Everyone loves the rebel — guys want to be like him, girls want to be with him, authority figures want to change him. The rebel gets all the attention, and controls all the power. Let’s face it: rebels are cool. And it’s hard to find a cooler rebel than Cool Hand Luke, who is the latest subject of my ongoing blog series about how Hollywood helped to shape my life.

A natural born world-shaker
From beginning to end, there can be no doubt that Luke is a rebel. He bends to no authority but his own, and in doing so, he shakes things up. That’s what happens. When you go against the grain, when you walk against the crowd, when you don’t do what everyone else is doing, things get shaken up.

In this modern, overpopulated world, everyone works hard to “fit in”. People are sheep: they get their opinions from the same talking heads; they follow the trends, shop in the same stores, and wear the same clothes; they drink the same trendy beers and eat the same trendy foods.

When someone doesn’t fit in they stand out, and that’s what Luke did. That’s what Michael Jackson did, and Marilyn Manson, and Howard Stern. Copernicus, and Columbus, and Darwin went against the grain. The quickest and easiest (and often best) way to get noticed is to be different — to be a rebel.

Go to the mall some time in blue jeans and a sweat shirt, and walk in the same door as everyone else and ride up the escalator with everyone else, and see how many heads you turn. Then go back in some nice clothes, and walk in where people are walking out, and try going up on the down escalator, and see the difference. You don’t even have to do it, because you already know what will happen — everyone will be looking at you.

That’s how it was for Cool Hand Luke. Everyone in the chain gang lived vicariously through him. They all watched anxiously to see what he’d do next. They got their satisfaction from his willingness to do what they all wanted to but lacked the nerve. They fed off of him.

Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand
Luke earns his nickname “Cool Hand” after he wins a poker game by keeping his cool while bluffing on a losing hand. Even when he knew he was beaten, he never accepted defeat. And more, his confidence was never shaken.

In another scene, Luke got into a fight with Dragline, the prison yard bully. He is clearly outmatched by Dragline, who is much bigger and stronger than him, and who is repeatedly knocks him to the ground, but he keeps getting up. Even after being warned to “stay down, you’re beat,” Luke replies, “you’re gonna hafta kill me.”

Even when he’s got nothing, Luke never gives up. (It reminds me of Captain Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru.) He never accepts defeat, and he never loses his cool. It’s that persistence that earns him the respect of everyone else in the prison.

A rebel without a cause
For all the admirable qualities we find in our protagonist, the funny thing is that Luke always loses. It seems clear that this is because he never had a goal. During his last big escape attempt, when asked how long he was planning it his response is “I never planned nothin’ a day in my life.”

Had he ever turned all that charm and all that perseverance toward accomplishing a specific goal, Luke might have been unstoppable. Imagine those same qualities applied toward training for the Olympics, or being an entrepreneur, or running for office. But without a goal, all that charm and persistence and rebellion only fueled his impulsive mischief.

Luke was an agitator. He landed in prison for cutting the heads off of parking meters. When asked why, his response was, “small town, not much to do in the evenin’.” Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, as they say. A man needs to have a purpose.

Life isn’t fair
When Luke’s mother died, the warden had him put in the box just to prevent him from trying to get to her funeral. After a torturous week of hard work, while everyone else got a day off to rest, he was forced to spend the entire time digging a hole and filling it in, just to dig it again, all without sleep or rest. And in the final scene, he dies unjustly.

Everything bad that happened to Luke was unfair. And that’s life: it isn’t fair. But Luke’s whims were his undoing. You have to pick your battles. There are times when there is nothing to be gained from being the rebel.

Coincidence — the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection, according to Wikipedia — is the theme of the day when considering one of my favorite films: 1999’s Magnolia. However, it is no coincidence that this film is the topic of today’s post, because I will be discussing how Magnolia was one of the vehicles through which Hollywood has made me a better person.

While the introduction — a nearly 30 minute story that seems almost fascinating as a movie by itself — sets us up for a story of coincidence, I have to be honest in saying that I really didn’t detect any coincidence whatsoever in the actual movie. The story was filled with noteworthy alignments of characters in the plot, but their connections were made obvious and far more than casual. In fact, I don’t think it’s about coincidence at all, so much as it is about the hidden truth underneath of coincidence: that sometimes things just happen, and there isn’t always a reason.

This happens. This is something that happens.
We pick up in the film with nine individual stories, each already a crisis in progress, and spend the course of the three-hour movie learning how each present-day crisis is the product of some unresolved issue from the past. This core theme is summed up in the quote, “we might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”

These nine interwoven stories start out tense, and the tension only builds and builds until we reach a breaking point, where the entire cast sings Wise Up by Aimee Mann. It’s at this point that the point of the story shifts, stopping the focus on who did who wrong, and starting the focus on the fact that they’re just details people hang on to.

In a deathbed rant, we have Jason Robards saying, “Don’t ever let anyone ever say to you, ‘You shouldn’t regret anything.’ Don’t do that, don’t! You regret what you fucking want! And use that, use that, use that regret for anything, any way you want. You can use it, okay?”

It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels
A major part of this theme is how children are so often the victims of the mistakes adults make. Though present with all the characters, this is echoed loudly in the correlation between the young quiz kid and the adult quiz kid. But nowhere is the theme spelled out better than in the womanizing workshop being put on by Frank T.J. Mackie (played by Tom Cruise).

Mackie, we learn, is the unlikely son of tv mogul Earl Partridge (Robards), and has grown up to be every bit of the misogynistic on-air persona as the father he hated for doing the exact same thing. It’s this overflowing source of wisdom who continues the theme with his quote, “the most useless thing in the world is that which is behind me.”

That, of course, pales in comparison to the far more realistic and useful — though certainly less hopeful — advice he gives in the line, “in this life, it’s not what you hope for, it’s not what you deserve — it’s what you take!” We’re getting from Mackie a glimpse of the cause of all that regret being spoken of by Partridge.

Can you learn from a womanizer?
It all reminds me of last week’s movie, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where we learn about hanging on to pain and regret. Only this time we have a different, yet equally monumental, quote to live by for our response: “I will not apologize for who I am. I will not apologize for what I need. I will not apologize for what I *want*!”

Look. Throughout the film, it’s quite clear that Frank T. J. Mackie is a pig, not someone to be idolized. But I think it’s also clear that he’s a hypocrite, saying all the right things without actually believing them himself. When Mackie refuses to apologize for who he is, it’s rhetoric to get into women’s pants, but this line carries with it a beautiful irony in that it contains the answer to his problems, if he’d only take the time to believe in what he’s saying.

Frank Mackie, for all of his good advice, is faking it. He’s seeking validation through sexual experience in the same way that Earl Partridge seeks it through money, Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore) seeks it through martyrdom, Claudia (Melora Walters) seeks it through drugs, and Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) seeks it through answering trivia. But all of them could move forward from their past if they would just accept who they are. We should not apologize for who we are.

We met upon the level, and we’re parting on the square.
Words are nothing without meaning, and only one character in the film seems to have the authenticity of believing the things he says. It’s that authenticity that makes Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Riley) the character we attach to as the hope-bringer in the story. And it’s fitting, then, that the movie comes to an end on his words, “The law is the law, and heck if I’m gonna break it. But if you can forgive someone… Well, that’s the tough part. What can we forgive?”

It really comes down to that. So in summary… You may be done with the past, but the past ain’t done with you. You shouldn’t regret anything. I will not apologize for who I am. What can we forgive?

You’ll probably call me a nerd (and you’ll probably be right) but I grew up on Star Trek. I’m not a Trekkie, nor am I a Trekker, but I’m nerd enough to know that there’s a difference. Personally, I just like the shows — old shows and new show, but not all shows. (And no conventions for me, thanks!)

But this isn’t about the show, it’s about the movies. Specifically, we’re talking about this week’s example of how Hollywood made me a better person. We’ve already covered Yoda (yes, it gets higher billing than Star Trek), and Tyler Durdan. Today’s wisdom comes from our old pal Captain Kirk.

I don’t control minds, I free them
In a nutshell, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier introduces us to Spock’s half-brother Sybok, a Vulcan who has embraced emotion. Sybok uses his mind-meld ability to help someone relive their painful experiences in a sort of Church of Scientology meets Freudian therapy kind of way.

Once a person shares their pain with Sybok they feel free of it, and in return they follow him with a blind loyalty that brings to mind comparisons of Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite. Sybok takes control of most of the crew of the Enterprise, and puts the ship on a course toward The Great Barrier, with Captain Kirk locked in the brig.

Then comes Kirk’s turn. After watching Spock and McCoy share their pain with Sybok, Kirk is invited to do the same. But Captain Kirk refuses! Seemingly he’s the only person ever to say no, but nevertheless, with all the conviction (and melodrama) that Shatner can conjure as an actor, he declares:

Damn it, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!

And suddenly we’ve transcended from bad, overacted science fiction into philosophical realms. We all have pain. Some of us carry grudges our whole lives, crass and jaded. Others easily forgive and forget. But no matter where you fall in between the two, we all live and learn, and it is our pain that teaches us. Yes, I learned that from James T Kirk.

In that moment, I learned to stop holding a grudge about my parents divorce. I stopped being upset about the conditions in which I grew up. I let go of the self-pity over missed Christmases, and being homeless as a teenager, and found a way to accept my brother’s suicide. Yes, before this moment I had always thought pain was bad, but now for the first time I could see the positive. These are the things that make me who I am. Like Kirk said, I need my pain.

Little did I know this was just the tip of the philosophical iceberg that the Enterprise was going to hit…

Where no man has gone before
With the ship under his control, Sybok leads us through The Great Barrier to Sha Ka Ree, where he intends to see God, first hand. And he does. The crew has disturbed the great and powerful Oz, and we get a little fireworks show to prove it. Then, God starts asking about the ship and once again our Captain takes the side of reason and logic:

Kirk: What does God need with a starship?
McCoy: Jim, what are you doing?
Kirk: I’m asking a question.
“God”: Who is this creature?
Kirk: Who am I? Don’t you know? Aren’t you God?
Sybok: He has his doubts.
“God”: You doubt me?
Kirk: I seek proof.
McCoy: Jim! You don’t ask the Almighty for his ID!

Hell yeah! It’s like the astrologer’s magazine that closed due to unforeseen circumstances. (Not to mention, Genesis 3:8-9, where God – the omniscient and omnipotent creator of everything – is incapable of finding Adam in the garden.)

Basically, if you’re God, you don’t need my ship. And you don’t need to ask who I am. I’m outtie. So how does “God” respond? Why, by zapping Kirk with more fireworks, of course! Then he threatens, “Do you doubt me?” To which Bones objects, “I doubt any God who inflicts pain for his own pleasure.” (Yeah, I gotta admit, that reminded me of the bible, too.)

Phasers set to stun
The moral of the story seemed to be that nobody can take you to see God and cure all your pain. At the end of that yellow brick road, you find out that the Wizard of Oz is a fake, and the tin man had a heart all along.

Our lives are the sum of our experiences, good or bad as they may have been. What makes us special is not what we avoid or rid ourselves of, but rather what we learn from the bad hands we’re dealt, and how we play them out. That’s the overarching lesson in Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. And it’s a resounding theme with everyone who reaches great heights, like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and Michael Jordan.

Which leaves us with the closing thoughts, as Bones is pondering whether or not God really is out there, and Kirk responds, “Maybe he’s not out there, Bones. Maybe he’s right here,” pointing to his chest, “In the human heart.”

I hear, all too often, about how movies are too violent. But frankly, I just don’t agree. Why? Because this week’s example of how Hollywood has made me a better person comes from the movie Fight Club.

I guess it’s hard for some people to imagine how anyone can get any philosophical value or learn any life lessons from a movie about grown men beating each other senseless in basements and parking garages. As it turns out, though, the fighting was just a detail in the story. The real story was about mediocre men discovering themselves while cutting through the crap of modern society.

Hitting rock bottom
The movie gets going when we see the main character lose everything he owns to a mysterious explosion in his apartment. With only the clothes on his back, he finds himself staying with his friend in a condemned house. Left without the mind-numbing qualities of television, playstation, and the Internet, these two decide to get out and feel life. That’s when they start their fight club.

But it doesn’t stop at the creation of the fight club. They build an entire empire, manned by people who, like them, have nothing. They gain power over businesses, politicians, and even the police, all because they stopped numbing their minds and instead set out about doing something. As the line from the film goes, “it’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.”

The things you own end up owning you
In a consumer-driven society, we are taught that it is our civic duty to spend. And no matter what ails you, there is something you can buy that will temporarily relieve you from your self-loathing.

We become garbage collectors, and our homes become our prisons. Soon enough, we’re keeping a $20,000 car in the driveway, in the rain and snow and wind, because there’s no room for it in the garage where we keep a few hundred dollars worth of junk nobody uses any more. Over the last 10 years, I’ve watched one of the fastest growing businesses in America — mini storage — popping up everywhere. We have more stuff than we have room for, so we’re paying other people to keep it for us!

We’re buying newer, bigger shelves to hold more and more CDs and DVDs; new dusting gadgets and disposable toilet brushes, and more injection-molded racks to hang them on; one blanket for the bedroom and another for the living room… for each person in the house… and then we complain that it’s too much work to keep it all clean! We want to travel, but we’re afraid of leaving our houses unoccupied for too long.

And everyone I meet is anxious to tell me how they’re not as materialistic as everyone else. Everyone is frugal. Everyone is economic. Everyone hates clutter. Nobody is part of the problem. So why is it a problem? As they say in the movie, “sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”

Day after day, becoming a little more like Tyler Durden
After watching Fight Club, I was immediately inspired to break out of the materialist pattern. I bought a black leather CD case, capable of holding 200 discs, loaded it with my DVD collection, and took two enormous bags of DVD cases out to the trash. I had a big garage sale and sold off all knick-knacks, the tools I didn’t need since changing careers, the guitars I didn’t play any more, and all the clothes I didn’t wear any more.

But I didn’t stop there. When a friend needed a tv, I gave her mine, and since that day, I have not owned a television. (Seriously, almost five years!) Without the tv to keep me complacent, I get out more, I read more, I travel more, I do more. And I snack less, too.

The same year, I gave another friend my microwave, and haven’t had one since. That’s one of the best things I’ve done. Now that I have to cook, I’ve learned to do it pretty well. I eat healthier food, and it tastes better… and usually it costs less! And the cooking time isn’t an issue… after all, it’s not like I’m missing my favorite show…

At this point in my life, everything I own fits neatly into one small room. I have some clothes, some books, a few cameras, and a computer. But more importantly, I have a life. Perhaps I haven’t lost everything, but for the most part, I really am free to do anything.

The most profound sages and gurus in my life have not been religious leaders, intellectuals, teachers, leaders, bosses, or even parents. In my lifetime, the real sages have been fictional people — moving images dancing on a projection screen inside the cinema. With that in mind, I’m starting a new series of posts, discussing how Hollywood made be a better person.

Yoda. You seek Yoda.
The first fictional character to influence me came into my life when I was only five years old. It was a lovable green muppet who spoke in cryptic zen koans with poor grammar. Yoda was famous for saying “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

It was a fictitious, mystical religion invented to sell movies, but to a five-year-old kid, The Force was the most awesome idea ever conceived. And in spite of being rather ugly and scary-looking for a muppet, all kids knew that he was the master, and if we understood what Yoda said, maybe we could be Jedi knights, too. Ah, the power of a kid’s imagination. What fun.

But one little phrase from Yoda has stuck with me my entire life: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

They may be words from a fake religion invented for a fantasy movie, but they’re so true! When you say you’ll try, you are already accepting the possibility of failure. But more than that, Yoda isn’t just telling his student not to leave room for failure… he’s telling him to take control of his life. What he’s really saying is: either choose to do it, or choose to not do it; saying you’ll try is only copping out.

The words we say reveal a great deal about the way we think. They also affect the way we think. One of the hidden powers of the mind is our ability to convince ourselves of things by using words. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination.

Napoleon Hill
In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill describes the qualities of successful people, and he should know… he spent a lot of time around some of the most influential people of the early 20th century, including Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. He spent two decades learning from rich and powerful people what made them successful.

Hill dedicates an entire chapter to the importance of decision making. He describes two kinds of people — leaders and followers — and suggests that 98 percent of people go through life as followers, taking what life gives them, while the rare two percent of people who make decisions and empower themselves go on to be successful at everything they do.

When Andrew Carnegie approached him and asked him to write the book, he thought about it for 30 seconds before saying yes. Carnegie told him that had he spent 30 more seconds, the offer would have been rescinded because a man who can’t make decisions and take action will never be successful.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
In her book Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers writes about the pain-to-power vocabulary, which encourages the reader to take responsibility for their life rather than leaving it to fate.

She says to replace the words I can’t with I won’t. Instead of saying I hope, say I know. The idea was important enough to her that she made a half-page chart to illustrate the importance of changing ten common cop-outs into empowering statements. But all she’s really saying is Do, or do not. There is no try.

When I was young, the older people around me talked about how tough experiences “build character”. For most of my life I’ve had the impression that character defined what type of person you are.

Parents and churches and other sources of moral influence teach us to be loyal, responsible, courageous, clean, decisive, flexible, generous, and kind. Likewise, we’re taught that these things are “good”, and that disloyalty, irresponsibility, cowardice, untidiness, indecisiveness, inflexibility, miserliness, and unkindness are “bad”.

These are very black-and-white, very absolute terms that portray character as a duality, forcing us into roles of either good or bad. You’re kind? Oh then you’re a good character. You’re indecisive? Hmmm, you must have lousy character.

But a different view of the subject of character occurred to me as I was reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. While discussing a psychological phenomenon called Fundamental Attribution Error, Gladwell quotes the psychologist Walter Mischel, who refers to it as a sort of “releasing valve”:

When we observe a woman who seems hostile and fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve usually usually makes us choose between the two syndromes. We decide that one pattern is in the service of the other, or that both are in the service of a third motive. She must be a really castrating lady with a facade of passivity — or perhaps she is a warm, passive-dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness. But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts and it is possible for the lady to be a hostile, fiercely independent, passive, dependent, feminine, aggressive, warm, castrating person all-in-one. Of course which of these she is at any particular moment would depend on who she is with, when, how, and much, much more. But each of these aspects of her self may be a quite genuine and real aspect of her total being.

Based on this type of thinking, a person is not a “good” character or a “bad” character. No one is purely honest or dishonest, decisive or indecisive, responsible or irresponsible, but rather they are sometimes honest, neat, reliable, or generous and other times dishonest, or messy, or unreliable, or miserly depending on situations or circumstances.

This makes much more sense. We all carry the genetic potential for loyalty and disloyalty, honesty and dishonesty, generosity and selfishness. And moreover, we have circumstantial motive for exhibiting both sides of the duality, depending on a given context. So what is character?

My new thinking is that character describes a tendency for either sticking to, or straying from, the path of least resistance. It’s wrong to say that someone does or does not have character. A person is not honest or dishonest, responsible or irresponsible, neat or messy, but rather a combination of all of them.

For instance, if you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar, and mom has a soft spot for honesty, then honesty is the path of least resistance. But if dad doesn’t care about reasons, honesty isn’t going to get you anywhere and you might have a better motivation for a lie. Telling mom the truth means nothing, but telling dad the truth shows strong character. Likewise, depending on further context, taking the risk of lying to mom might show strong character too.

Trying to be any one side of the duality, and completely eschew the other, seems to yield disastrous results. For instance, people who become the definition of neatness, banishing any trace of mess, are not thought of as having strong character; they’re called obsessive-compulsive. Those who are always completely honest, are considered naive, and usually tactless. And those who are overly generous are (ironically) called needy.

So what is character? I think it describes a propensity to make choices that are in opposition to the natural path of least resistance. In essence, it is having power over your very nature.

Kinda like James Bond. Now there’s a guy with strong character.

I often hear people try to encourage each other, offering the advice that you have to love yourself for who God made you. Mother’s tell this to their child who’s shorter than everyone else his age. Wives tell this to their balding husbands. Etc.

Well, to be frank, I think it’s a bunch of bullshit. We are our parents’ offspring. Our traits, our appearances, and even in large part our personalities are products of a genetic coupling process that is well documented and understood. If your mother had a dominant gene for brown eyes and recessive for blue, and your father had brown eyes with recessive for green, then you’re going to have a very high probability of having brown eyes, with a slight chance for green, and you will never have a chance at blue eyes.

That’s science. It’s not some random, magical experience. It’s not like you get pregnant, and then God sets up a workshop in your womb, playing games of chance for 9 months until a baby is born. If that were the case, white couples would be able to have black babies, and asian couples could have arabic babies. That doesn’t happen.

You are the product of genetics. And as such, there is no divine plan for who you are. Therefore, choosing to just take what life gives you is living by default. It’s refusing to take responsibility for yourself.

I say, stop living by default. Start living by design. Live where you live because you choose to live there. Look how you look because you choose to look that way.

You don’t like be overweight? or underweight? Stop whining about it. Stop blaming it on your McDonalds, or your wife’s excellent cooking, or the price of healthy food. Stop blaming God for making you a miserable fat person, or an insecure skinny person. Take responsibility. Change your diet. Start going to the gym. Design your body how you want it.

You don’t like being poor? You don’t like living week to week? You hate not having extra money to go out to dinner or spend a night at a hotel? Stop blaming your job, or your education, or your family’s expectations. Take responsibility. Look for a better job. Get more education. Change your spending habits. Be more frugal. Stop buying every cute singing fish that you see in the line at Wal-Mart. Design your finances how you want them.

Have you ever known someone who got plastic surgery done? A facelift, or a nose job, or a beast augmentation, or lyposuction? Sometimes the work looks natural, and sometimes you can tell it’s not. (Think Cher…) But I have never known someone who got cosmetic surgery and wasn’t happier for doing so. In fact, I remember seeing a piece on tv about a real life couple who had sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into cosmetic surgery to make themselves literally look like Ken and Barbie™, but even though their looks were obviously cosmetic, it didn’t stop the couple from being truly happy with themselves. Instead of being insecure, they are confident and outgoing.

You have the power to choose your life. Stop complaining about your situation. Stop accepting that you have no control. Stop being a victim and start being a cause. It’s very empowering when you choose to take responsibility for yourself. Instead of being miserable with the life you have by default, you can be truly happy with the life you have by design.

All religions teach (brainwash?) their followers to be “unselfish”. Christians are taught that by doing things for others they are storing up treasures in heaven. The Wiccans believe that any unselfish act will be returned three times over. Islam teaches that performing an act of unselfishness will be praised by Allah in the “record books” as many as 700 times!

It begs the question: Why does your God have to barter with you to get you to do good? And more importantly, doesn’t the knowledge that you will be rewarded for your “good deed”, by nature, make it cease to be an “unselfish act”?

It’s one of the logical paradoxes that really breaks down the foundation of religion as we know it. It’s a universal truth that is brilliant in its simplicity. It’s quite simple: there is no unselfish act.

If, and when, you give money or food to a homeless person, why did you do it? Yes, because that person was hungry, I know. But why does that matter to you? The truth is, you feel bad that the person is hungry, and giving something to them makes you feel better.

And likewise, when you stop on the way home to get flowers or a card or some little gift to bring home to the one you love, why did you do that? Yes, I know, you did it to make them happy. But why? Because it makes you feel good to make them feel good.

Do it in your head. Work the math. Pick any act that you commonly think of as “unselfish” and trace back through the motivation. In the end, it’s easy to see that everything we do is self-serving.

I wonder what would have happened if Alice could have stopped the white rabbit, just for a moment, and asked him where it would lead.

Let’s say life is like a decision tree. The choices you make earliest determine on which fork of the tree you will end. Though you will still make many choices later, your earlier choices have negated a myriad of other possible outcomes. That’s what I believe in. No fate. No destiny. Just a series of outcomes influenced by a series of causes and effects.

Now let’s say you go along planning for an particular outcome. You’re making choices in the present not because of the immediate results, but because in the long-term you’ve decided that you ultimately want to land in a particular sector of the tree. Each day that you get closer to that part of the tree. Each decision puts you closer to your chosen outcome.

And assume that suddenly you come to a new fork — a new choice to be made between two branches, and suddenly you realize that this other one looks pretty damn good, too! And what if you see a short-term gain that beats any of the longer-term stuff you’ve planned for, but you can’t see past this short-term gain.

The risk/reward is higher on the one side than the other. The potential climb is greater, but so is the potential fall. Meanwhile, on the other side, the climb is shorter, but the fall is one you know you can survive.

Do you take of the training wheels and work without a net? Or do you continue to perform tricks that get applause from the crowd but never amazement? That tightrope walk from tree to tree in your back yard will impress your friends, but the one across the Grand Canyon will impress the world.

What if Alice asked that white rabbit where it would lead, and he told her “I can’t tell you where it will lead, but let me tell you where it can lead…”