What's The Story?

Feeling 80% refreshed from a month off of writing, let’s go.

I’ve figured out why people have mid-life crises. They have writing skills on par with whoever wrote the last season of Game of Thrones.

I hope that’s not me.

I’m watching the end credits of the best movie I’ve ever watched about the first 3 decades of my life wondering how on earth I’m supposed to make the sequel 25% as good.

And I don’t even know what the sequel is supposed to be about at this point?

Maybe this is why Valve never made Half-Life 3…

All stories are written on the basis of open loops.

“You’re a wizard Harry.”

“So, here’s how I met your mother…”

“Your princess is in another castle.”

Because life is just one big story that we’re telling ourselves every day, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is optimal to have at least one of these loops open to drive the narrative of your life forward.

Let me explain.

Humans are allergic to stillness. Our ancestors who didn’t keep moving didn’t make more ancestors. They didn’t find the gazelle or the berries or the safe place to sleep.

Dopamine plays a role here, all you need to know is that no matter how hard we try to become a monk we’re all predisposed to keep asking, “Okay, what’s next?”

So, if we make the mistake of closing all of our open loops we run into the existential boredom of: Now what?

That’s the onset of a mid-life crisis.

This problem has been exacerbated in modern life thanks to the fact that the answers to the question, “Now what?” Are nearly infinite.

In the past it was simpler: have another kid or buy the farm across the road. Or both.

Today you could fly to the opposite end of the world and start a brand new life for the cost of a month’s rent.

This is where I find myself right now. Not in crisis — or getting on a plane — but with most of the loops in my life closed.

I didn’t expect a supposed period of calm in my life to come with so much, angst.

The good news is — and this is how most world-class writers do it — we can write the end first and work our way back. Sure, there might be some unexpected twists and turns along the way, but if we know how we want the story to end we can reverse engineer most of the plot.

That will tell us which loops we have to open next.

A practical, if somewhat morbid, tip here is to write out your own eulogy and work towards make it true.

I have a lot of future loops I want to close to fit them into the eulogy. I just need to pick which one to open next.

Time to get writing.

Words I Wish I Wrote

Links & Learnings

• Why men go through it alone.

• A fun idea on when to be the bad guy with your kids.

• Relationships compound the same way money does. Invest in them early and often.

Psst… DSTLLD has a podcast now, too. I know — like the world needs another podcast, right? But here’s the thing: if you can tolerate my written rambles, you’ll probably find my in-person yammering… well, moderately tolerable. It’s basically me and a guest chatting about the same offbeat stuff you read here, except now you get to hear me stumble over big words in real time. I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the universe (trust me, I’ve listened to it), but if you like DSTLLD, there’s a good chance you won’t hate it. Win-win! Subscribe or follow on your favourite podcast platform:

• Youtube

• Spotify

• Apple

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PHOTW: Never forget the dynamic range of people and by extension children. Your kid is 99.99999% different than someone else’s. Don’t judge or make assumptions.