between optimism and cynicism: a third way

Albert Einstein once said the most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe – but I say the most liberating decision we can make is to decide that we live in both at the same time.

I've looked at the world through both rose-colored glasses as well as greyscale glasses, and it is true that my perception shaped my experience accordingly. But I found in both instances that I disconnected from a portion of reality, thereby living in a sort of twilight zone-y, bizarre fantasy land.

To live in a friendly universe, I had to put a positive spin on things that were negative, or simply refuse to see them at all. To live in a hostile universe, I had to do the opposite. Both felt hollow in the same way that a movie with an unearned resolution feels hollow. When the hero triumphs not because the story earned it, but because the writer needed a happy ending. Or when darkness prevails, not because the narrative supported it, but because cynicism seemed more sophisticated.

Both the relentlessly friendly and the determinedly hostile universe are forcing reality into a predetermined shape. The friendly universe, a three-act structure where everything works out. The hostile universe, a noir where betrayal is inevitable. Either way, I was trying to be the author controlling the arc.

That doesn't feel like freedom to me. Control is never freedom.

What I find to be much more liberating is fostering an ever-deepening appreciation for storytelling itself - not my story, but the story. The one actually being told.

This is where I become obsessed with the fullness of a story - with its heroes and villains, mentors and tricksters, quiet moments and dramatic reveals - you stop trying to rewrite the whole thing. You recognize that the main plot has its own arc, one you don't author. Life, the universe, whatever you want to call it - it's already writing itself with both friendly and hostile elements, light and shadow, grace and tension.

I find more freedom living not as the protagonist trying to control the main plot, but as a character discovering my own subplot.

From here, I find so much more creativity, and get to discovery-write my own thread within the larger narrative.

This is why both lenses felt hollow. I wasn't engaging with the actual story being told. I was disconnecting into fantasy - trying to rewrite the screenplay instead of finding my role in it. Rose-colored glasses tried to make it all redemption. Greyscale made it all tragedy. But the real story is richer than either, more textured, more true.

When I fall in love with the fullness of that story, finding deep appreciation for the hostile elements as necessary conflict and the friendly elements as earned grace, I can finally ask the right question: What's my subplot? Not the whole film. Just my thread through it.

I'm not the screenwriter of reality. But I am discovery-writing my character's journey within the screenplay I've been given.

The liberation isn't deciding what kind of story I'm in. It's discovering what kind of character I want to be in this story.

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