Nonlinearity, and Life as an Adventure

In the early '70s, while I was in high school, I discovered a series of books in the public library called "TutorTexts."  Each of these books taught you a particular subject through what was called "programmed instruction."  Each page or two would introduce a new concept and test your new knowledge by asking you a question.  Depending on your answer, you would be guided to one of two other pages in the book.  If you were right, you were rewarded by picking up the subject from the page number for the right answer.  If you were wrong, you were guided to a page that explained why.  Then you would be steered back into the training again.  It was a nonlinear way to read a book, because a reader's journey could take many different paths, and none of them went in perfect linear order from the first page to the last.

When my daughter was young she enjoyed reading the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series and the "Time Machine" series of children's adventure books.  The concept in these books was very similar to that used by the TutorTexts.  Based on the storyline presented to you, you would periodically have to make a choice about how you - as a character involved in the story - should act.  Depending on your choice, you would be guided to a new page and the story would pick up from there.  Unlike TutorTexts, however, it was possible to get to the end of one of these books and actually fail to save the world, or die at the hands of monsters, or the like.  Then you had no choice but to go back through the book and try to make choices that would lead you to the successful ending.

"Life is an adventure" is a cliche that is not universally embraced.  There are times when I wish I had the freedom to more easily steer that adventure.  Certainly there are always choices to be made, leading to successful or not-so-successful outcomes.  But if I could really "choose my own adventure," I would have less uncertainty to confront in life, and be able to enjoy the journey, knowing that I didn't have to worry so much about the destination.  After all, we usually don't get to go back through the book of life and try new choices if we find that our recent ones lead to failure.  What happens is that we learn from our choices, our mistakes, and use what we learn to make better decisions in the future, but the sum of all these decisions is still a journey that can't be repeated.  That puts more pressure on making the right choices the first time around.