We have all encountered it -- though it is much harder to recognize when it is concerned with our own actions. We see something happening on the street, in the office, with our children. If the sequence of events does not change (and, often, what we observe is something that is very hard to change) then problems are going to occur. Possibly very bad ones.
I call these "train wrecks". The name comes out of seeing a car (hopefully already abandoned) stuck on the train tracks with the train coming along. If I am watching a movie at home and I see a train wreck developing then I will often start pacing the floor. I may even turn the movie off, or pause it, to avoid seeing it unfold. (If watching in a movie theater, I grit my teeth and just wait for it to be over -- an advantage to going to see the movie at a theater.)
The same thing happens when I am reading a book. I see an impending train wreck and I close the book. It may be a week or two before I accept the issue and I can turn the movie on again or open the book. If a book has multiple train wrecks in it I may abandon it and never complete it.
Why do train wrecks bother me so much? Train wrecks occur in many successful movies and books and television series. It appears that it does not bother many people nearly as much as it does me.
I have decided that it is an occupational hazard. I have been in the computer programming/architecture/management field for 45+ years. A large part of success in the field is structured thought and organization. Computers, and microprocessors, are very, very stupid -- they do EXACTLY what you tell them (barring hardware problems) -- they just do them very, very quickly. If you structure the program properly then it can do a LOT of tiny little simple things fast enough that it can appear to be doing complicated things quickly.
So, how does that relate to not being able to watch train wrecks? Having a brain that has been taught that if A causes B then B will always come after A means that when I see A, my brain starts saying "B! B! B!" I start wanting to yell at the book or movie screen. "Don't do A. If you do then B is going to happen." Maybe it is a bit more complicated. Maybe it is "If A exists and choice B is taken then result G will happen. If choice B is not taken then result J will happen." So, I'll start screaming "take choice B!"
But those characters in the movies or within the books never seem to listen to me.
So, what about situations where the person CAN hear you? They potentially COULD take choice B if they wanted. More often than not (or, at least, so it subjectively seems) they ignore you. As a parent, people tend to tell you "they have to experience it for themselves". So your child doesn't take choice B and you have to be prepared to help clean up the mess.
Occasionally -- in movies, books, or real life -- not taking choice B will NOT lead to result J. Maybe some outside event occurs (in the script or pages) to change the outcome. Maybe you were incorrect in analyzing the base condition, A, and therefore the results from the choice differ. But even if the result turns out different than expected you still spend the time waiting for the train wreck.
So, please -- protect me, and the people around me, from train wrecks. Consider the consequences.
