Sunday, March 21, 2021

"I" and "We" Spectrum - A Spring 2021 Update

I'm here. 

I wrote almost nothing for this blog last year. My energy and my sense of hope has been empty. 

It's hard to write a blog post on a blog that largely follows how I work on my goals in a year that crushed my goals. This past year - the events that arose from the decisions people made - crushed many of our goals. 

Throughout last year I had many privileges - a job and income, a loving wife, a new pup - that so many lacked. Yet, how people acted and how people continue to act left me with a profound sense of hopelessness. It's important to not simply blame a "year" for misfortune when too many with agency acted irresponsibly. 

This has been a difficult winter for me. My great uncle died of COVID, too many of my friends suffered from COVID, and my mom and my sister had a terrible bout of COVID. Unrelated to COVID and still difficult was the unexpected house repairs that exhausted our honeymoon fund. Most difficult was putting my dog, Rory, to sleep after nearly 14 years. Currently difficult is seeing my wife's (and, now, my) dog Odie suffer from lymphoma and deal with chemotherapy. 

But, Spring is here. My friends have received vaccine doses. My sister and my father received vaccine doses. 

Let us hope that good things will return this Spring. My larger hope after all we experienced is that we think of this experience in terms of we - that we think of our decisions in terms of others

A long time ago, philosophers recognized that "I" is important and that our society should empower that I. But this year should teach us that "I" and "we" are on a spectrum. Our "I" feelings and desires connect with consideration of others. Our responsibility to our own self connects with our responsibility to others. 

That is my larger hope. I hope we walk away with a value of everyone, with a sense that everyone matters and our self-interest only matters if it empowers others. 

Endings from a Writer

I always begin writing a narrative with the end in sight. 

I argue that narratives feel more potent because of a fulfilling end, an end that happens because what happens in a story drives to that end. The same way real life feels more vital because there will be an end, unfortunately, a story feels vibrant because it will end and lead to an ending. 

Narratives, unlike real life, need causality. Every decision or action a character takes leads to another action. Nothing just happens. The narrative needs action flow for cohesiveness. 

For my writing - mostly narrative short screenplays - after I understand what characters I'm writing about, I try to conceive of an end first. All characters, I argue, should drive a plot forward and act strategically. A good strategist creates a strategy based on outcome. "What is the endgame?" "What do I want everything to lead to?" "When this is over, what do I want everything to be like?" A character asks these questions or acts with this strategic mindset, even if not explicit. 

Therefore, I start by thinking of what do I want the reader or audience to experience in the end. When they finish what I've written and leave, what do I want them to feel? 

Then I think about what ending will leave them with that feeling. Then I work backwards - if this is the end, then how did we get here? I work backwards on a broad level - what happens in the story - and on a specific level - what just happened

All of this connects with how a character causes things to happen and drives toward this end. Their strategic mindset and their imaginary context move to this end. 

The Inconvenience - Uncertainty Principle

 Let me share a hypothesis I have on how individuals connect and access entertainment. 


I argue that most people make decisions on accessing entertainment on two factors: convenience of access and likely experiential outcome. People want to consume entertainment that they know will give them the outcome they expect to have (generally positively entertaining or uplifting, if not fulfilling) and that has the fewest barriers (financial, physical distance, age requirements) to access. 


Based on this argument, I created the "Inconvenience - Uncertainty Principle," a series of three statements on how individuals choose the entertainment they access:

1) People are willing to deal with the inconvenience of accessing a work of entertainment if the outcome they expect or want is certain

2) People are willing to experience a work of entertainment with an uncertain outcome if the work is not inconvenient to access. 

3) People are unwilling to experience a work of entertainment with an uncertain outcome AND that's inconvenient to access. 


What this means:

1) People who, say, live 30-40 miles outside of Atlanta are willing to pay a substantial cost, drive in less than ideal circumstances, pay for a babysitter and parking - basically, reconfigure their routine day or evening - in order to see Disney's Aladdin or Hamilton at the Fox Theatre because those shows have certain outcomes. I mean...it's Hamilton. It's Disney. Someone who buys that ticket knows the outcome and will buy a $100+ ticket to see it. 

2) If a movie with a low Rotten Tomatoes score is on Netflix, then someone subscribed to Netflix will feel more willing to watch it than when it was in theaters because it's something they can watch in their pajamas, without leaving the house, and at no additional cost in money.

3) If a movie with a low Rotten Tomatoes score and an uncertain outcome is at a movie theatre more than 20 minutes away, most people will choose to not see it. If someone lives in Buford, GA and casually (or even more than casually) likes baseball, they will not drive to see the Atlanta Braves if the Braves are having a subpar season. 

To clarify some things:

Inconvenience and uncertain outcomes fall on a spectrum, personal for everyone. I began considering this hypothesis with theatre in mind. The challenges of making and producing theatre is that so few people access quality or professional theatre in their life. Therefore the outcome for a non-theatre experienced person is inherently uncertain because of poor theatre experiences and a lack of knowledge of how theatrical performances work

Certainty in outcome increases based on trust and experience. Individuals who have accessed theatre from a specific organization before will trust the organization and have less uncertainty in outcome. "I don't know if this play is for me, but I loved everything I've seen here." As another example, there are film directors I love that I will still go because I trust they're doing something I want to see or something interesting, even if the reviews are mixed.

Uncertainty is personal for everyone. Someone might not like an actor and therefore if a movie has that actor, the outcome becomes uncertain. "I don't want to see that movie because I don't like Jeremy Renner." 

Inconvenience can also depend on circumstance or mood. If someone just wants to get out of the house, the movie theatre 20 minutes away feels less inconvenient compared with other options of entertainment access out of the house that may be more than 20 minutes away.