What Next?

We’re supposed to pick, we’re supposed to be wrong, we’re supposed to move, we’re supposed to fall on our face, we’re supposed to learn.

I watched The Worst Person in the World the other night and the first 30 minutes of this movie truly leave you in awe of the human ability to marinate in decision paralysis. Without giving away too much of the plot (which will have you dissolved in a little puddle of melted sad butter towards the end), it’s precisely in the protagonist’s consistent indecisions that ultimately lie the source of the heartbreaking outcomes of the story. She never fully chose her partners. Never fully chose her career paths. Never fully chose who she was. Always affirming confusion. Only ever existing in indecision. Always the sense that life hasn’t started yet. There is a truly special monologue by one of her ex-partners in which he expresses regret over never having been able to help her understand how special she was (the heartbreaking irony of this moment is that the viewer knows the extent to which this was not true) There comes a point when indecision has consequences. Choose things and embrace the outcomes, whatever they may be, because they come from your own doing. And if you can do something, you can undo it. It reminds me so much of a video I saw a few years about how when you fully chose something, it means closing yourself to other outcomes, but it is only in this act of choosing that we truly start living.