If you’re not a House of Cards watcher, this post might not make much sense (of course, since it’s on Netflix, you could go and binge watch all of it and come back tomorrow). There are spoilers ahead, FYI.
Much is being written and commented about HOC Season 3 – that it’s boring, no fun, depressing, or unlikeable.
That criticism may be true – but I think it actually may be a subtle point being made, perhaps a moral to the story? And it’s one we can take a note from.
If you remember, in Season 1, Francis Underwood plotted to jump from the Congress to the Vice Presidency. In Season 2, he plotted how to jump from the VP slot to become the President. Now in Season 3, he’s there, and it really isn’t much fun. There’s stress, allies turning their backs on him, enemies mounting attacks, his aides wearing out. And, there’s nowhere else to move up to.
I think we can find two applicable lessons here:
1) Life’s about the journey, not the destination. – the planning, striving, working and anticipation is often much more fun than actually getting and having. Being goal-based, versus vision-based, can leave us perpetually dissatisfied, especially right after we get our goal.
2) Watch out what you worship – because we’re all going to worship something (to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson) – Francis Underwood worships power, of course. But there are problems with that. There will always be more power you want to accrue, and if you reach the top, as Frank Underwood has, the people who want to take that power (usually, fellow worshippers) will line up to fight you for it.
David Foster Wallace also address that point, saying “Worship power and you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.”
I’ll have a bit more to say about lessons from House of Cards coming up in the blog.
Til then! Best, Peter
