The Banana Peel and the Lady
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 8 talks
A hypothetical story where a man slips on a banana peel, a lady helps him up, they hate each other, meet again to thank her, and fall in love; this contingent event retroactively makes one's entire life appear as leading up to this point.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“It is totally contingent but retroactively all your life appears as something leading up to this point.”
“you sleep on a banana peel a lady helps you to get up maybe you discover it's the love of your life.”
“you slip on a banana peel, a lady comes helps you up, ah it's the love of your life. But once you are in it, you automatically reinterpret all the past as leading to this point.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Georgi Plekhanov2John Boorman1Richard Branson1Fernando Pessoa1Joe Slovo1King Vidor1Elizabeth Taylor1Alain Weisman1
alongside works
Every retelling 7
A hypothetical story where a man slips on a banana peel, a lady helps him up, they hate each other, meet again to thank her, and fall in love; this contingent event retroactively makes one's entire life appear as leading up to this point., illustrating retroactive necessity,contingency to necessity
A romantic anecdote where sleeping on a banana peel is a pure contingency, but the lady helping you up retroactively becomes the 'love of your life,' illustrating how contingency is experienced as destiny., illustrating retroactive interpretation,total contingency
A contingent event (slipping on a banana peel) leads to love, which is then retroactively interpreted as destiny, illustrating Hegel’s view of contingency and necessity., illustrating retroactive reconstruction of the past,Hegel as philosopher of contingency
You meet someone contingently, but once you fall in love you perceive your entire past as pointing toward this moment, contingency retroactively transforms into destiny., illustrating retroactive causality / retroactive necessity,the event (Badiou's),desexualization of sex
1:03:29 Dave and Mikey interview Slavoj Žižek! for the Theory Underground book launch + Elton and Bryanpub. 2023-09-07 · 3:42:17
When you fall passionately in love you never make the choice to fall in love, it arrives after the fact as a deeper necessity, yet you are fully responsible for it. Used to illustrate Kant/Schelling on freedom as inner necessity., illustrating freedom as inner necessity,desire,ethics of psychoanalysis
You slip on the street, a woman helps you up, you have coffee, and fall in love, a totally contingent encounter that is later experienced as predestined and inevitable, illustrating retroactive necessity., illustrating retroactive necessity,contingency of necessity