to connect to the experiences and skills of her multiversal selves, sharing a synergistic and otherwise mostly unattached relationship with her counterparts.
I feel like The One asked “What if our potential was split every time we made any decision?” MoM asked “What path should we be on?” And EEAAO asked “If everything we could do was done and we went everywhere we could go – if all potential could be (or even is) realized all at once – then how does anything matter?”
And EEAAO ends up being extremely optimistic in its message.
EEAAO addresses a response to nihilism, generational trauma, an approach to humanity and life in general. I feel like this movie has given me both so much relief and even a subtle horror. It also touches on the potential of routines stemming from seemingly innocuous choices. But overall, I think it does an excellent job of sharing a useful take on dealing with too much.
I’m realizing that this post is likely to end up vortexing into nonsense, but let’s press on…
I think this movie does an amazing job speaking to those of us that might be anxious about all the things we might possibly have been able to do. Each of us has massive potential to do all sorts of things in each of our lives. Many of us found ourselves at different forks in the road in our lifetimes, and many of those forks did not have ways to double back to try the other options.
This movie speaks to each of us, saying that it recognizes that we all could have done things that we did not ultimately end up doing. Who knows how early it all really starts? But I think we can all point at the bigger decision points that most of us – particularly in the United States – can easily relate to, such as continuing education after high school or decisions related to relationships.
I could have started college earlier than I did; I would probably be pinning on major very soon if I had. But I probably would not have met, dated, and married my wife.
I could have gotten the first woman I had sex with pregnant. I have no idea what impacts that would have had on my life, but I imagine I would be in a lengthy financial bind, likely unhappy in that relationship, and likely not close to being as far along professionally as I am.
I could have enthusiastically pursued a relationship with a woman I had met before my wife and I started dating. I have no way of knowing, but that might have worked out okay. I have my doubts based on my lack of desire to be a father and her distinct interest in being a mother…
I think that the “no way of knowing” piece was the element of distinction, though. There are plenty of circumstances we could guess at – if I had graduated college sooner, I would probably make more money just based on longevity and promotions in the military. Babies take a notable financial toll on anyone… But I might have met drastically different people throughout my life and run into who knows how many different opportunities based on these different circumstances, too.
That impossibility of knowing calls to the discussion the well-known idea of FOMO, that Feeling Of Missing Out. What-Ifs and Could-Haves/ Should-Haves can plague the mind and cripple ambitions.
It doesn’t help that each of us no doubt finds occasion to find our present circumstances as less than perfect or less than ideal and take some moment (or a longer spell) to wish it weren’t so. In a multiverse where anything could have happened, your present experience follows a given line of action to Here and Now. You cannot change This, but if only…
And EEAAO demonstrates the potential pain of that realization – the knowing of all possibilities, the result of forcefully taking all roads that can be taken, the feeling of missing nothing, and thereby being unable to enjoy any experience as unique despite the unique trials, tribulations, achievements, challenges, and on and on and on…
And humorously says, “Yes, this shit sucks but even surpassing the limitations of a single-universe experience won’t fix it all – it will in fact make things worse.”
But then reminds viewers that it’s not only okay to recognize that, it’s our only possible way to be happy. We have to accept the Here and Now result of all our past choices and live This. Being anxious about what could have been is nothing but pain.
All we can do is make choices, and you do not have to be happy with those choices, but you do have to accept them. And then you must live your resulting life with those circumstances and the influences of the choices of others…
…Anyway, you have to go see this movie – that’s a choice that I highly recommend.
72 Airman's Writings 