Finding Purpose and Meaning in an Overwhelming World
The recently released film Everything Everywhere All At Once is one of the most fascinating and well-executed films I've seen in a long time! The film explores ideas from the multi-verse, purpose, and meaning in life. So let's tap into another version of ourselves and see what we learn from themes in the film.
Everything Everywhere All At Once feels new giving an artistic representation of living through this interconnected age. This feeling is embedded right in the title. Let's say it is a little slower.
It's everything.
Everywhere.
All at once.
This won't be a full review of the film, but I highly recommend watching. There is more than enough to pick apart in the film, but I want to focus on this feeling the film puts front and center. The story's setup is focused on a middle-aged protagonist who is struggling with her life and feels as if they have underachieved. Stepping back into the reality of most modern people, most people are exasperated in our lives. When you suddenly log in to social media, you're bombarded by everything from anywhere. All at the same time.
This film creates an awareness that all of our lives are happening in the context of everything else that's going on in this world. You can go onto these social media platforms and be bombarded by many things that other people find important. I'm not going to talk about specific examples here, but I'm sure you are thinking of examples of those important things that we should be focusing more on. When you step back and look at this at the individual level, the question is, how do you make the judgment call on what to focus on?
The film teeters on the edge of nihilism because if everything's happening simultaneously—you’re tiny grain in this world, what's the point? But then, right about to fall off into hopelessness, it stops giving the viewer a chance to think about their place in the universe. The film's core message is that you get to choose what matters to you, and you will always have some bittersweet moments, but there will be moments with people you will always cherish, no matter how insignificant your life feels.
One idea that helps contextualize this feeling is from astronauts called the Overview Effect. Wikipedia says: "It is the experience of seeing first-hand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, "hanging in the void," shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. You can see all these different things happening in the digital world.
The era we may be in could be described as Hypermodernity. John Davis Ebert elaborates further on this philosophy.
"The structure of Time in Hypermodernity is modular: it is composed of a succession of present moments, each of which is isolated and has no relationship to any preceding moment, or any future moment. The ontology of the individual is that of an amoral hedonist achieving sensory gratification in each present moment, which is disconnected from all others. As a result, there are no values and there are no visions and above all, no connection of the individual to any traditional social formations. He has become a nomad, on his own, disconnected, modular and historyless." From On Hypermodernity.
This feels like what my generation has been living through with this explosion of technologies that have increased connectivity and the pace of the modern world. The younger generations have become unanchored from the historical past. We can create so much noise here and now that we don't have time to pause and reflect on the course we are headed. John David Ebert had a strong feeling about what he believed this hypermodern person to be, and in the most cynical view, I can see the point, but I don't believe that this must be destiny. We can pivot.
Back to Everything Everywhere All At Once, so if we can become consumed by our simpler pleasures, but yet we still ache for deeper meaning. We each ask ourselves, what is my purpose here or why do I matter?
In that way, we can achieve something in this hyper-modern world that is the opposite of being nomadic disconnected, modular, and historyless. We can transcend what traditional people would have wanted to have. What if a hypermodern person is someone who can actively move from different places and cultures in real-time and find belonging wherever they are? We can leverage the technologies that squish us into two dimensions to allow us to share more nuance about what it means to be a human.
A film like Everything Everywhere All At Once isn't just a good film with a unique take on ideas that people find like the multi-verse but tells a universal story of the human experience. Of course, the answer you come up with is your own, but we all feel it.
I'm curious what other people have to think about this. Whatever your viewpoint, I caution us to avoid apathy as that is a quick route to nihilism. I'll close with this thought: What connects you to this world and fills you with passion and strength to endure no matter the burden?
