Time Is a Flat Circle
My Journey into TV, True Detective, and why Rust Cohle Should Maybe Try and Pick Up a Self-Help Book
I have been trying to get into TV lately. A prolonged dopamine fast following the first season of House of the Dragon has kept me away from anything new. This was beneficial to my personal constitution but handicapped discussions at happy hours, my ability to 'chichat' had fallen off dramatically. One issue is that I had been caught lying at a happy hour networking event.
As you all know, I record all conversations, so here is the transcript.
"What shows have you been watching, Rick?"
"Yellowjackets."
Which was met with multiple agreements of 'great show,' 'what season?' etc.
"It's really great. I love how well they established the tone of the show. It's so whimsical."
Everyone gave me one of those looks. I had goofed. I had accidentally mixed up Yellowstone with Yellowjackets, but it turns out my calling Yellowstone whimsical was still way off.
Another issue was being brutally honest about my life goals would intimidate people. They would enquire about what I did for fun and when I answered that my goal was becoming a tech billionaire, many would try and change the topic of conversation or would walk away, no doubt intimidated by my drive. Most probably went home and pondered why their goals were so lacking compared to my own. Simple is better. My hobby being watching TV could never hurt me.
At the happy hour this week I noticed that all discussions led back to TRUE DETECTIVE. So I dove in. What a journey.
While the show's seasons were not serial, the general vibes were. Otherwise broken individuals are instinctually driven to confront the evils of humanity for reasons both selfless and selfish. While their pursuit of justice will admittedly alter little in an indifferent universe, their attempts are driven by an attempt to repair the wounds a broken world wrought upon them. Rebirth. Repair. Purpose. These themes apply to both the characters of the TV show and the actors looking to reinvigorate an otherwise struggling career.1
The scene that has stuck out to me the most was the scene in the first season of TRUE DETECTIVE in which Matthew McConaughey's character, Rust Cohle, discusses time as being a flat circle. That your life's trajectory was inevitable because it has already happened, that it will happen again and again, for eternity, in the exact same way, and that there isn't much you can do about it.
Let's examine the truth of this theory. I cannot subjectively prove or disprove what Rust Cohle says about time being a flat circle, but let's dissect the arguments for and against.
Against: Although the theory of Eternal Return is not particularly Christian,2 something about it stinks of Protestantism and Calvinism. To me, this renders the theory moot.
For: Its the only explanation for why I have not found success in life.
But, for the sake of this blog post, let's wargame/thought experiment/etc and say that it's true, time is a flat circle. Should you give up and accept it? That everything is useless?
What I posit, something that cannot be disproven, is that even if time was a flat circle, self-help books can so redefine one's character and grit that you could alter one's path, little by little, within this ever repeating time circle.
Because what self-help books teach are the same themes discussed in TRUE DETECTIVE. Rebirth, Repair, Purpose. Self-help books can teach all of these things and more. They can teach discipline and motivation, that hard work and not taking shortcuts leads to fruitful results; all of which can be absorbed through summaries of the book provided by the app, Blinkest. Here's the purpose of this post: Hey Matthew's character, Rust Cohle, maybe you should try and read a self-help book.
Have you read the memoir, Greenlights, by Matthew McConaughey, the hot buff boy that plays Rust Cohle? Through Blinkest I have, and the book basically reads as a motivational LinkedIn post peppered with personal details. A Wiz Khalifa song read in a sweet, Southern tenor. He gets it. He's trying to influence our previous, present, and future lives.
Let's expand, again, on the theory that time is a flat circle. After repeating this circle an infinite number of times, to the outside observer the perception of time elapsed shortens. All loops basically occur in the same time as a camera flash, after an infinite number of these run throughs. In this infinite loop you influence your mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa the same as they influence you. This could mean that the self-help book you read last week, if it really stuck with you and influenced you, would also have influence on everyone born before you and everyone born after you.
Everyone in your lineage is all working together. That little voice that tells you to 'go-for-it' is actually someone in your family lineage. "Shoot the ball," is your ancestor who died at the War of Jenkins' Ear. "Make another blog post," is an amoeba you evolved from. "Buy that crypto" is the voice of a future generation who read the best self-help book ever written. That future generation person seems like a smart cookie, I hope that self-help book gets written before I die.
Oh wait, I am. This blog is that book.
You're welcome.
Tune in to my next post where I discuss why I mistakenly read all of Philip Roth’s books thinking they would help me understand Roth IRAs.
Sorry, Vince Vaughn, but you picked a bad season for attempting that comeback
It is more associated with Stoicism, Greek Thinkers, and Nietzsche than Protestantism. I know that. But, you can just tell Calvinists think the same way.