I saw a video once of a man on a motorcycle in a parking lot. In the center of the parking lot stood a light pole. The man had an entire desert of pavement to ride on, yet he inexplicably rode straight for the pole until he slammed into it. I was utterly baffled, but in the comments, I learned that he suffered from a phenomenon known as “target fixation.”
Loosely defined, target fixation is a behavior in which a person becomes so focused on a singular object that they tend to ride (or drive) straight into it.
This is a concept that looks counter-intuitive but feels utterly intuitive to me. If I focus entirely on the thing I want to avoid, I will cause that thing to happen.
For example, if I worry so much about losing my job that I can’t do my job, I will lose my job. If I’m such a jealous partner that I try to control or obsess over my wife’s comings and goings, I will drive her away. The thing I fear envelops me, and my imagination can accommodate nothing else. I fixate on my fear at the expense of any other outcome.
The tricky thing about this is that worry feels like preparation. Fixating on the threat, focusing entirely on the danger, gives the illusory sensation of prudence. But vigilance is not diligence, it can be the opposite. “Worry,” as a wise person told me, “is like praying in reverse.”
This brings me to “Leave the World Behind,” a movie I just saw on Netflix, starring Ethan Hawke, Julia Roberts, and Kevin Bacon, written by Sam Esmail. The actors do a great job, and the writing has a lot of the suspenseful flair and interpersonal drama that Esmail does well. But the film itself, as a friend pointed out, is a kitchen sink of phobias. Practically everything you’re terrified of takes place — from bug bites to plane crashes — it’s a story that’s crawling with creepiness at the end of the world. It feels like the final destination of apocalyptic stories. Every bad thing, everywhere, all at once.
After I watched it, I wondered about the tired genre of apocalypse fiction that’s led to this latest effort. From “The Hunger Games” to “The Walking Dead” to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the last decade has been jam-packed with stories of things just not working out for the world. The anxiety makes sense — from global warming to a rise in authoritarianism — there’s plenty to worry about. But what if our fixation on disaster is making it inevitable? What if, like that motorcyclist in the video I watched, we are so focused on where we don’t want to go that we’re steering ourselves straight into a deepening crisis?
Perhaps writers think that they are warning us of what’s to come, when in fact they are channeling our collective worry into more frenzied hand-wringing. If so, more and more tortured narratives of decline and collapse are worse than useless, they are artistic malpractice. We need to imagine ways that things can work out. We need stories of people overcoming forces that seem too mighty to control. We need to imagine a way for human ingenuity to succeed.
Even the suggestion feels absurd, doesn’t it? Picturing stories of Good triumphing over Evil, or of David beating Goliath seem saccharine or absurd. But in our giant parking lot of human imagination, shouldn’t we be able to imagine a world where that kind of story can be compelling? Why can’t we? Because it’s not real enough? How real is the apocalypse? How real is the total failure of every system at every level? How real is the idea of actual dead people rising from the grave to consume the living, animated by nothing, yet walking forever? Surely we can imagine a future where people have grown beyond a desire to simply destroy each other out of ancient grievances or greed. We must have the capacity to imagine a time or place where we wise up and overcome some of our weaknesses. Those stories are just as accurate as any! At least there’s precedent.
I’m not dreaming of utopia. But I’m not dreaming of dystopia either. I believe the future will be more like a misstopia, where we miss the mark on heaven but we don’t descend fully into darkness. In other words: more of what we have today, only different. For my part, I wrote a novel about life after Universal Basic Income, where some things work out and some things don’t work out. I failed to sell it, but it was fun to imagine a future where not all is lost and much is gained. I believe stories like that are more interesting and they steer us toward a better future. It’s worth fixating an a target we actually want to hit. Can you imagine it?
I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve written here. I’ll add another manifestation of target fixation and that’s the legions of teenagers pathologizing every nuance of normal adolescent development into a self diagnosed disability. The relentless feedback loop of TikTok is ruining their ability to acquire genuine self awareness.
Amazing read as always. I think there is value to speculative fiction - the exploration of what ifs - even dystopian are important to building mental strength. We can’t be ready for doom if we don’t think about it!
However, I think once you add the profit motive of most entertainment that’s where the dystopian stories start to be come more insidious (as well as the pathologizing tiktoks that another commenter mentioned!) - they rely on fear and our reaction to it to get our money.
And there is barely any profit in happy stories. Where are the comedies? They don’t do as well - nor do utopias. Even the happy endings of Marvel films have begun to lose their luster.
I dunno at this point. Capitalism profits in fear and keeping us fearful. I like your optimistic view to thinking about a better or target but I don’t know that the money-folks will allow it. :)