Musings about Life Archives - The Cracked Door

Is the T-Rex a deux machina at the end of the first movie: A Defense

A fearsome beast or a deux machina savior?

I have heard others bemoan how the T-Rex shows up randomly at the very end of the first Jurassic Park movie right when the raptors have them cornered. They call her a deux machina, that is a common trope in movies where some big force inescapably arrives at the last moment and saves the day for the characters.

Whether something is a deux machina is usually subjective, generally labeling something as a “deux machina” if it goes against their expectations for the story and its themes and thus takes them out of the story. What I find interesting about calling the T-Rex a deux machina is that it really demonstrates the tensions between many viewers’ expectations of the movie as an action film and the fact that Jurassic Park is a really horror film. Based on this, it’s actually the second deux machina that no one talks about that I think breaks the story.

The major theme of the first Jurassic Park movie is that life/nature always finds a way. Life goes on because individual organisms are able to take advantage of lucky opportunities/breaks that happen to come their way to survive. The ability for particular species to adapt emerges out of this. Through this, life itself continues on, expanding beyond any boundary humans may set for it. For example, being able to make sex changes because of the frog DNA used to make them was a lucky break that allowed the dinosaurs to survive, and the electric outage was another that the T-Rex took advantage of to remake its world.

With this theme in mind, the characters spend the final act of the movie desperately trying to survive the coming advance of life/nature, specifically the raptors hunting them. The central question is whether they can use their human ingenuity and tools to stop this advancement, and the answer is no. No matter what they do (using a gun, locking the door, escaping through the vent, etc.), the raptors still continue to surround them. It’s all over. That’s when the T-rex comes in, causing the raptors to fight the T-rex, allowing the main cast of characters to escape.

This moment demonstrates the movie’s central theme about nature. Can they use their ingenuity, skills, and technology as humans to survive against nature’s ascension? No, they are ultimately subject to the whims of nature for their very survival. This conclusion to the fight illustrates the final dominance of nature over humanity. The sudden lucky break the T-Rex presents still reinforces this theme. Their only hope for survival lies in a lucky break presented by nature that they must take advantage of, and they do, using it to flee. Just like every other species, their only hope for survival lies in taking advantage of a lucky break.

This differs from regular deux machinas. A typical deux machina is a problem because it undermines the story’s themes by providing lucky coincidences or some overly powerful saving character, technology, or other entity as the reason the characters succeed. Did love save the day, or the grit of persevering, or whatever other central theme the story is based on? No, it was the divine superhero who showed up out of nowhere and fixed the problem. Whether the T-Rex came or not, they are completely subject to nature in that final moment. Thus, surviving based on a lucky draw from nature only reinforces that theme.

The deux machina in the next scene is the bigger problem, since it undermines the theme: the wealthy billionaire somehow arrives outside, with no dinosaurs around, ready with a helicopter to whisk them away to safety. (And for that matter, if he was out there in a car, why didn’t the T-Rex eat him and Malcom in an open convertible before coming into the building? They were easier prey presumably right where the T-Rex was right before.)

The implication of the theme of being subject to the whims of nature is that sure, they survived a few more moments, but they are forever trapped by this new emerging world. The dinosaurs are taking over the island, and outside there are endless more threats for them, whether that be other raptors or some other threat. The best they can hope for are lucky breaks, but you can’t expect that each time. But instead, the billionaire arrives and magically whisks away to the safe human world far away from this nightmare.

This gets to the heart of the tension as to what genre this movie is. In the US, people often categorize Jurassic Park as an action movie, and action as a genre tends to run counter to fatalistic themes. Action movies, at their core, center on how humans can develop and use their skills to surmount improbable odds and achieve success. This makes them inherently achievement-oriented, with viewers expecting the main characters to use their grit and skills to win the day. Hence, in such movies, a coincidence or lucky break being what causes success undermines the key theme of action as a genre and hence a deux machina.

Although officially classified as an action movie, Jurassic Park opposes this common theme of action movies. I would categorize it a horror film, which tend to explore how death is all around us. In the movie, in addition to being awe-inspiring, the natural world produces death. In these movies, survival is the key, but using one’s skills to achieve survival is always how characters survive depending on the film’s themes.

This reflects one of the major tensions in the movie. It wants to show how we should both marvel and fear nature, but it also wants to give regular people good clean fun. Obviously, it would not be as graphic as some horror films can be given that it was intended to be a family film. That’s fine, but horror films can still explore fatalistic themes in a child-friendly way (just look at the number of horror stories written for children).

Instead, though, we see the characters whisked off to safety. They wanted viewers to both feel the horror that the characters are now victims of the new natural world they accidentally unleashed but still receive the action-movie catharsis of seeing characters survive this apocalypse and literally fly into the sunset. These contradict each other and make the viewer feel cheated.

Most viewers blame the T-Rex as the source because they expect the characters will come up with a way to get out of their mess like a typical action hero. But if after the T-Rex accidently saves them, the group were still trapped in this hostile world instead of having the cavalry arrive to pick them up, viewers’ expectations based on action films would be firmly pulled out from underneath them, and they would have to confront the key theme that they are really subject to the whims of nature.

How to Speak to a Stray: Treating the “Dangerous Other” with Respect

One day, when I was walking down the street in Suva, the capital and biggest city in Fiji, there was a dog crying in extreme distress. He was a hairless dog with only a small strand of hair on the ridge of his back. The indifferent way the other people responded to him made me think he was a stray: no one took responsibility for him or decided to help him when he was clearly shouting in pain.

He was sitting on the edge of a hill on a concrete staircase. He tried to simply sit on the hill but could not keep his balance. He would topple down the stairs, slamming into the concrete on the way down. Each time he fell, he would try to burrow into the crevice of the stair he was on, only to lose his balance and fall again until he crashed into the gutter below. There he cried chest deep in the water, seemingly disoriented, unsure what was happening.

I tried to approach the dog, but the dog who lived in the house did not like me and barked territorially at me. So instead, I called soothing words to this dog as he lay there frantic in the water. The soothing tone of my voice – or at least the fact that he had stopped falling – seemed to calm him down, and he lay there panting like he was still processing where he was. I still don’t know what was wrong. The way he was twitching on the one side made me think he was having a stroke. I will never know since the other dog wouldn’t let me approach, so eventually I left.

The people who lived nearby came out, but they seemed indifferent to this dog as if he wasn’t their problem. A few hours later, the boy living there told me that the dog had scurried away, and they didn’t know where he was now. They didn’t seem to care much for this stray dog; I guess it’s just one of many to them in the neighborhood. I just hope that however long this dog has left to live, he has as little suffering as possible.

Here’s another example. One night, when I was walking into a store to buy some water in American Samoa, I saw two dogs lying there. A staff member exited the little shop carrying a large, empty cardboard box, and one of the dogs followed him. He looked excited walking next to him wanting to say hello. The guy whacked the dog with the empty box harshly as a way to tell him to get away.

When I left the store a few minutes later with my water, right as the staff member was walking back into the store, the dog seemed noticeably more distressed. He was barking erratically like he was emotionally distraught. From the barks’ tone, I thought he was a mixture of scared and angry. He didn’t approach me as I walked by a few feet away, and he didn’t seem interested. He was just barking his distress to the world.

These islands are full of stray, semi-domesticated, and pet dogs who roam the yards and streets. Roaming dogs are common in many countries around the world. What feels weird is the extent to which humans in Oceania only seemed to interact with hostility with the dogs.

In response, the dogs in this part of the world feel noticeably more aggressive. When I was walking to my Airbnb, several dogs came after me growling, showing their teeth, and trying to signal that they would attack me. That is the default response many dogs have to any human they do not know. A neighbor recommended I carry some rocks when I walk to throw them when they barked at me, and I have seen others carry a big stick for a similar purpose.

I do not doubt the practical wisdom in having a weapon in case of a specific dog who seems intent on biting you. I have had dogs there come within a yard of me biting meanly like they are about to jump me. Interestingly, they never do; they seem to only try to warn me, not actually come after me. A weapon, though, just in case the dog changes its mind does sound nice in a situation like this.

At the same time, I feel like this kind of hostile response to dogs, in general, just leads to an arms race. Dogs become more aggressive, and in turn the humans become more violent in response. It just escalates the response necessary to handle a dog. Dogs in this part of the world seem noticeably less friendly. Even if they think you are safe, they will stop at about a yard/meter away. This is not normal for dogs, who are often very eager for pets. I suspect because so many humans have lounged themselves at them, that they have learned to feel afraid when a human is nearby. There has to be a better way.

Some of this may be cultural. Not every culture or individual likes dogs, for example. At the same time, I wonder if there is a broader pattern for how to deal with others we perceive as threats. During the heat of an attack, we may need to defend ourselves, sure, but in my experience, how we respond to others influences how they in turn respond to us.

But if we treat another (whether a dog, another animal, or a fellow human) as a threat that we need to stave off, they will pick up on that energy and respond to us accordingly. Maybe we should cultivate creative ways to nonviolently engage with others around us rather than cajoling those we see as threats to our wellbeing. This may take innovation but leads to more wholesome relationships.

What Can We Do to Be Satisfied in Life?

What leads to people feeling satisfied and fulfilled in life? This is a daunting question, but I have been thinking about it a lot recently. I have a potential answer. Based on when I talk with people around the world, some who are satisfied in life and some who are not – I have sensed that one thing seems again and again to be most significant in whether people feel satisfied and fulfilled in their life: feeling connected to others in life-giving relationships.

I don’t know whether generalizing to everyone across all cultures is useful or even possible, but this is a pattern I have been seeing on pretty much whatever continent I visit. Humans crave and find meaning in life-giving relationships.

By being connected in “life-giving relationships,” I mean ones where the person can give life to others and in turn, receive life in those relationships. We tend to be drawn to creating, cultivating, growing, enhancing, etc. of life in the world around us, and we tend to be most fulfilled when we can participate in that process. A sad aspect of contemporary society is that it can often seem to alienate us from these communities.

How to participate will vary widely given the person’s personality and the needs of their community. Some might lead an organization that is doing something beneficial to humanity, but in my experience, this form often gets overemphasized as if it is the primary way to make a difference. Some participate in life-giving relationships by doing something as down-to-earth as sewing clothes or building bricks. It really depends on the person and the community. Humans seem particularly adept at producing new, creative ways to foster life given a new set of circumstances and needs, so the possibilities seem truly endless.

I also mean giving “life” in the broadest sense possible: not just human life but also animals and other forms of life. Some people are drawn towards animals. Some might be drawn towards specific types of humans in specific types of circumstances, such as someone who had to work through a specific hard time in life and gravitates towards helping those who also have a similar experience. All of this will vary widely according to the individual, circumstance, and cultural context.

Literally every source of happiness fades, but in my experience, life-giving relationships seem to be the longest lasting. Some forms of happiness are primarily or exclusively consumptive, and in my experience, these often fade the fastest: material objects, drug highs, etc. Life-giving relationships, in contrast, are participatory for the person. We receive life when we give it, and being in a healthy system of relationships provides the most wholesome forms of satisfaction. When in those relationships, accruing specific material things that help attain that goal help, and some moments, we may just need to unwind some simple pleasures. Absolutely, but these do not form a good basis of satisfaction in one’s life as a whole.

Some potential forms of happiness involve building or refining ourselves: learning/education, self-improvement, even the quest for power, etc. In my experience, the happiness from these tend to last longer than purely consumptive forms, but when done in themselves, they too eventually become vacuous. If you are not plugged into a reason for learning that involves making the world around you better, in my experience at least, learning can lose its shine. Refining and improvements often needs a purpose to attach itself to, and in some way, helping to improve the world around you tends to, in the long run, both the most fulfilling long-term purpose.

Then, finally, you have some forms of happiness that are unhealthy manifestations of the desire for life-giving relationships. Fame as a form of happiness is a good example of this, which are secretly relational states. For example, when one desires fame, most often they desire a relationship where many other people know them and give them adoration and accolades. For a small percentage of people, their way to produce life ends up leading to fame, but when someone pursues fame in itself, they are often pursuing a bastardized version of a healthy system of life-giving relationships.

In contrast to these three types of happiness, life-giving relationships tends to be ultimately the most fulfilling form of happiness, where we are plugged into a system where we both give life to others and in turn receive life ourselves.

A Warning from Death (A Short Story)

Hello,

I wanted to write a letter to clear things up. I am quite possibly the most misunderstood person you will meet. Most people fear me, but I’m not scary. I am the one who helps you pursue what is most important in life. I am the End, yes, but the end is what makes the journey a journey. Without it, you would no real reason to focus on what is most important, nor acceptance of what you have. By establishing finiteness, I establish value.

I know very well what it is like to be feared. This is the standard way humans misunderstand me. I have dealt with it for millennia. What I didn’t anticipate was your corporations. They drain bits and pieces of my essence for their profit, all in the effort to give others cheap profit. Momentary happiness or release to hook people into an addiction in which I slowly drain them into me. The endless machine of more and more is ever consuming. It will only expand to engulf your world and everything in it.

What is truly shocking to me is how these humans who drain the life of others for their own profit don’t really gain much of anything in the process. These vampires are too wasting their life. They just spend their life trying to make more instead of enjoying what they have. Addicted to money and the gain for more more more each quarter, they remake their consumers into their own vampiric image. They also leave their employees husks of their former selves, only able to consume with the little energy and money they have. Take me as a purist, but this bends the very foundation of what I am.

So take this my warning. Embrace death so that you can embrace life, but if you embrace this, you are embracing nothing but a shadowy existence that is neither.

Yours truly,
Death

How to Prepare Yourself When What You Want to Do with Your Life Keeps Changing

In life, if I have learned anything over the course of my life, it is that I cannot predict the person I will be in a few years. We all change overtime, often in unpredictable ways, and even though a core of me remains the same, my specific goals, passions, and interests always seem to redefine themselves over the years.

For example, I have held a career for over seven years that I didn’t even know existed a year or two before starting. Then, after thinking I would do that into the foreseeable future, I ended up pursuing a very different dream of traveling the world.

The same thing happens when you look back at your past. In the moment, you may experience a major life event one way – whether horrifying, frustrating, saddening, joyous – but years or decades later, when you look back at it, you will likely feel very differently about it.

That is one thing that gives me pause when considering quickly rushing into permanent actions that will lock me in for many years or decades. I don’t really know what my future self will think of it years down the line. So then, how can I be certain that I still desire what I am seeking at that moment?

So, how should someone respond to this uncertainty? I can think of three basic approaches: 1) maximizing one’s ability to act now, 2) planning long-term projects for future gain, or 3) preparing oneself to become as perfect as possible before venturing out into the world. I tend to choose the former: positioning myself so that my future self is best able to make a decision when he is ready to.

Thus, I have tended to choose careers, living options, financial decisions, etc. that combine benefiting my current short-term interests while increasing the options that my future self will have down the line. For example, I tend to pick the job that best pads my resume to increase my options later while giving me intellectual satisfaction and financial security in the immediate future.

If a person is a car, you could say I spend my effort optimizing the vehicle. Building myself up to the best of my abilities, in terms of personal fulfillment, skill-development, professional development, etc. This way, I am as souped up as best I can be so that I can later choose the route I want to go in, whatever it is that I will want to choose at that time.

To me, others who try to produce a certain route for their lives – like those with a five year plan – are like those who spend most of their time building a specific road in front of them. This can work well if that road ends up being the route they want to take, but to me, what route I think I will want to take rarely ends up being the one I actually want to take when I am older. Thus, if I focus on building a certain route, I end up getting stuck on that route in the future, or having all that work go to waste when I inevitably choose a different path later.

It may seem counterintuitive to constantly work on yourself like this, but my strategy is not to keep the car in the garage rather than taking it onto the road (that would be the third strategy above). That is not how short-term optimization for me works. I am already on the road, focusing on how to improve myself to be able to get to more places more efficiently as I travel. I know people who think they must stay in the garage until they are ready. Taking some time by yourself to prepare is helpful, but I have also seen many languish their entire lives in the garage, unwilling to venture out because they do not match their perfect image of how they should be. I am one at least who best prepares himself through trying things out in the real world.

This is how I handle it, and why I find it works better than the other approaches. You may have a different personality with different inclinations, but it can be helpful to think through what approach would work best for you.

The Dance of Water: Finding Beauty in the Tumult

The first time I whitewater-rafted was in a park called Ohiopyle at around 12 years old. Located in southwestern Pennsylvania we rafted along a famous stretch of the Youghiogheny River. My mother, father, brother, and I all shared a raft.

When the first rapids we had no clue what we were doing. Our boat rammed right into something. It knocked my father straight off the raft. I went flying out too, but before I could fall out of the boat, my mom’s body slammed into my legs on the boat, pinning them. Instead, I dangled over the edge, with my legs trapped on the boat and my chest and head hanging over the edge.

This was one of the most interesting experiences of my entire life. I hung there passively with no control over where I went or what I did as the boat careened down the water.

Waves would form around my face, in a circular vortex starting up from my chest and curving my face. They would form a cylindrical corridor like science fiction depictions of the inside of a wormhole. Within, I would marvel at the crystalline-like structures of water all around me.

Then suddenly the wave would collapse. My head hopelessly dunked in the water. My existence precariously converted into a blinding stream of bubbles and gagging as the water pummeled my face, and I thrashed amidst the current.

Then just as suddenly as it ended, another crystalline wave would form. This would go in cycles: the beautiful moments of respite to catch my breath while I marveled at the unique formations around me followed by periods of chaotic pummeling in the water.

It lasted for several minutes until the boat finally concluded its rapids. Then, my mother finally moved from her perch against the edge of the boat, releasing me to drop fully into the now calm water.

When I came back on board, she was not aware that she was pinning my legs against the side of the boat as she had entirely focused on how to navigate the coming waves. My father returned from his swim, and my older brother stayed perfectly safe in the back of the boat the whole time, steering it through the rapids, wondering why everyone else on the boat couldn’t keep their seats. It goes to show you how different people given their personalities and initial positions in life have very different experiences with the same phenomena.

Watching the waves crash above me reminded me how I really have very little control over my life. I am really being taken along for a ride by bigger forces around me outside of my control. At the same time, I still get to see wondrous sites as these entities form and break around me. The glory of life lies in these moments of surrender towards the unique dances the world creates.

At the same time, at least for now, I have been given enough of a break from the chaos of life to catch my breath and survive, to have my needs met in between the moments of serenity and chaos. That has been enough.

Time with the Glaciers of Patagonia: Finding Humanity’s Place in Nature’s Power and Majesty

Visiting Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, I was struck by how interesting I find glaciers. They remind me of nature’s majesty and subtly. Millions of bits of snow and ice slowly pack one by one until they become a landscape-shaping force. Even through nature’s slow, subtle works, all-inspiring entities emerge. Glaciers go on to reshape the landscape around them.

Every few minutes, its mass creaks with white thunder and whole towers of ice fall into the water, demonstrating how the glacier’s powerful yet slow flow builds overtime. A glacier can seem like a static entity, but the entire walls of ice falling out of nowhere into the lake below challenge this assumption. They really flow very, very slowly as they slide down the mountains. All that pressure eventually causes the ice at the very bottom to snap off. The ear-cracking thunder removes any notion other than that these glaciers are powerful forces working their way through the valley they inhabit.

In Torres del Paine National park, I hiked within the dusty leftover basis on the retreating Grey Glacier. Glaciers move tons of earth and leave the lakes, rivers, fjords, islands, moraines, and much more in their wake. For example, massive glaciers during the Ice Age produced or reformed Long Island and most of New York City, and significantly reshaped the Eastern United States.

Seeing towering walls of ice the size of skyscrapers fall suddenly into the water, humanity’s contribution to the world looks small in comparison. Natural entities like glaciers that are bigger, bolder, and older than us emerge naturally.. We can only experience the eons of time glaciers have existed in the ways they mold the landscapes around them.

At the same time, humans have had a pretty significant impact on the glaciers. Climate change is slowly melting many glaciers around the world, piece by piece. Our decisions too can accumulate into massive impacts on the landscapes around us.

Nevertheless, this glacier is still here. No matter what humans do to it, we can never get rid of the impacts its ice has had on the landscape. Maybe this will be the route of humanity as well: slowly creep into a massive force that slowly wither as well once we reach our zenith until we dissipate out leaving an impact on the landscape around us. Specific societies will most likely go that kind of route: wither until it becomes unrecognizable as it transitions into whatever comes next.

Nature produces massive emergent forces like glaciers and humanity, and those same patterns of physics will eventually take them away. Our lives will most likely only ever be one towering column of ice in nature’s system that also eventually falls into the water below.

Shattered Icons: Rebuilding Identity in Times of Change

The last several years have felt like an iconoclastic phase in my life. By this, I mean a stage of life where most of the things I once held dear have fallen apart right in front of me, and I have had to figure out how to reform myself.

Iconoclasm refers to movements where people would destroy the sacred icons or images in their houses of religious worship. In particular, this would happen from time to time in Medieval Christianity. The Christians would slowly accrue many icons (statues, sacred objects, or other things) that would become a core part of how they experienced God. Churches would become full of such icons.

Then, every once in a while, a movement against icons would sweep through the church. They would feel that the icons got in the way of true worship of the divine and would seek to purify or cleanse the church of such “idolatries.”

This metaphorically matches my current period in life. Many of the things that became most important for me and central to my identity demolished right in front of me, or at least that is how it felt. For example, jobs that gave me a sense of who I was turned out not to be what they seemed; important relationships withered; disciplines and interests that once compelled me have lost their favor; and the places where I lived that once centered have withered away.

How does one make sense of all of this; might as well respond? It can feel overwhelming, making it hard to know what to do. For me, it has been a slow trickle over several years, not a single cataclysmic event. Thus, the stress and processing has come in trickles as well.

I have noticed that I have been more cautious of relying on new things, since in the back of my mind, I doubt whether to trust it. I also notice that I have to give myself more time and patience to process everything that has happened. I need to be patient with myself while I do so.

Having an iconoclastic phase does not seem bad in the long run. It is teaching me what really matters in my life. A kind of refining fire of those past things that I have held onto, allowing me to transition into whatever new life stage I am forming. Often someone needs an iconoclastic phase during transition stages in life to supplant what one has and make room for whatever is to come.

That’s how I have been handling this stage of life. Maybe if you have such a phase, you would handle it similarly, or maybe in a completely different way. Either way, you learn a lot about yourself, however, by how you handle transitions.

The Importance of Singleness

One of the most common mistakes I see US Americans making about dating is to assume they must be with someone. US society has subconsciously taught us that to live a successful life, you must have found someone, and this can cause people to rush into relationships without really examining whether that person is a good fit for them.

Someone once told me that as an adult, she had only been single for a handful of times, and that these were the worst periods in her life. The longest was a two year period after breaking up with someone before finding someone else. She lamented how bad she felt about being single. She had internalized the societal messages that you are supposed to be with someone and had assumed that during these periods of singleness that she was doing something “wrong” in need of correction. She wished she had better used these opportunities rather than spending her time immediately rushing into a relationship.

Our single periods are precisely that: opportunities. Opportunities to learn about yourself, who you are, and what makes you happy in life. When we view singleness as an issue in need of correction, we fail to learn from that time what we can.

We should be more comfortable being single. Some people might want to be single their whole lives, and that’s fine. And some people might ultimately want to be in a long-term relationship, and that is fine too. But, periods of singleness are excellent opportunities to become comfortable with who we are and what we most value in our lives. They are an asset, not a liability.

The mindset that we ought to find someone can make us do one of the worst things in a relationship: settle. By viewing not being hitched as a problem to be solved, it turns whatever potential partner in front of us to a potential “solution.” Is this person “good enough” to be someone that we can use to meet this requirement? That can produce a sense that if they check certain boxes, they are good enough to be the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with.

But, if we are fine being single, the question becomes more open and genuine: Do I enjoy spending time with this person enough to spend the rest of my life with them? If you are comfortable being single, you can always move on and continue your single life until you find someone who you do want to spend your life with.

If you need to find someone, then your threshold for what kind of things you cannot tolerate must be much lower. This can lead to people staying in relationships that are not a good fit – or even with people who mistreat them – because they feel like the psychological or social cost of leaving is that much higher. Relationships built on such a premise are also much more likely to become unhappy, have problems (like abuse, adultery, etc.), or to end in divorce later (cite).

Spending your whole life with someone is no small matter, so it should be taken lightly. And trying to force your way into a relationship only disrespects and lowers the effectiveness of the process. Ironically, the best way to take the question seriously is to make it only one option in the first place.

Living through the Normal Times in Between

Movies and books often wrap their stories in a tidy, emotionally-satisfying ending. In a big climactic moment, the hero slays the marries or marries the love of their life. The problem is solved, and the story ends as they live happily ever after.

Life rarely works this way. There is always a tomorrow. For every major, life-changing triumph in our lives, there is the day after, and a day after that. Regular life eventually sets in now that we have to live in the new reality we have set for ourselves. Life has no big story ending (until death), just a continuation of more and more days.

Hollywood depicts success as being able to “win” or overcome these challenging climatic moments, but living a successful life seems to actually be about how to live satisfied during the “normal days” in between. Learning to be yourself on the quiet days can be the most challenging thing of all.