The Tragedy of Being Too Early - The Timeline Effect

with every choice and action a timeline of one's life is drawn forward and for every possible choice and action that one could make but doesn't another possible world another possible self another possible timeline unfolds in a separate direction that one can never know there are nearly an infinite number of ways for how frank's life could have gone many of which never went at all but one in particular went like this frank worked basically his whole life in pursuit of one thing what started as just a youthful attraction mostly nothing more than a seed of innocent curiosity and seeking of identity grew more and more with time into the central focus of his life in general very few youthful interests remain steady and properly held together through the storm of aging into adulthood but for frank painting did born with a congenital limb length discrepancy as a child frank's left leg was about two and a half inches longer than his right more or less condemning him to a lifelong limp that would only really improve following several surgeries once he was older because of his condition he was unable to participate in the more traditional physical activities that a young boy might otherwise be compelled towards moreover throughout his early childhood he was often ridiculed or ignored by many of his peers because of his limp and was a rather isolated and sad child art was the perfect outlet for frank where mostly everything came together for him throughout high school frank took as many art classes as he could and unlike most of his other classes he took the ones he did seriously he spent much of his time outside of school working and learning about art as well studying from the greats and developing his own unique understanding preference and style following high school he went to college at the university of pittsburgh and majored in studio arts frank was a slightly below average student in high school and mostly stayed the same in college his focus and academic efforts were fairly concentrated towards his art courses and his own personal art projects however even despite his hyper-focused efforts his art seemed to remain relatively average as well his work was strange but not in a way that seemed to translate very well generally in college he was one of the better ones in most of his low-level classes but only one of the average ones amongst the better ones and in some of his higher level classes he was even told by a couple professors on multiple occasions that his work was unsatisfactory lacking in clear method and technical understanding and too focused on concept rather than arrangement and execution he barely made it by with low seas and two senior level studio art classes despite how good he was or wasn't though frank felt this hunch that he was or would be perhaps it was more of a desire than a hunch but it was no less a sense of something a sense that he had something in it a tethering to his being that felt almost divinely facilitated he couldn't help but become addicted to the feeling that art and painting gave him it was both an escape and entrance to himself this addiction formed a continued and for the time being unshakable obsession and dedication towards art this obsession was relatively benign during high school and for the most part during college as well however as he aged through out of and beyond college his dedication mostly remained but its value only seemed to wane by his early 30s frank had tried for over a decade to make a name and career for himself in the art world he tried relentlessly making great sacrifices in his life otherwise he moved to certain areas took and quit certain jobs started and ended friendships and relationships let go of opportunities all for the purpose of pursuing his art as much and as well as he could despite his efforts though he had still by this point found no real success by most standards he seemed to lack a technical ability that could fit commercial work and even in the more core art scenes his work mostly didn't seem to fit either on a variety of occasions some of his work was accepted into small local underground type galleries and exhibitions but these would do very little for him in his career and worse yet even at this level his work was often criticized by peers and critics of the art community some of which described his work as tasteless crude or quote not art those who did like his work though seemed to like it a lot ultimately frank was stubborn he had the sort of spirit of obsession that couldn't easily be beaten out of him not to say that life wasn't trying throughout this time he in fact teetered back and forth between quitting and continuing constantly almost letting the fire burn out but then saving it upon the final embers assisted by any puffs of positive feedback he might receive he was always a man of full commitment so he was either going to try all in or not at all as a result though his continued dedication posed a variety of challenges on his life by this point frank lacked any real experience or interest in much of anything other than art and so he mostly found himself stuck with jobs that were for all intents and purposes rather horrible tedious and low paying a variety of the sort of stockroom data entry or office temp type jobs that can pull the soul from your skull if you aren't careful but he kept his head down tried his best and did what he had to do to get by and focus on his art as much as he could throughout his mid-twenties and early thirties frank had very little money and a lot of stress he often found himself struggling to make ends meet and moreover he often fell into great pits of depression and drunken spirals of disarray over his lack of success and the life that he had found himself in ultimately though wise or unwise he continued to stay in return to painting and art as a central focus during this time as frank aged into his later mid-thirties at a certain point he became considered by many standards that of a failure his friends and family strangers and women he would meet all thought he was both foolish and borderline insane to still be pursuing what seemed like mostly a lost cause his aging mother who always envisioned a prosperous and successful son worried about frank in part because she worried about his well-being but mostly because she hated how he reflected on her and the family both frank's mother and father had and continued to cringe every time they were asked about frank at family parties gatherings with friends or work-related events they hated exposing the shortcomings of their son because it felt as though it exposed their own and so they would often embellish or make up stories to aid in how frank came off they never understood what he was doing and why the art seemed like nonsense to them and the general opinion of the public seemed to agree they always told frank that he should go into something more viable like marketing when they would occasionally talk frank's father would say things like after a certain amount of time it's either a hobby or nothing frank that time is long coming gone or the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results frank would hear any and all of the variety of cliches that could be used against him but for every cliche that could be used against him frank could think of an equal amount that could be used in favor of him ultimately though at a certain point frank didn't know where that put him he was nearly broke living on barely anything unable to start and support a family even if he wanted to disapproved by the family he had and disliked or unknown by most of his peers he felt weak and incompetent beaten down by the arbitrary game of life he couldn't seem to get a good hand in the later he went into his thirties it only continued to become harder and harder to reconcile the difference between the world's perception of him and his own he didn't necessarily care how he was seen by others but he was by now having a nearly impossible time not seeing himself mostly the same the world's perception of him creeped further and further inside his own skull after enough failure a man comes to the point where he has to decide whether or not he himself believes he in fact might be one one night in the last year of his 30s frank felt a strange pain in the back of his neck it wasn't a normal pain that he might otherwise feel from horrible sleep or stress but an extremely tight and vicious pain that he had never felt before it was within bearable limits though and it mostly subsided after a few minutes so he didn't think much of it but then over the next couple days it happened again and again seemingly worse each time expanding into his head and bringing with it a nausea and feeling of disorientation that was impossible to ignore what was weird is that frank's doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong he had frank undergo several different tests but there appeared to be no sign of any ailment internal physical injury malformation or otherwise his doctor essentially said that if frank wasn't experiencing any symptoms he would have given him a clean bill of health he prescribed frank the migraine medication alma triptan and told him to notify him if things got any worse as days progressed frank became more and more ill losing energy exhibiting unusual behaviors and falling into what seemed like constant discomfort and pain frank promptly contacted his doctor again who then referred him to several specialists who he scheduled appointments with the following week on the sunday of that weekend frank was found dead in his apartment he was 39. following his death an autopsy revealed a tiny edema or swelling in the frontal lobe of his brain which would have likely caused a slow disruption of the blood flow until eventually it built up into presumably a stroke it was too tiny to be noticed until it was too late not to be frank died essentially with nothing to show for his life in terms of traditional success whether or not that matters at all is subsequent to the fact that he died without ever accomplishing what he dedicated his life to and believed his life to be for he died without ever feeling like he was who he thought he was or could be he died in the eyes of everyone who knew him including himself a failure however perhaps far far sadder than all of that is what frank didn't know and now could never know in life for every choice and action a timeline of oneself is drawn forward and for every possible choice and action that one could make but doesn't another possible world another possible self another possible timeline unfolds in a separate direction that one can never know there are nearly an infinite number of ways for how frank's life could have gone many of which never went at all but one in particular went exactly the same except one thing on one night a couple weeks prior to the day he died frank decided to start a new art piece instead of going to a bar and because he didn't go to the bar he didn't get drunk and because he didn't get drunk he never drunkenly fell forward and hit his head on the corner of the lower section of a stop sign while trying to catch a cab in a mild blackout that he wouldn't remember the next day because he never sustained this seemingly mild forgotten and hangover concealed head injury his brain never developed a swelling and thus he never died at age 39 instead he kept on living normally and kept on working on that new art piece and about seven months later that piece got noticed by an art dealer who happened to be visiting and scanning local galleries who told frank that the piece had a standout raw quality that was exactly what he was looking for the dealer went on to eventually sell that art piece for seventeen thousand dollars ultimately igniting frank's career working with the art dealer over the following several years by around 43 years old frank would go on to become world famous in the art world and then eventually famous in the world at large his career would blossom more and more allowing him to work full time all in on his art and make more than a comfortable living doing so both during and after his lifetime he would be thought of as a leading figure of his generation regarded for being significantly ahead of his time and uniquely distinct from any other art movements and styles his innovative work would be mimicked by artists to come and the rippling effects of his conceptual style provoked artistic and cultural movements that reverberated into the future indefinitely frank was right either in the fact that he was built to be a successful artist or in the fact that he would eventually build himself into one but in the version of the world that he knew and the version that came true he was dead he not only died before he knew that his work went on to be of great success but died before his work ever did in truth there are a lot of frank's timelines that wouldn't have gone that way ones where he didn't die early but he was dead wrong about his abilities nonetheless but one never knows which timeline they're on and one never knows how close they are to success on the one they are and the world does not and can never know those who gave up slightly too soon to find out you

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 929,313

Rating: 4.8751287 out of 5

Keywords: pursuit of wonder, the nova effect, the tragedy of good luck, the perfect amount of awful, you'll never do anything remarkable, exurb1a, in a nutshell, school of life, ted, ted ed, the, the timeline effect, the butterfly effect, the tragedy of being too early, short story, short film, inspiration, animation, motivation, motivated, inspirational film, animated, happy, happiness, success, one choice changes everything

Id: ffWSQCjTtgk

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2020