An adventure with Niko & Mote
Forty guests, one very dark screen
Opening night at the library, with a storm outside and a very important video call.
Please enjoy the loading circle
The room was full. The screen was ready. Niko's grandfather waved from a video call, and forty people turned toward the front.
Niko pressed play.
Thunder rolled. The screen went black. His grandfather froze with one hand in the air, apparently volunteering for a problem nobody wanted.
Niko pressed play again. Then harder. Then with the slow, careful pressure of someone trying to negotiate with a button.
The button remained unmoved by his argument.
An adult checked the room while everyone stayed clear of the equipment. Battery lamps came on. The storm had interrupted the power and the connection. Restarting the show would have to wait.
Niko stared at the blank screen. Weeks of work, and the audience had seen one circle going around.
Two circles and an angry boy
He wanted to fix the weather, the connection and the exact expression on his grandfather's frozen face.
Jun suggested telling the audience they could go home. Niko snapped that they had only just arrived.
The words landed on his friend. The thunder had not chosen them. Niko had.
He apologized, then sat beside Iona. She drew two circles on the back of a spare programme.
“What can you affect right now?” she asked.
Niko put the storm outside the smaller circle. The power too. He could ask the adults for updates. He could tell the audience what was happening. He could decide what to do with the people who were already there.
“I still hate this,” he said.
“You can be disappointed and decide your next step.”
Mote crossed in front of a battery lamp. His enormous shadow rose behind Iona.
Someone in the front row gasped. Mote landed. The monster vanished.
Niko looked at the lamp. Then at his stack of storyboards.
The show hiding in the failure
“We have a different version,” Niko told the room. “It needs a little help.”
Jun held the drawings where everyone could see. Rae took charge of sound, beginning with a bus noise so solemn that three adults laughed before the bus appeared.
Niko told the story. At first he kept losing his place. Then a child supplied the sound of a door. Someone else became the rain.
Mote's shadow made an entrance at exactly the wrong moment. Niko looked over his shoulder, waited for the laughter and worked the enormous moth into the scene.
This time, the accidental monster had a job.
The room leaned toward the pictures. The film could not play, but the story was happening between the people who had come to hear it.
When Niko reached the ending, he let the room fall quiet. Nobody pressed a button.
The evening he had not planned
The applause sounded different from the one he had imagined. He could hear Jun laughing inside it.
His grandfather called later, when the connection returned. Niko told him about the battery lamps, the audience rain and the moth that had become unexpectedly enormous. They arranged another time to watch the finished film.
At the library, Iona connected the evening with Epictetus: some things depend on our choices, while others do not obey us. The distinction helps us place effort where it can do something.
It did not mean the outage was good or that Niko had needed to enjoy it. He had been able to change what he did next.
He kept the programme with the two circles.
On the back he added a note for the next premiere: Test the equipment. Prepare another way to tell the story. Never ask Rae to be a quiet bus.
Understand the lesson
What this means for us.
When you cannot choose what happens, look for the next caring action you can take.
Separate the event from your next move
Epictetus begins the Enchiridion by distinguishing what is within our power from what is not. Our choices and judgments deserve particular attention because much of what happens around us cannot simply be ordered to change.
The two circles are a modern way to use that distinction. Niko cannot restart the neighborhood’s electricity. He can ask for help, speak kindly to Jun and consider what is still available. Seeing a possible action gives his attention somewhere useful to go.
Feelings can come with you
Niko does not have to stop feeling disappointed before he can tell the story. A caring response can begin while sadness, frustration or worry is still present.
Try naming the feeling without making it your whole identity: “I feel let down, and I can ask what happens next.” A pause, a drink of water or a quiet moment with someone you trust may help you see the choice more clearly. You can be learning how to respond and still wish things had gone differently.
Influence often works through other people
Some things are partly within our influence. A team can prepare a backup. A family can ask for a different arrangement. Neighbors can organize to improve a shared problem.
Our modern application includes that middle space. Accepting today’s facts helps us begin from where we are. It can lead to cooperation and change. Ask which part needs patience, which part needs action and which part needs people working together.
For children, grown-ups and everyday life
Bring the lesson into your day.
For exams, games and changed plans
You can prepare for a test, ask questions and rest. You cannot choose every question or guarantee a result. You can practice for a game and treat your teammates well. You cannot command the other team to lose.
If plans change, ask a trusted adult what is known and what comes next. A small job, such as collecting your things or helping someone understand the new plan, can make uncertainty feel less directionless.
For work and a fast-changing world
A new system, a canceled project or an unexpected change can make months of effort feel lost. Start by separating facts from forecasts. What has happened? What are you assuming will happen? Who can clarify the next step?
You may be able to learn a skill, ask for support, improve a plan or join others in requesting a fairer process. Keep your effort connected to an action you can name. Give yourself room to feel what the change costs too.
From understanding to living
A small practice. A real beginning.
Draw two circles for one worry, then choose one action small enough to do today.
- Write the facts you cannot immediately change in the first circle.
- Write your available choices and sources of help in the second.
- Choose one caring action and take it.
- Return later to see what has changed and what support you still need.
Room for a bigger question
What can you place in larger hands?
For those who pray, this practice can become a quiet conversation with our Creator: help me see what I can do, help me ask for support, and help me meet what I cannot yet change.
You may discover that trust and action can live together. We can care deeply about an outcome while remembering that a person’s worth is larger than one evening, one result or one plan.
Questions worth taking with you
Stay with the question.
- What are you trying to control that needs a different kind of response?
- Who could help you see an option you have missed?
- When has an imperfect day still held something worth keeping?
You do not need a polished answer. A conversation, a quiet walk, or a few lines on paper can be a beginning.
What remains possible here, even while this is hard?
Where this idea began: sources & story notes
The power cut and the two-circle exercise are original modern storytelling. They draw on Epictetus’s distinction between choice and external circumstances. Our approach makes room for feelings, shared action and asking for support.
Niko, Mote and their friends appear in original fiction. Their dialogue is newly written for these stories.
Primary text: Epictetus · Enchiridion · sections 1, 4, 5 and 17.
Research edition: Thomas Wentworth Higginson translation; the ancient text, excluding the later introduction.