Choose Your Own Disaster

I remember certain interactive books geared towards young adults called "Choose Your Own Adventure". They consisted of a few pages of plot with a choice at the end. The option would go something like: You pull aside the tangled vines to reveal a hidden doorway in the ancient wall. Crude symbols, etched deeply into the surface, send shivers of warning down your spine as you pull the door open to reveal a dark, musty passage. Behind you, on the wooded path that was empty just moments before, you think you hear a muffled snort as leaves crunch and twigs snap. Could the bounty hunters have found you at last? If you bravely explore the hidden passageway, turn to page 56. If you turn around to discover the cause of the noise, turn to page 78.

I never read very many of these books, because I found them unsatisfying. The plots were generally crude and quite creepy, often with endings like: You turn to leave the cave only to discover that you cannot move your legs. While you were greedily examining your treasure, you had unknowingly stepped into a quicksand booby trap. The more you struggle, the faster you sink, and no one can hear your cries for help. You spend you last moments wondering if you'd even managed to save your mother as the earth slowly swallows you whole. The end.

I don't like stories ending with starving in a pit or being eaten by giant spiders, and I like them even less when the horrible result is somehow my own fault. Not wanting to take credit for bad decisions, I would have to systematically find every possible route through the book to see all the potential results, thus defeating the purpose of the book, but easing my mind. Maybe this early exposure to stressful reading is one reason I tend to make decisions based on ruling out what I don't want, rather than deciding what I would most like.

That's always how I've made important decisions, such as choosing a college to attend. I first crossed off states that I didn't want to live in (incidentally, I think my 16-year-old self crossed off Florida....), then discarded universities that were too large, too fraternity-based or too expensive. I then ruled out places with any particularities that I found annoying and ended up with 3 colleges out of all of the U.S. Unfortunately, since I was accepted at all three, I still had to narrow it down. I discarded the most expensive one, and went to visit the closest one to my home at the time (that meant only an ocean away, rather than an ocean and a continent). I figured if I liked the feel, I would go there (in Virginia) and if not, I would go to the other one (in Washington State)--sight unseen. I ended up liking the first one, and it turned out to be a good choice, but I still don't know if my methods are healthy. I guess I don't know what I want, but I know what I DON'T want.

I don't want to end up drowning in ship wreck. I don't want to be attacked by killer bees. I don't want to be poked in the eye with a pointed stick. In my adventure, if I turned around and find out what was behind me on the path, would it be a cuddly pot-bellied pig digging up forest truffles that I could give to the old lady in the village in return for a magic charm that would heal my ailing horse who I could then ride into the mountains to save my captured friend and live happily ever after? Or would it be the enraged werewolf ready to tear me in two (I'd have already used my silver bullet on the vampire earlier that day). I definitely wouldn't choose to go into the dark passageway; that would most likely be walking into a trap.

No, I would choose plan C, the unwritten option: Using the vines to scale the wall, you get the heck out of there.