Is it binge-worthy? The most recent question from someone seeking to understanding just how good a TV series is. I’ve recently found myself watching a bunch of cartoons, with these relatively simple story lines I’ve found it interesting to note how writers create and resolve conflict. Their general goal is to create a sense of tension or conflict which a protagonist must resolve, and secondly unpack the resolution. The tension draws us in, it captivates us, the resolution leaves us satisfied from the watch.
However, stories that span multiple episodes or seasons will have multiple layers of conflict, woven together to create a much richer story line. The writer provides resolution to keep you satisfied, and allows unresolved conflict to keep you coming back for more. The bingeability of the story speaks to the skill of the writer to be able to create and resolve just the right amount of tension at any given point to keep you coming back and happy with what you’re getting.
Writers are vying for our attention by playing on our inbuilt desires to resolve conflict. We desire to bring order, clarity and achieve completion. If only life were so compliant. Culturally we try to live our lives more akin to a single episode than part of a much richer series. Rather than viewing the layers of conflict as something that gives our lives richness, we view them as what must be overcome to live a rich life.
What are the sorts of conflicts we’re talking about here? Conflict with other people and the strain they cause on relationships. The conflict between where we want our work projects and where they’re actually at. The conflict between what we want to buy and our financial capacity to buy it. Conflict between the way we think about politics, economics or our world view in comparison to others. Conflict with what we want to do with our bodies, and our health or physical capacity.
Take for example every parents’ conflict with the state of their house. At the end of the day we finally get the children into bed and try to sort out this conflict we have with the house once again. We get ready for our own ‘10pm Inspection’. The inspection never comes, but we momentarily consider ourselves successful before we crash into bed. Inevitably the children beat us awake reversing our good work and leaving us once again conflicted.
The pattern of this daily grind seems ridiculous. But similarly, so does the idea that we never resolve the messy state of house because ‘what’s the point’. The real challenge is not found in whether the conflict is resolved or unresolved. It’s found in the way we view these conflicts themselves.
I find in many conversations or commentaries people view these conflicts or tensions as a hurdle to resolve before they can finally start living. When X is done, then Y. The goal is to resolve X o so we can truly live our Y. We view our real life as something that we get to live once we’ve dealt with the conflict in front of us. When I have enough money, then I’ll do what I really want to do. When I have the partner of my dreams, then I’ll be happy. When they think like I do, then we’ll be able to be friends again.
This is the approach we often take to business, we are confronted with a problem, we roll out a solution and then realise there’s another problem…or 10. As I write it’s 1 week out from Christmas, every year the same thing, we rush around at the end of the year trying to make sure that when we fall into bed on Christmas Eve we’ve resolved enough…so that we can enjoy our holiday.
This is not about doing away with goals and aspirations, they’re important, but rather than viewing our life as the thing we get to once we’ve resolved our problems and achieved our goals, there is an incredible freedom that comes when we realise life is found in the conflicts, and the richness they bring to our lives. Our life is added to when we get to support loved ones or receive support as we work through a health challenge. When we get to add diversity to our way of thinking when we discuss a different political opinion with our friends. When we get to work with people and come together around a work problem.
Those moments can be full of frustration and stress, but they aren’t holding us back from life, they are in fact our lives. Success in life, therefore, isn’t just getting to resolution quicker, but rather more quickly coming to terms with living in the middle of an unresolved story. Resolving just enough to be satisfied and leaving just enough unresolved to keep us coming back for more.