We're All Truman Burbank
When I was much younger, in elementary school, I used to entertain a fantasy that my life was a television show. This came from watching stuff like "The Wonder Years" or "Pete and Pete", where the show has a narrator that's explaining and analyzing the world around them. I used to sit on the swings on the playground and weave little bits of dialogue in my head that helped me make sense of the world and people around me.
For many years during my childhood, I wove this little inner monologue in my head as though it was the narrator in my own television show. I entertained the notion that the world around me was nothing more than an oversized and elaborate television studio, that those around me were actors, and that I was the star in some television show being broadcast to thousands. I felt the need to dramatize things and add descriptive detail to my thoughts to keep things interesting for my thousands of fans.
Now, I wasn't delusional. If someone had asked me if I really thought that my entire world around me, from my home to my school, was an elaborately constructed television set full of hidden cameras to record what I was doing, or whether everyone around me were just actors playing along with whatever I said, I would have said, "Of course not." But I entertained the idea in my head, as a fantasy, and played out the fantasy in my spare time on the playground. I spent a lot of time narrating and analyzing what was happening in my life inside of my own head, as if I were the star of my own show. This was the making of a largely ego-centric personality on my part.
This is why when I saw the movie The Truman Show when I was in high school, the movie resonated with me. The central character, Truman Burbank, is constantly on camera and, unbeknownst to him, his entire life is taking place on a large, constructed movie set and is being broadcast live on television 24 hours a day. The plot of the movie is the sequence of events that unfold as it slowly dawns on Truman that something seems wrong with the world around him.
The feasibility of the movie's premise is the criticism that I hear most often about the film itself. But if you look past the plot holes, it's a pretty good movie, and I think, to a certain extent, it represents the way we see the world around us, with one important difference: we're willing and fully aware participants in the whole production. I think we all see ourselves as the star in our little worlds and among the people around us, and we're having fun participating in the whole thing. And we weave little narrations in our head to help make sense of it all.
This is, I think, the secret of persuasion: figure out the story someone's telling themselves and then play along.
For many years during my childhood, I wove this little inner monologue in my head as though it was the narrator in my own television show. I entertained the notion that the world around me was nothing more than an oversized and elaborate television studio, that those around me were actors, and that I was the star in some television show being broadcast to thousands. I felt the need to dramatize things and add descriptive detail to my thoughts to keep things interesting for my thousands of fans.
Now, I wasn't delusional. If someone had asked me if I really thought that my entire world around me, from my home to my school, was an elaborately constructed television set full of hidden cameras to record what I was doing, or whether everyone around me were just actors playing along with whatever I said, I would have said, "Of course not." But I entertained the idea in my head, as a fantasy, and played out the fantasy in my spare time on the playground. I spent a lot of time narrating and analyzing what was happening in my life inside of my own head, as if I were the star of my own show. This was the making of a largely ego-centric personality on my part.
This is why when I saw the movie The Truman Show when I was in high school, the movie resonated with me. The central character, Truman Burbank, is constantly on camera and, unbeknownst to him, his entire life is taking place on a large, constructed movie set and is being broadcast live on television 24 hours a day. The plot of the movie is the sequence of events that unfold as it slowly dawns on Truman that something seems wrong with the world around him.
The feasibility of the movie's premise is the criticism that I hear most often about the film itself. But if you look past the plot holes, it's a pretty good movie, and I think, to a certain extent, it represents the way we see the world around us, with one important difference: we're willing and fully aware participants in the whole production. I think we all see ourselves as the star in our little worlds and among the people around us, and we're having fun participating in the whole thing. And we weave little narrations in our head to help make sense of it all.
This is, I think, the secret of persuasion: figure out the story someone's telling themselves and then play along.