MULTIPLE CHOICE W/NESTED UNKNOWNS
Pick a door, any door!
You don’t know what’s behind the door. It could be a lot. It could be very little. It could be good. It could be bad.
Each door is assigned a specific outcome or prize. Will you choose the right one? The best one? The highest-ticket one? The white knuckles of anticipation. The gut-flattening stomp of disappointment. There’s a reason Mystery Door is a staple in game shows and the canon of hypotheticals.
But wait — this is a different game.
Here, there are no mystery suitcases full of cash held by coiffed, leggy, grinning models. There is no camera, no audience, no leathery host who may or may not be guilty of sexual assault, no dining room set, no sparkling Cadillac CTS, no trip for two to Thailand where you and your sandaled, visored, sun-screened spouse have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be cluelessly and enthusiastically the whitest you’ve ever been.
It’s just you. You and what you know and your decision based on what you know. You already know what is behind each door: a coin toss. 50/50 odds. This is not just a gamble; this is choosing your gamble. The unknowns within the knowns.
Behind Door A is an eternity of reliving either your most treasured memory or the one moment you wish you could take back. On loop, forever. You won’t know it’s looping. Every time will feel like the first time. The ecstasy/agony will never dull through repetition.
Behind Door B is a child that you longed for but were never able to have, or a child you had that you never wanted and cannot love.
Behind Door C is intellect sans empathy, or empathy sans intellect.
Behind Door D is someone you’ve been looking for for a long time. Perhaps the lover who embodies of all your ideals, though their realization in the flesh could be a disappointment in and of itself. Perhaps someone you loved and lost. Or it could be the person who’s hurt you most.
Choose Door E and you’ll have money but no success, or success but no money. How hollow can one feel without the other? Yooooooouuu could find out!
How much does your greatest desire outweigh your greatest fear? Or are you more afraid than desiring?
Do your greatest desire and greatest fear even exist within the same subset? Or are you comparing the best from Door D to the worst behind Door B?
Make a choice. There is no clear winner. Sometimes there is no real win, even in the choice. The beauty of the game is that here — where the final outcome is out of your hands and left to chance, where the responsibility of choosing has a definite end, borders, an electric fence — there’s no such thing as a mistake.
Or maybe just keep driving, keep driving, past the loading dock, past its shuttered options, towards something that’s not spectacular but is definitely okay, something that’s substantially more than tolerable, and stop playing these types of mind games with yourself.