Appreciating the Optimism of "Everything Everywhere All At Once"

EEAAO provides an antidote to nihilism.

I finally got around to watching Everything Everywhere All At Once yesterday. As with most hyped up media, my brother and I went in with low expectations. By the time the film was over, and many tears were shed (at least, by me), I couldn’t agree more with the accolades EEAAO has received from audiences and critics alike.

Instead of summarizing the plot, I’d like to focus on one particularly impactful scene. Waymond, in another earth where he and Evelyn went their Separate Ways (great Journey song) and became famous and wealthy, explains that his optimism isn’t an expression of childlike naïveté. Instead, Waymond’s optimism is a “strategic and necessary” choice to deal with the slings and arrows of life. As Waymond puts it, to “survive through everything.”

You tell me it’s a cruel world, and we’re all just running around in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. This is how I fight.

Waymond’s intransigent optimism in the midst of confusion, suffering, and betrayal at the hands of the one he loves most—Evelyn literally impales his stomach with a shard of glass in earth prime—is laudable. Instead of succumbing to the cosmic nihilism and moral positivism that drives his daughter to homicide and attempted suicide, Waymond simply stipulates that “we have to be kind,” despite “not knowing what the heck is going on.” While this may sound Pollyanna to some, and fail to meet rigorous meta-ethical standards for the more pedantic among us, it clearly resonated with many more, myself included. Waymond’s beneficence postulate is a great first step at confronting the existential dread, pessimism, and cynicism plaguing our society. I, for one, endeavor to emulate Waymond, Naruto, Saul Goodman (at certain parts of Better Call Saul), Don Quixote, and other such heroic optimists.