Reply Hazy, Try Again

Better not tell you now. The method behind the Magic 8 Ball, what you actually want when you ask for an answer, and what you actually get.

The other day, I was telling everyone about how oracles work. For examples, I listed the I-Ching and a few others. But I left out two big ones. The first was Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies, which was a massive inspiration. If you don’t know about it, it’s worth checking out, either as a deck of cards, or the app.

The other is the Magic 8 Ball. Even more than the Milton Bradley Ouija Board, this was the portal to the mysterious realms of chance that you most likely had in your home.

Icosahedron

Inside the inky fluid of the Magic 8 Ball, there’s a 20-sided object. Each side is a triangle, and each side has an answer inscribed on it.

You ask a yes-or-no question, shake the ball and get your answer, unless you shake too hard. Then you get a bunch of bubbles in the inky fluid. There’s some kind of lesson in that.

Twenty answers

Those twenty sides mean there are twenty possible answers in the Magic 8 Ball.

For comparison, the I-Ching has 64 hexagrams, with multiple variations for each one. Oblique Strategies has about 120 cards. Forget This Good Thing has close to 1,600 aphorisms.

But the Magic 8 Ball is a best seller because though it offers 20 potential answers, it really only offers 3: Yes, no and ask again. It’s there when you want clarity. It’s there for when you’d really like to boil your feelings and your situation down to a yes-or-no question.

Permission

That’s not the only reason it’s a best seller. The other is the distribution of the answers. It’s 5 No; 5 Can’t Say, and 10 Yes.

This is the dumb-seeming stuff of carny con games. But the real gold is often hidden in the fool’s gold. If you want to keep them coming back, say yes more than you say anything else. When people ask for answers, they’re mostly asking for permission.

Non-answers

Anyone who’s followed politics or worked in a large organization knows when they’ve been given a non-answer. A non-answer satisfies the social requirements of an answer, without satisfying the information requirements. Whenever I hear “that’s a great question,” I know to tuck in for some piping fresh BS.

The five non-answers in the Magic 8 Ball are all pretty high handed, like “Better not tell you now.” They maintain authority. They give away a little of the bigger game, as all non-answers do: The person giving a non-answer is always answering someone, just not always someone you can see.

“Concentrate and ask again,”

is one of the non-answers from the 8 ball. And I bring it up because it’s similar to a non-answer I got when using Forget This Good Thing the other day.

I had a day off coming up. Over the last year and a half, I haven’t had many of them. And so I asked what I should do with that day. Should I write? Should I go out on a long bike ride? Should I lounge on the couch and read? Should I do home repairs? Should I get drunk in the afternoon?

These are the answers the Forget This Good Thing Oracle gave:

The three aphorisms speak to a dissolution of boundaries. In the first, a series of sensations and conventions surpass their violent births or associations to take on altogether different meanings. In the second, a place visited only once remains with you. In the third, the one divisions is shown to be empty etiquette.

The Oracle seems to be saying that my demarcation of this Time Off is a bogus distinction. It’s saying that to elevate that time is to start from a false footing. It’s telling me to lighten up.

The larger game

In terms of addressing my question, this would seem to be the oracular version of “Cannot predict now.”

But the non-answer always gives away a glimpse at the bigger picture, as does the interpretation. But a glimpse is not an answer. A glimpse tends to open up more questions. A glimpse makes you wonder if your first question was anywhere near open-ended enough.

Coming or going?

This is the crossroads. You’ve come this far. But it’s not too late. So be honest: Are you getting into trouble or getting out of trouble?

This isn’t just a rhetorical rallying cry. This is a major question at nearly every scale. It’s one I have to ask myself repeatedly in a given day.

Into or out of trouble? It pertains to the tactics you use to get through the next twenty minutes. It’s a profound branch in the decision tree that informs one’s taste (see “Misadventures in Genre” next month). And it’s an essential decision in terms of how you feel about the world around you. It’s one of the primary questions in how you approach your entire life.

Getting out of trouble means answers. Usually, yes-or-no. It’s Magic 8 Ball territory, coin-flip territory. You’ve got a crush on someone, but now you can’t stand the suspense. Should you call them or just forget it? And that’s fair.

Into trouble!

Getting into trouble means asking more questions. It trying to change something that seems immovable. It means wandering into the dark, and continuing, left foot, right foot, trying to feel the next few feet with your breath. Why? Because you were already in the light, and it was bullshit. The real stuff is what you can’t even see yet.

That’s more I-Ching territory, or a job for Forget This Good Thing.

Selected Bibliography

Forget This Good Thing – Try it free, now

The Magic 8 Ball - Toy - Digital

Forget This Good Thing – The app for iPhone and iPad

A good, sturdy version of the I-Ching

Forget This Good Thing – Paper book 1 - Paper book 2

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies - The original cards

Forget This Good Thing – All About It

Forget This Good Thing - Its creation - What it can do for you - Why it matters - Thirteen descriptions - How it works for small decisions