Sociosomnia: Everything Everywhere All at Once (movie) 👀

I was blown away by this movie. I highly, highly recommend it. You will go on an emotional journey: It is intense; it is gory; it is funny!; it’s ridiculous; it's weird and quirky; it’ll make you cry. It’s up there with The Matrix, Inception, and Arrival in creativity, depth, and accessibility.

Headline: It’s about moving through the seduction of nihilism that comes with pluralistic awareness (green) to find purpose and integration (teal) in the perfect imperfection of what we have now. The way through is meaning, love, and surrender.

Pardon this essay being long; still I feel it barely scratches the surface, since I see it applying so directly to our society and individual development.

Spoilers (lightly) in this paragraph: Becoming aware of the multiverse symbolizes waking up to multi-perspectivalism (green). There’s a temptation in believing that nothing means anything anymore (the Jobu Tupaki character exemplifies this, and Evelyn almost succumbs to it upon her awakening), but even then, the pain is defined by meaning, love, and connection; so the ‘villain’ is actually searching for someone to join her in her pain. This reflects those of us who lash out in our relationships; it also reflects our social “post-truth” world, where we don’t know what to orient to so life feels meaningless. But this is defined by our desire to connect in something worthwhile (even our online trolling is an attempt to connect).

Waymond's (the husband) unconditional love and ability to see the value in everything is symbolized by how he puts googly eyes on everything. In a hilarious and poignant scene, he even sees the unique value in the version of Evelyn that isn’t good at anything. This represents the aspect of our collective dream that hasn’t forgotten how much kindness, playfulness, and silliness matter. Waymond’s love is beautiful, because even in unconditionality he’s willing to set boundaries (eg: asking for a divorce, standing up for his daughter). Evelyn’s ability to recognize and appreciate this love and his boundaries, along with her love for their daughter, pulls Evelyn from the edge of nihilism, mirroring our recognition of love and its healthy expression as “no”. She transcludes the green pluralism of tapping into different worlds, but goes beyond them to unite them towards a common purpose (teal). Her evolution also reflects a teal commitment to personal growth and overcoming our limitations to be the best we can be; at the same time it’s this very commitment misapplied to others (teal shadow), that created the Jobu Tupaki in the first place. But even her embrace of googly eyes, and loving people as they are (evidenced on the stairwell when she gives all the people chasing her -representing our shadows- what they desperately want) is not enough; she must surrender her desire to save her daughter. She has to admit that even in her powerful embrace of all her sides from different universes (again representing teal self), she must let Joy make her own choices. She can love everyone, but she cannot save anyone. It’s only in this letting go, embracing reality exactly as it is, including grief, loss, and the beauty of banality (a flash of turquoise surrender orientation), that they make it through.

Hat tip to our facilitator David Swedlow, who was the first to recommend it to me way back in March.

What the heck are these colors? This article might help, and for a more in-depth study try this.

With love, Jordan