Loops, Disruptions

and the Strange Gift of Being Awake

Earl Harvey Lyall The Cubies (1913)

I’ve been thinking a lot about unpredictability and what it demands of us. What it reveals and what it strips away.

As storytellers, we’re told to embrace it. To learn to ride its waves. And for the most part, I’ve tried. I have a larger appetite for unpredictability than I once did. But still, I crave the illusion of control.

Most of us do. We want cause and effect. Effort and reward. Sleep schedules that stick. Travel plans that don’t derail. A world that makes sense.

But unpredictability resists sense-making. And that’s what makes it so fertile. So alive.

Maybe the real work is to stay present, even when things fall apart. Not to numb ourselves or default to distraction. But to respond, rather than react. Maybe our response in those moments—when nothing goes to plan, when the script fails—is the truest form of creativity.

Still, I notice how often we try to avoid it. There’s an entire industry now (tech, AI, automation) that’s built around eliminating surprise. I heard someone recently say the goal of AI is for 5,000 bots to produce the same result from different inputs. That’s framed as success. Consistency.

But when I think of 5,000 humans experiencing the same event, I think of 5,000 stories. That is what makes us human: our responses. Our perceptions. Our contradictions.

When people talk about making AI “more human,” I think we’re forgetting what an essential part of being human is: unpredictability.

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It’s 2 a.m. Both of my kids are screaming. I did everything “right.” Bedtime routines. Milk. Three books. A white noise machine. All the things. But they’re not code to be executed. They’re human. Dreams interrupt. Fears wake them. And still, I pray for predictability. I have a 4:45 a.m. alarm and a flight to catch.

By 5:45 I’m in the airport. There’s a strange calm. A hush before the day begins.

On one screen: flight updates.

On another: animation loops. I seem to be the only one watching. Everyone else is staring into their personal screens. I feel awake—not rested, but alert.

The animation loops are absurd but draw me in:

A green house appears.
Snow falls on it.
Then a globe is plopped on top—
like it’s been sent down a factory line.

A robot dances.
A gorilla dances.
Same choreography.

An orange ball travels down a tube,
spins through a slide.
Then a green ball follows.
Then red.
Again.
The slide changes—green and white now.
A machine of endless arrivals.

Over and over. The screens are meant to soothe. To gently sedate. It’s all simulation. Motion without meaning.

I Google the company—Form TV. It’s used in gyms, airports, laundromats, waiting rooms.

Their slogan: “Everything you need to effortlessly entertain.” What a terrifying promise.

Atmosphere TV (the parent of Form TV) boasts that it offers “engaging stories that are fun without the need for audio.” But let’s be clear—these aren’t stories. They’re predictable bites of content designed to require no attention. No ears, no context. They work best when you’re tired, anxious, waiting… like I am. They’re engineered to passively slip into the background, like airport lighting or elevator music. Still, I find myself wondering: what does it mean that we call these stories?

I resist the impulse to check out. I wonder what we lose when we move through the world half-awake. But even so, I am drawn back in.

Now there’s a plant—or so it seems—
until its colors shift.
It’s water.
Then ice.
Then flower.
Then plant again.

Now, a shape—
something like a seashell—
spins slowly.
It grows closer,
lines extending from its edges.
Then it flattens.
And becomes the whole world.

Next, three boxes.
Equal in size,
each pulsing with a different animation.

Outside, the moon is waning. A red morning sky—a sailor’s warning. The fog rolls through the mountains, as if even the earth is trying to hide.

Inside, a man in cowboy boots breaks the loop. Literally. His boots click across the terminal. His voice fills the quiet. “Oh my goodness,” he says to someone across the room. “What in the world are you doing here?”

He’s wide awake. Loud. Unbothered by the etiquette of early mornings. I listen to him talk about ROTC, training in ankle-deep mud, the zoo. I learn that a polar bear recently drowned in front of a crowd at the Calgary Zoo. A tragic accident—unexpected, surreal.

His friend tells him about it while pulling up photos on her phone. The man responds, “How do they even get polar bears to the zoo?” She laughs. “Probably shoot ’em with a dart and say, ‘You’re coming home with me.’”

Tranquilization, a form of controlling unpredictability. We wrangle wildness, we contain chaos.

The loops resume and so does my attention.

The screen fills with cookies.
chocolate chip cookies.
they spin.

Then a glow-in-the-dark being shifts forms.
It begins as a person,
then stretches into a snake
covered in a maze pattern.
I don’t know what I’m looking at.
But I keep watching.

Now we’re underwater.
A fish swims to the center,
makes eye contact with me
looks panicked,
and darts away.

Across the room, a vending machine delivers a Coke with the elegance of a magic trick to a woman wearing spandex rainbow pants. And I’m still here—still watching.

The only other person not on a screen is a man whose oversized glasses—magnifying his eyeballs—give away his curiosity. We exchange no words, but I feel a quiet camaraderie. Two noticers in a world of loops.

Right before my plane boards, the final loop grabs my attention.

A magician appears,
removes his hat.
and reveals a bunny underneath.

Later, from the sky, I see suburban roads that loop and curl like the animations. Orderly. Repetitive. Familiar. Predictable. And still, the fog hovers.

When I arrive at my destination, I request an Uber. The app asks if it can send real-time updates. It says the car is a black Toyota and is six minutes away. I watch its predictable path winding toward me at the airport. A black Toyota arrives in exactly six minutes.

My Uber driver tells me about the freeway we’re on. How it used to be a taxi lane. How the airport used to be Bass Pro. How the airlines kept merging until the small got eaten by the big. He tells me about the buffalo herds nearby. About the wolves that were reintroduced to fix a broken ecosystem. “Everything’s outta whack,” he says. “Too many elk, too many deer, too many coyotes. No predators.” Then he sighs.

He tells me he’s “banana-peeling away” from this city. It’s gotten too expensive. Too crowded. Too unpredictable. And yet, it’s clear he still loves it.

I think unpredictability forces us to get honest. With our expectations. With our illusions of control. With our hunger for comfort. It asks us to participate—not just observe. To change course. To make eye contact.

And maybe that’s all it takes—to resist the loop.
To look up.
To stay alive in it, even when it doesn’t go the way you planned.
To be the cowboy in the terminal.