Everything Everywhere All At Once - 德
Thoughts On: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
A struggling family must confront every possibility of their lives.
道可道 非常道
We
Are
Only
德
If you come to understand the one major plot-hole of Everything Everywhere All At Once, you can see it for the sci-fi masterpiece it is with relative ease.
If, as the premise and title of the movie suggests, one could be everything, everywhere and all at once, then this movie would look a lot different. Why is Evelyn always Evelyn; always Waymond's lover; always Joy's mother? She comes to see the universe and reality for everything it is, can materialise and be whatever is possible, but always remains Evelyn with the same problem and path in front of her; even when reduced to a rock.
This flaw in the logic of the film surmises its most overt point. There is no everything, everywhere, all at once; there are merely ten-thousand possibilities at our fingertips. We remain ourselves despite the multiplicitous nature of our path; and despite the totality of everything being nothing, meaningless and unspeakable, we can somehow walk and talk, guided and pulled by our own character and its way. For that is what we are; this is called:
德
And because the way of everything cannot be named...
道可道 非常道
... we can merely cultivate...
德
