Controlling The Story Line

Not much time to post for now, but as a quick aside, I thought that this comment on Rigorous Intuition was a gem. Food for thought.

I'm convinced that the ultimate nature of the universe is neither deterministic nor random but deeply, deeply improv. Things happen -- maybe accidents, maybe part of someone's elaborate plan, but that doesn't matter -- and you pick them up and paste them into whatever story-line you're spinning at the moment. Then someone else pulls a chunk out of your story-line, turns it upside down and slaps a coat of yellow paint on it, and pastes it into their own.

That's how evolution happens. It's how history happens. It's how politics happen.

Cindy Sheehan on the road to Crawford is improv of the highest order. Nobody planned it. But it sure ain't accident either. It's a piece that fits marvellously well into the current story-line.

I don't necessarily know how to apply all this in real life. But I've watched my kids play Dungeons & Dragons enough to realize that Dungeonmasters who can improvise wildly in response to the vagueries of their players and the dice are demigods, while those who try to set up a rigid scenario and whip the players through it are doomed to failure and burnout.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter who controls the dice. What matters is who controls the story-line.

That's a great way to look at the situation, and an empowering one, for the party enterprising enough to carpe diem (Latin for "seize the fish"). Let's hope they finally take the hint; a show of support or even a willingness to discuss Cindy Sheehan (pro or con), by one of the Democrat poohbahs, would make a real statement, and show some guts and initiative.

Which is why it won't happen, not yet. But hope springs eternal, right?