The Third Act

“That’s why every magic trick has a third act.” – The Prestige

A man has to have a purpose in life.  All memes today are “as found”.

I’ve heard it said that there are only seven basic plots to stories, and that was the thesis of a book by the Christopher Booker.  Who would have thought a guy named Booker would write a book?  On the other hand, I’d hate to be the guy named Booker who didn’t write a book, unless my name was Dan-O.

Anyhow, we might look at those plots in a future post (maybe next Friday?) but now I want to talk about how most movies are made – they use a three act structure, and compare that to a human lifespan.

The First Act is the setup.  It introduces many of the characters and the situation.  You start by knowing absolutely nothing about what’s going on other than the title and maybe you might have seen a preview.  It’s the job of the storyteller to let you know what’s going on, while at the same time bringing drama and challenges into the life of the protagonist.

For most people, their first act may vary in details, but it’s the time of life from when they’re born until they complete their schooling and are “out in the world”.  Obviously, most of the ways that we reached adulthood are different, but most of them rhyme pretty well.  You may have had more or less adversity, you may have had more or less wealth, you might have been raised in the mountains or in the city, but those are just variations on a theme.

True story:  when I started my first website back in 2000, I was trying to figure out how to get it in search engines, so I did a search, at work, for “Submission Websites” when a bunch of fetish websites for a fetish I never even knew existed popped up.  Thankfully, the web controls were weak then.

Most people lose a grandparent, experience some tragedy, experience some conflict with parents, and almost everyone has to deal with the disturbing revelations of puberty and growing awareness of how small they are in comparison to the world.

Sure, some stories vary greatly, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be raised in the 1930s Soviet Union, but I imagine most stories of those reading this are pretty similar through adulthood.  Not the same, but similar.

How do you ground someone from Gen Z?  Make them go outside and socialize with their friends.

That’s the end of the first act, and the first challenge for most people is finding their way and path in life.  That’s the second act.  In a movie, the protagonist has a problem introduced in the first act that they have to solve.  In a good movie, the protagonist has to grow in ability, skill, virtue, or some combination of the three to deal with the problem.  The second act transforms the protagonist into something more than what he was.

The Second Act of most lives consists of wrestling with careers and marriages and children for most people.  Some miss part of that triad, but most people deal with all three.

I tried this, and it actually works, but video games are more fun.

This is the time in life when marriages succeed or fail.  When careers go where you expected, or, more likely, veer off in wild tangents that 18-year-old you would never have expected.  And, children.  Anyone who has raised more than one knows that each one is different, and each one presents a different challenge in order to make them suitable to add value to the world.

Or not.  Sometimes, all of these things fail.  I guess that’s why they make comedies?  Regardless, it’s the time when people are busy trying to accomplish things, trying to solve problems, and trying to make a place in this world and contribute.

Say what you will about Vlad, but he took action when the stakes were high.

While similarity remains, there is much more variation in the Second Act for most people.  That’s where fortunes rise and fall, and that’s where heartbreak and setbacks are either overcome or we allow them to overcome us.

The final act is the Third Act.

In a film, it creates a climax.  All of the action, all of the plots, all of the tension built into the story is resolved, for good or bad.  It finishes the story, and resolves enough of the plot to satisfy the audience, and finally allows reflection by the protagonist on how they’ve changed, and understanding who they really are.

In a life, what does the Third Act look like?  Is it a gold watch at retirement, cruises, and sitting on the patio in a shade with a lemonade watching boats go by?

For me, I can’t see that.

I can’t imagine that being my Third Act.  I’ve consciously filled my life with struggle, with daring myself to improve and get better and see my worst times were when I was complacent and life was easy.  It may be that you’ve chosen differently, and I’m just messed up, but it does set up my Third Act.

Steve Jobs said he wanted to “kick a dent” in the Universe, and he certainly did.  Would smartphones have come without the iPhone®?  I do think so, but I think his overall legacy is a negative one.  Smartphones haven’t made humanity happier, for the most part.  Instead, they’ve created a false connection where people are still seeking real connections.

This would be a good third act.

I guess, if I were looking for a climax to my life, it would kicking a far different dent in the Universe, allowing people to see that we don’t have to live like this.  There is another way, and it’s better, and freer, and provides that hope of humanity becoming the flower of creation, rather than another weed.

I believe that with all of my heart, that there is another way.  I’d write a book about it, but my name isn’t booker.  Wait, maybe if it was a wild book?

The Book:

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

27 thoughts on “The Third Act”

  2. True story: when I started my first website back in 2000, I was trying to figure out how to get it in search engines, so I did a search, at work, for “Submission Websites” when a bunch of fetish websites for a fetish I never even knew existed popped up. Thankfully, the web controls were weak then.

    LOL, I was showing my wife how to use the internet browser back in the early 00’s. Want to see Sears website – http://www.sears.com. Want to see Kmart – http://www.kmart.com.

    Hey, we wanted to buy a picnic table! They’re on sale at dicks sporting goods. http://Www.dicks.com. Ruh Roh!

    Funny epilogue, dicks.com is the url for dicks sporting goods, now.

    1. My company, in the early 2000s, dealt with railcars. My boss tasked me with finding railroad websites and creating UserIDs and passwords for us to use. Burlington Northern Santa Fe was BNSF.com, Union Pacific Rail Road was UPRR.com, For the Iowa Missouri Rail Link, my first guess, IMRL.com hit our corporate web filter, so I had to check it out at home. I have NEVER been so thankful for filtering software!!

  3. “Steve Jobs said he wanted to “kick a dent” in the Universe, and he certainly did” ………… I think Wozniak probably kicked in the majority of the dent, and then Jobs got credit for it (or most of it). To be fair, Jobs did contribute as he was the “visionary” but there would be no Apple without Woz.

    I mention this because you see this everywhere in that none of the big names (Gates, Musk, Zuck, Edison etc.) actually truly created the tech that made them rich. They instead stole/borrowed it from others. I would frequently see this same scenario play out at work as the true creators rarely have a passion for running a business or self promoting, so other less scrupulous types will happily grab the limelight from them.

    So what does this comment have to do with the main topic of the article? I’m in my 3rd act and have gone through a major change in worldview after learning the hard way that nothing is what it seems. It was incredibly life altering to realize that the majority of these business successes (national and local) were just thieves. So my 3rd act has taken a completely different turn to focus on the real reality and make the most of life despite the lies. I’m mentally in a better place and no longer angry because of it as I now realize that there was nothing I could have done that would have changed the situation of my 2nd act .

  4. I am not in the third act of my life yet but I am at a point where I can start to see it. It won’t be a vacation home on a golf course in Florida. Like most of Generation Xers, the future we are living in and heading to is not at all what we expected or were promised. It is up to each of us to make our own future and find ways to leave some sort of mark on the world we bequeath to our posterity.

  5. I think my life is actually in four acts. First 20+- years: growing up. Second 20+- years: Army career. Third 20+- years: Software development career. Fourth 20+- years: Retirement. I’m well into the fourth act and enjoying it, but working as hard as ever.
    For many people, it seems that the last act (3rd or 4th) is teaching, either formally or informally.

  6. John – – Yes, the drudge through life is like a three part play.

    Or like a beginner skier going up the mountain the first time:

    It starts awkwardly donning the boots and skis, some lessons in how to traverse the slope with and without gravity’s assist. It then the moves on to you maneuvering to the rope tow without crossing skis, falling down and making a spectacle of yourself while you get in line to approach the place where you have to grasp the rope and begin your ascent up the slope (bunny slope seems pretty daunting to neophytes…)

    Then the 2nd phase begins as you grasp the rope holding ski poles in/with the other arm. You get jerked forward abruptly and are mightingly trying to keep your skis parallel so you don’t crumple into a ball, skis a-kilter and again embarrass yourself while the entire line stops and the employees order for you to slither away from the line so others can continue their quest for mountain pleasures….

    And then after the jerky jerky rope tow pulls you to “ the top”, you again have to negotiate another gaggle of skiers all trying to get to the start point for their down hill run. You have been a success, well sort of, because you learned the “ropes” and made it to the top of your quest….

    Then you begin your downhill run; the third stage of your quest. It is the run toward the remainder of your life. May be smooth, has slick spots, bumpy, involves crashes into others, pains, falls, collisions with unseen skiers/objects, rewarding and yet exhilarating in parts.

    Anybody who hasn’t skied will not understand this metaphorical simile. But I am certain that you do.

    Thanks for another good article.

  7. As I have said elsewhere recently, anybody that says “and they all lived happily ever after” just hasn’t gotten to the true end of the story yet.

    1. In a book of Arab folk tales, the stories end with “and they lived happily ever after, until death came for them as it must for all of us.”

      Lathechuck

  8. Wow John! You are on a string of thought provokers this week.

    You have jogged my brain to make me realize that – perhaps accidentally, certainly kicking and screaming – I am being dragged into the third act, which looks nothing like the third act I had expected. Which I suppose is fine – after all, change and challenge produce elasticity of the brain, which is supposed to be good for me.

    I agree with you on the overall impact of Jobs and the I-Phone. Question: Is so much technology that causes the issue or the fact that the “convenience” we get from the technology isolates us when we think it is serving us?

  11. My wifes uncle Kenny was “Danno’s” college room mate. They remained friends until his death in Florida in 2010. Six degrees of somthin’, somthin’…

  12. The universe is dented and banged up enough.

    Don’t be the jerk who kicks another dent into it.
    Be the guy who wants to pound a dent out of the universe.

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